Thanksgiving Break

This year for Thanksgiving break we just stayed here with our little family, so I planned out a "stay-cation" for our family. It was a lot of fun.

Both Thomas and Dustin had the whole week off! We started our break with decorating the house, every year I tell myself that I'm going to wait till after Thanksgiving and every year I come up with a reason why we need it up earlier, ha. This year since I knew the following week was going to be crazy and tiring I wanted to get the Christmas out while I still had energy. 

I love Christmas, and my goal is to have our whole house decorated one day, and this year was our first year where we made the boys' room all Christmas-y and they love it! Especially Oliver, Thomas did say he could sleep all day in that bed. Peter's crib is also with Christmas bedding but I forgot to post a picture of it. 

This year I finally got some outside decoration. I want to do lights outside, but that might have to wait till next year, who knew lights are so expensive?

And the decorating of our trees, my favorite part.

So everyday last week I had something planned. On Monday we went to the Gaylord Texan to see the Ice sculptures that had the theme from the movie "Santa is coming to Town", it was a lot of fun and cooler than I thought, but the line was so long and there were so many people it was hard to enjoy it once we were there. It didn't help we were freezing, I saw they provided coats so I didn't stress what we were wearing but those coats were not that thick, so if there is a next time I will be better prepared. But the kids enjoyed it though.

Then Tuesday we went bowling, and Wednesday Dustin took the kids to see the Troll movie while I prepared for Thanksgiving. We also raked some leaves, watch a lot of Christmas movies, slept on the trampoline.

Then Friday we went to see the Holiday Train, and again there was a huge line, so we didn't go inside it but we did see Santa!

Saturday we decorated gingerbread houses. This is probably my kid's favorite tradition, they have been asking for a few months now when we were going to do it. I underestimated the time to make it this year since I had to double everything now that we have more kids, I just need a kitchenaid, that would have saved me! But I'm glad that we still did it, and the kids did great, Thomas did his all by himself. Oliver was good at putting the candy where the icing was, and Peter did pretty good too, but he also figured he would rather eat the candy then decorate.

The first one is Thomas', then Peter, Oliver, then I did one between helping the kids.

The other day we also made snow globes. Peter wasn't too happy that his dog was inside, ha ha. 

It was a great Thanksgiving, and my first time cooking a full turkey in the oven, and I didn't burn it and it tasted pretty good so yay! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving break too!

Thomas @ 6

Not the best replica of Thomas' school picture, but I love it!

 I know most people don't like school pictures and they don't buy them nowadays, so I almost didn't, but once I saw this picture I was so glad that I did. I think this is the cutest picture ever!

Anyway, a little about our Thomas:

Thomas is a really good kid and we are lucky to have him in our family, I can't believe how fast these six years have been.

He loves school and his teacher. He loves reading and working on his letters.

He's not afraid to be his own person, and won't follow the crowd; he will do what he wants to do or what he thinks is right versus follow the other kids.

He is very tender-hearted, and loves babies!

He's a home-body, he rather hang out with his brothers then play with friends. Which sometimes I stress about him not having friends because he rather stay home but at the same time I love that he loves being with us, I guess we are just way too fun here ;) 

He loves to draw, super heroes, and video games.

He tries his best in school and is always excited to show me his purple smiley face (that means you were really good in school) in his folder.

The librarian in his school came up to me one day and said that Thomas was one of the best kids she has known and that there needed to be more Thomas' in the world, that just melted my heart! 

He loves my home made rolls and asks for them constantly, and he loves Tacos and vanilla ice cream.

He can be a picky eater and likes his food a certain way and it can drive me crazy.

He's not very athletic, and I'm afraid he gets that from me. He likes to play soccer with his brothers and Dustin but that's about it. So maybe he will be more in the arts in school when he is older. 

We love our Thomas!

Our Little Announcement

I made this little announcement over a month ago on social media, but I wanted to document on here too. 

We were able to find out our 4th baby was a girl pretty early on because we took the blood test.

The story is kinda funny, Dustin called me from work, which he never does since he is a teacher, and said the Doctor called, then his phone cut us off!!!! I had been waiting for the call for about a week at that time waiting to hear the results.

I tried calling him over and over, then five minutes later he sends me a text that said "call the doctor".

So I called the doctor and they told me it was a girl, and I just started crying with joy and called Dustin and told him and his class. Then called my mother and mother-in-law, then later announced to everyone with this drawing.

So we are having a girl! And our world is about to change since we have been a family of all boys for so long! I admit this last pregnancy I was trying to stay neutral but deep down I knew I wanted a girl. The other pregnancies I was honestly fine and happy to have boys, but this last time I really wanted a girl, I don't know if it was because my first sonogram the doctor said she might be a girl (since my other boys have never been shy that we knew Peter was a boy from my twelve week apt) that just having the little hope made me want one. 

Anyway, we are excited, especially Thomas he has been asking for a little sister for a very long time. I'm due March 31st, so I'm 22 weeks along, half way, and already have gained 24lbs! I'm just one of those people that just puts the weight on when I'm pregnant. 

We still haven't decided on a name yet, I have a huge list of girls names, but the three we are leaning on the most are Elizabeth, Evelyn, or Eleanor -I guess we like "E" names, but Charlotte are Scarlett are up there too, We are just having a hard time picking, maybe because this might be our one shot of picking a girl's name we don't want to mess it up, ha ha. 

Anyway, hopefully this little girl will have a name soon!

Snapshots

This past month the two older boys and Dustin went to Six Flags with family.

I went to Waco Texas for a girl's day and had a blast, and eat way too much food.

And drawing is always big at our house.

Thomas Turns 6!

I can't believe I have a six year old!

Thomas' birthday was this past Monday. 

To say the least, it was also not a very good day. Peter ended up being really sick and we had to change a lot of our plans.

I like to have the cake and presents all out in the morning with a big Happy Birthday sign for when the kids wake up for their birthday. Well this year the cake started falling apart and the sign fell down, so it looked very sad that morning. 

But despite all the craziness Thomas handled it well and said he still had a good birthday.

I'm so grateful for this six year-old in our lives!