Christmas Morning

I am sitting here wasting time on the computer waiting for the kids to get up. I could hardly sleep last night excited for Christmas morning. I heard Chad up around midnight so I got up to fill the stockings. We got the bigger kids a dirt bike and a mini bike both to share (the mini bike is larger but should go a little slower than the dirt bike) and a portable DVD player and of course their stocking goodies. Abe was suppposed to get a hand-me-down 4-wheeler but the new charger did not get the battery working, so I guess we will have to order a new battery. He will be thrilled with his stocking and the other kids gifts though so I'm not upset for him.

Last night I took all three kids to the Moravian Love Feast with my Mom. We had a great time but wrangling Abe for an hour and a half proved to be pretty difficult. He insisted on wearing a Buzz Lightyear costume so he gathered attention for that, then he would not sit still or be quiet for at least half the service. When the choir was singing Christmas hymns he was singing the Dukes of Hazzard theme song, "Just da good ole boys, never meaning no arm..." It was hilarious truly but I was a little embarrassed at the time. The lady sitting next to me was so kind though. After the service she thanked me for bringing the kids and said she had the best time in over 30 years of attending the Love Feast because she got to sit next to and watch my kids!

I will post pics in the coming day, as I plan to take a lot. We have a gathering at my Aunt Lynn's house today and 2 more gatherings tomorrow, one at our house and the other at Chad's parent's.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Piper Update

Piper celebrated her eighth birthday in November. It shocks me that I am old enough to have an eight year old daughter! And she is getting so tall. She already comes almost up to my shoulder. Growing at this rate, she will definitely be taller than her mother. According to her pediatrician, she is an average size and wears clothing in size 8.

Piper is doing well in school this year. She is using a third grade computer-based curriculum which I had hoped would make her more independant but I do help her more than I had originally intended. She just doesn't like to read. She can read but lacks confidence and gets frustrated too soon if she doesn't know a few words. So I usually help her by reading the lessons. In talking with my sister-in-law who teaches in the public school system, I feel like I may have to require her to read 30 minutes a day because she is not going to read by choice. That being said, she is still excelling in math, bible, science and history.

Piper is taking dance instead of gymnastics this year. There are three sisters at our church who opened a dance studio this Fall so she takes a Jazz/Hip Hop/Lyrical class there once a week for an hour and a half. So far she seems to enjoy it. I thought she would miss gymnastics, but she hasn't yet. She also goes to Youth Aerobics at the YMCA once a week. She has loved it so much that I am also taking the boys now and sitting in on the class.

Piper is still loving Webkinz and plays a few times a week. She just loves stuffed animals in general so Webkinz are perfect. She will sit in her room for hours playing with her Webkinz and Beanie Babies acting out stories and pretending she is their doctor.

She says she wants to be a veternarian and would be great since she has such a love for animals. She really wants a horse but does not help out with feeding the animals we already have so there will be no horse in her immediate future. She loves our pets but I cannot seem to get her to get up and feed them!

Piper is a huge help in the kitchen. She loves any kind of cooking and is working on her cookie baking, casserole making, soup making and snacks & drinks badges (through her Keepers group) so we have spent a ton of time in the kitchen recently. There are days that I have her prepare lunch for her brothers and herself without any help from me. She does great and seems more willing to eat if she prepared it!

I feel truly blessed to have a daughter and pray that she and I can maintain our closeness as she matures into tweenhood and beyond.

Happy Sixth Birthday Cohen!

I just love all these pictures of Cohen! He is so photogenic.

This past Wednesday we celebrated Cohen's sixth birthday! It was crazy cold outside but we did manage to get to Target where he spent a little of his birthday money. Then we headed to the theater to watch Tangled. Tangled proved to be geared more toward a female audience, with the princess-y plot. He got antsy near the end and asked several times when it would be over but left saying he had enjoyed it. Chad had to work Wednesday so we will do something as a family to celebrate maybe today or Sunday.

As far as Cohen, here is a little run-down of what's up with him recently...

He is proving to be an easy student as he has learned so much listening in on Piper's schooling. He excels in math, already a year ahead. Reading is going to come naturally to him since he is picking up on the way words look. I have taught him using solely phonics, but he also recognizes words by their look. So much of reading is memorization, but I want the kids to have the phonics training to back it up.

