Where is the Christmas tree?

Well our other baby, Josef turned 2 yesterday, but we actually celebrated his big sister, so his turn is yet to come. We have had a busy week-end, Friday Bartley ended up in the hospital with a dislocated shoulder ( which he's had surgery on couple years ago) so big change to our Christmas shopping day. He's feeling better and has to follow up. We also had 2 birthdays, and on top of that the stomach flu has come to visit thus the reason why I'm home this morning blogging. Thankfully it doesn't seem to be too much of a vicious one this time, so the kids should get back on there feet quick. Only 7 more days until my family comes :) We've done most of our Christmas shopping, and hopefully will get a chance to finish soon. Maggy had a girls day yesterday, she had 2 friends come over and we went shopping as mommy walked far behind and sat down every chance she got waiting for the girls that spent probably 50 minutes in Claire ( jewerlery store) I felt old. And then we went to eat chocolate covered crepes, she was covered up to her elbow ( not kidding). Then they watch a movie in bed on Daddy's laptop, and crashed. So Josef in all of this got nothing but big kisses, but when my family comes I will make it up to him :)

Happy Birthday Mon Amour!!!

Joe's First Time Playing With Snow

This morning we went for a nice walk to our brand new A&P ( grocery store). Very exciting tons of fun food they even have a sushi bar :) and huge bakery section. Just a 5 minute walk, I'm so excited to think I can walk to the grocery store first time in 10 years ( something to be happy about) Joe unlike his cousin :) loved the snow and would have eaten it all day. Got to go clean...

A Bell in My Washer???

Well as much as I'm a freak about lots of cleaning routines ex: my floors and even there after 10 years I finally use a mop ( only because it really does do a good job on my type of floors) or maybe the neurotic way I have to take my whole toilet lid apart when I clean them, well when it comes to laundry we are really trying to survive, so keeping a slow steady pase pretty much running the beast 5 hours a day seems to work. So when it comes to laundry I TRY to sometimes, maybe, if it's a good day to check the pockets but unfortunately it seems not enough , because I often have enough leftover Kleenex to fill a small pillow or enough nails to put up couple frames and that's not including, rocks, screw, beer caps ( Jakob loves picking those up), pens, money, leftover food wrappers of every brand out there, orange peal, sticky tag to, even my husbands memory stick for his computer( that only went in twice) I kid you not yesterday the wheel sort of object that I found coming out of the dryer I had to stick my head in there to see if sometime had fallen off. But when Jakob came back from school I verified and asked if he had ever seen the foreigh object found in my dryer and her replied WOW it came out so clean, so I asked what kind of dirt was on it and he said grease or something. Martha Steward would be so ashamed me, no orderly shelves with beautiful jars filled with lavender or special laundry hooks just tons of junk on my floor. All that to say that when the Sears guy came last week and explain that the smallest thing getting caught between the seal of my washer door and the door would cause the water to leak out, I just tried to look as stupid as I could and said " OH yeah! Really Hein!" hoping and praying he wouldn't say that hasn't happened right? Because my Warranty only extends to manufactured problems, not irresponsible mother of 4 who can't do laundry problems. So anyways I signed his paper and let him decide what he thought our little visit should be assessed as , and hope not to see the 75$ bile come in the mail...

It's December

We are some sad looking girls.
Emma started a fever and has been home for 2 days, today it's just us 3 ( Joe) so it's really nice. The rain is so strong outside I love it, Bartley has an huge window in his office so it looks just amazing, this is exactly what I needed after a long hard week. I'm on antibiotics for bronchitis and I think it's starting to kick in so maybe I'll feel like me again soon. Josef has been transforming into Mr. T ( terrible 2) at such a fast rate I really didn't see it coming, so between his intense NOOOOOOOOO to everything, or MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE or just demanding me MOM!! well he has pushed me to the end of my patience this week. Last night Bartley asked what I felt would make me feel better and I had a hard time deciding between a trip alone somewhere for a week, hiking, camping, I don't care as long as nobody would talk to me, or just going to see Marie :) I love being a mom but sometimes it definitely is incredibly demanding and overwhelming especially when you add an extra 5 kids on top of your 4 to the equation. Well it's time for cuddles. What things are you guys looking forward to for the month of December?