Cohen is very strong physically with such an interest in physical activity. He is constantly asking "Will this make me grow?" when deciding what to eat and practices his pull-ups almost every day. He is an average size and wears sizes 6-7 in clothing.

He really loves heavy machinery, trucks and cars. He wants to know all about them asking such detailed questions about whether they are 4-wheel drive, whether they are front or rear-wheel drive, how large a load they can carry, whether they can pull a trailer, etc...

If I had to guess right now about what he will excel at as he grows up, I would have to say extreme sports. He wants to ride the 4-wheeler constantly (and he spends entirely too much time with it on 2 wheels instead of 4) and is getting a dirt bike for Christmas. He is always practicing wheelies on his bike so I cannot imagine him on this dirt bike! He is the kind of kid who will embrace something extreme and give it his all!

Cohen is currently loving The Dukes of Hazzard. They play 2 episodes every weeknight and he counts down the hours until they come on. He knows the intro song by heart (as does Abe) and sings to the top of his lungs everytime he hears it. He pretends he is Bo and Abe is Luke.

Cohen is such a good big brother (although a little rough at times) and Cohen is Abe's hero. Everything Cohen does, Abe has to do. Chad said he had always wished he had a brother and now I see why. These boys are going to be an awesome team if we can just keep them out of trouble!

Basketball

When we let the kids chose their extra-curricular activity of choice, Cohen was 100% positive about basketball. Chad tried to talk him into swimming, but nothing swayed him. He is now playing for the Nuggets at the local YMCA!

He had his first game this past Saturday. It was really cute and you could tell how excited the kids were. About 2 quarters into the game, the kids finally "got it" and the game became alot faster paced. Cohen had one melt-down because he said no one would pass the ball to him, although he had quickly forgotten about having the ball himself and not being willing to pass. The kids have a one-track mind when they have the ball; they want to score. They do not want to assist, they want to score!

Here are a few highlights:

Annual Cookie Baking

This past week Piper and I completed our annual sugar cookie baking and decorating. With the busyness going around lately, it took us two days to get them all decorated but we finished and they were sooo good!

Keeper's Christmas Party

Last night we attended the Christmas Party for Piper's Keeper's At Home group. Piper had prepared a green bean casserole and I made a sweet potato casserole for the gathering. There was so much yummy food and dessert, I still feel full this morning!

There are 10 girls in the group plus Piper and they are proving to be good friends for her. She seems to be more reserved (like her mother!) in a larger group, so slowly but surely she is letting her guard down and getting to know the girls and letting them get to know her. With 2 brothers at home, she is due some girl time!

Last month Piper wore her indian costume/dress to the Thanksgiving gathering, which comes down to her knees approximately. One of the other girls in the group commented directly to Piper that "her dress was mighty short to wear without leggings." Ever since then Piper has worn it with leggings in addition to wearing leggings with her other dresses. I know if I had said that to her she would have laughed and never considered it, but having a friend make the comment made her think twice. As a mother, I really love these conservatively-raised homeschool friends!
The Jennings men:

The boys being silly. Notice Cohen's front tooth hanging on barely...

well, it fell out as soon as we got home! He has already lost his front two bottom teeth, so this is his third tooth lost.

Parade/Snow Days

After the half-marathon on Saturday it started snowing, just in time for the local parade. We have not attended the parade in recent years since it's usually cold and the kids have been too young to stand and watch for so long. But this year was different, Piper was in the parade with her dance group! We were there to cheer her on as she proceeded down the 2-mile parade route dancing and trying to stay warm and dry. Both of which were impossible in that weather, but the girls were smiling and dancing. They did so good considering the amount of children I saw riding on floats and crying because they were so miserably cold and wet!

Piper is right behind the purple gloves in this pic, with the wild hair and black headwrap. I had a hard time getting any great pics since they were moving and my camera is not the best. And here she is passing by, kinda in the center of the pic (still with wild hair and a headwrap!).

The snow was so beautiful and unexpected! We got 2-3 inches which was like heaven for the kids. These are some pics of the kids playing in the snow yesterday morning. Abe refused to wear anything but boots outside and Cohen said he was comfortable in shorts, so here they are:

Abe did finally say he was cold and asked us to put these items on him! I guess at least he covered the extremities, right?!?

It's over!

My goal for the half marathon was 2 hours 9 minutes and I finished yesterday in 2 hours 8 minutes and 46 seconds!! It was a really hard run for me until about mile 8 when I seemed to finally get into my groove. I started out with my running partner Jaclyn and with Amber. We lost Jaclyn around mile 4 and I lost Amber around mile 7. I was on my own when I finally fell into my pace and felt more comfortable, but I do some of my best running alone. It was so crazy cold outside, around 28 degrees according to the weather report, so the cold may have affected me?!? Nonetheless, I did it in record time (a record for me!).

Here are a few pics from Amber sent from the race. They are all out of order, but I can't seem to get them arranged like I want. Here I am crossing the finish line: And a few other random shots:

Here is our group. We all trained together and encouraged each other over the last 16 weeks! And more importantly, we all completed the run!

Oh Christmas Tree

Our Christmas trees are always a little scraggly and this year is no exception. The kids love to go into the woods to find the perfect tree. It's more about family-time than looks, which I love. We all crossed the road (which is a big deal for the kids) in front of our house and picked out this beauty:

Half Marathon

So tomorrow's the day for the half marathon! I have been training for 16 weeks for this run and I'm starting to get a little nervous. I got up at 5am this morning already thinking about it. I know I can run 13.1 miles so I'm not sure where this anxiety is coming from?!? And to think, I am only half-way to my goal of a full marathon. I will be a basket of nerves for that run!

There are a good size group of us running the race, so I am looking forward to all of us running together and encouraging each other. My college roomate is coming into town for the run (and the other 2 roomates are local) so we decided to do a little girl's night out tonight and have dinner before the big run. I am excited about visiting and catching up with them.

Today I need to totally clean my house (straighten, vacuum, mop, wash sheets and clean bathrooms!) and finish our schoolwork for 2010. We take off December to focus on Christmas, so the kids and I are really excited about some time off. Maybe I can employ Piper to help with the housework...

Turkey Day

We spent all afternoon yesterday with my family celebrating Thanksgiving at my Papa's house. As long as I can remember, I have spent Thanksgiving Day at my Papa's house so I love that my children are getting to experience that tradition. Hopefully we will continue to do so for many years to come! We had so much yummy food that I had to wait a few hours for dessert. The kids are not old enough to look forward to the yummy food like we adults do. I wish I could go back to that mindset and enjoy running in the front yard more than eating!

This is my mom and the boys right after we arrived, they still have their jackets on.
And my mom and Piper. I couldn't get them all to slow down at the same time for a picture all together!

Chad and Papa chilling in the living room.

My sister and baby Stephen.

My Aunt Lynn, Cousin Blake and Mom.

Abe and Chad sharing a snuggle.

Baby Stephen exercising his legs. At not quite 8 months he is already crawling and pulling up! Ashley is going to have her hands full keeping up with Stephen!

I went to grab something in the other room last night and came back to find Abe passed out on the couch with Daddy! I hold him on the couch every single night while he falls asleep (and I have done that since he was born), but last night he was too tired to wait on me!

Thanksgiving Prep

We have had a productive day today, starting at the YMCA with a nice run, the grocery store and then the farm & garden store for chicken feed. We picked up milk & eggs, visited friends for a few minutes, then home for lunch! We just finished cleaning out the chicken house which has been on the to-do list for a few weeks and I gave all the kids a bath. I need to work on cranberry salad for tomorrow's Thanksgiving festivities at my Papa's. Piper and I worked on pumpkin rolls all afternoon yesterday, so those are completed. I think the only thing left to make is succotash. I think I will put that off until tomorrow.

I am looking forward to all the Thanksgiving celebrations coming in the next two days!

More kid pics

New pictures of the kids

So I attempted the annual, impossible task of having the children's Christmas and Birthday photos made. It seems to get less impossible each year, praise God! I was so impressed with our photographer, who evidently had young children also, and he got some great pictures of all three.

This was the best group photo. I had them dressed in Christmas PJ's so it would look like Christmas morning photos.
And these are the cutest ones of the kids by themselves:

I ended up buying way more than I had planned, but they will make great Christmas presents for grandparents!