Dec 2016-Feb 2017

Adrain had a week vacation in December. It was too cold to go out so we just snuggled in and relaxed at home. 

 

December was when Maya's hair was finally long enough to put in a little pigtail on top. 

We went to the Fire Island lighthouse to see Santa Claus. Every year Santa flies by in an airplane and drops presents. Then he is able to see the kids in the lighthouse. We've never been big at taking the kids to see Santa Claus. Malachi was excited and sat on his knee. Levi did not want to see Santa, so I waited outside with him.

 

Here's Maya all bundled up walking to the lighthouse. It's about a mile walk to get there. She never complains when she's out and about. 

 

In December we had our first snow!! The boys were beyond ecstatic. They hadn't seen or played in snow for 18 months. It was bedtime when it finally started snowing, but I couldn't resist letting the boys go out and play. They both ran out in just their underwear. It was all I could do to get Levi to just put on a pair of shorts and a shirt. Malachi drug out a blanket to wrap around him to keep warm. 

 

Decorating a gingerbread house. I basically forced them to decorate it, they just kept asking when they could start eating the candy. 

 

Silly poses for the camera. I often get a chuckle out of what photos and videos I find on my phone that the boys take on their own.

 

"Papa papa" it's definitely said more than mama in this house. At least from Maya. 

 

Levi's school class had the parents come in and decorate a gingerbread house with the kids. It was super fun. Levi got super messy with icing :)

 

We finally got a big enough snow storm that we had to go buy a snow shovel. We got rid of our other snow shovel when we moved to Florida. We got a kid size snow shovel and the boys were really good helpers at shoveling snow off the walk.

 

We had the boys in karate lessons for several months. They seemed to enjoy it. But we stopped so we could start piano lessons in the fall.

 

I clean up the kitchen and all the while Maya makes another mess.

 

Maya loves to snuggle stuffed animals. She also loves toys that make noises so this talking stuffed dog is a favorite. It sings songs, and Maya gets upset when she wants to hear her favorite song of Patty cakes and it doesn't play it right off the bat.

 

Levi is so good with Maya. He makes her laugh and cares for her so sweetly. They definitely have a connection. They are both just goofy and silly and love to laugh together.

 

Christmas time was great this year. We put the tree up right after Thanksgiving and soon after put up the lights on the house. I made some new felt tree ornaments to go with the wood ones I made a couple years back. They added some vibrant color to the tree and were great toys for the kids to play with. I also made Maya a stocking. I made it girly. It's the one on the far right in the picture. Benji, our elf on the shelf, was much loved this year. Every December morning Levi would wake up very first and excitedly rush around the house to find Benji. Then he would excitedly wake up Malachi and show him. It was so cute to see him so excited every morning :)

Here was our house Christmas morning. 

 

All the kids were spoiled with toys and treats. 

  

Poor Levi got sick Christmas Eve night. All the rest of us eventually caught it as well over the Christmas break.

 

 

 

Pretty girl all ready for church. 

 

I'm only posting a random selfie of me because I'm hardly ever in any pictures. Adrian is able to bring home many samples of skin care products from his work. He has my skin looking the best it ever has :)

 

Little Maya easily smiles :)

When Maya was crawling she would constantly crawl around the floor scrounging for crumbs to eat. Especially under the table where the boys eat. I got to thinking one day that I wasn't sweeping the kitchen floor as often as I used to. Then I realized it was due to Maya cleaning up the crumbs for me :)

Oh how we love this boy's smile. Notice the teddy bear in the corner of his bed. Kendi and Aydri sent that to us for Christmas. We named the bear Dandee because the tag on him said Dandee. Malachi slept with Dandee for the first few nights after he received him. But then one evening as we were getting ready for bed, he brought me Dandee and said "I don't want to sleep with him anymore." I said "how come?" Then Malachi said that every night while he slept, Dandee would mess up his blankets and he did not like it :)

Here is Maya walking outside for the first time. She is sporting the old shoes Malachi wore when he was that age. She likes to walk up all the walks to the doorways and also down the driveways and into the road. She picks up every little rock she finds and puts it in her mouth. 

This big snow storm caused the school to have two snow days. I'm just noticing that Levi has his tongue sticking out in most pictures :)

All the boys working hard. 

We played in the deep snow of course !!

 

 

I love this picture of the boys!

 

Maya was suspiciously quiet one evening. This is how I found her. I now keep all my cereal out of reach. 

 

Pretty girl waking up from her nap. 

She really likes playing patty cake. Here she is throwing "it" into the oven.  She'll just walk around marking it with  a "b" and throwing "it in the oven" randomly.

 

She also frequently initiates peekaboo. 

Here's Malachi reading her a book. 

I learned that if she has no clothes on, she will not keep her diaper on :)

 

 One other thing that happened in the winter was that Levi caught pinworms from school. It took us a week or so to figure out what was going on with him. But we treated him and the whole family because they are so contagious. We also had to deep clean everything a couple times. I hope we don't have to deal with pinworms ever again. 

Oct-Nov 2016

I enjoyed fall so much here. It lasted several months and cooled down pleasantly, but was not cold. Being in Florida for a year it seemed we were stuck in the summer season for 18 months. The cool air felt refreshing and life felt like it was progressing again. With no change in season for so long, it felt like life was at a standstill. 

I never go to garage sales, but we happened to pass one on a walk one day and I picked up the Mousetrap game for one dollar. The boys love playing it

 

With the beautiful weather we hit the parks and thoroughly enjoyed being outside. These kids love the swing. Here you can see the red tint in Maya's hair. This is at the park that we walk to by our house. 

 

Bethpage State Park has an awesome playground and paved bike trails we like. 

  

We went to the Hartford Connecticut Temple open house. It was a 2 hour drive. Levi made things exciting and threw up in the car on the way there.

 

The rolling hills in Connecticut are absolutely stunning with fall colors. I have never seen anything like it before. Just as far as the eye can see rolling hills of fall colored leaves. It made my heart happy. That was one thing we missed being in Florida.

 

Levi goes to school for six hours a day. That leaves me, Malachi and Maya some time at home. It's a different dynamic at home without Levi. When Maya naps I always try to give Malachi some one on one time. That is the only one on one time he ever gets. We do lessons, play games and read books. 

Malachi and Maya get along well. He really watches out for her and helps her be happy.

 

For Halloween the boys wanted to be spooky ghosts. I made them some ghost poncho costumes, which they thought were awesome.

 

The church had a Halloween trunk or treat. We decked out the back of our truck as a spooky campsite. We put the backpacking tent in the back of the truck and put a mummy inside. We had other camp and accessories and covered everything in cobwebs. We ended up winning the award for the best decorated trunk. 

We carved pumpkins for the kids. It had been a long while since Adrian was able to carve pumpkins with us. It was a beautiful afternoon and we sat outside and carved pumpkins.

 

Levi had no problem getting messy. Malachi was a bit more hesitant. The kids get so excited with simple traditions.

  

We went trick-or-treating after school. Adrian had to work. We just went around the block, it took less than an hour. The boys had a lot of fun and were so excited for their goodies. They enjoyed just as much to hand out candy to the few trick-or-treaters we had.

 

Maya started crawling and pulling herself up to standing in October. There was no stopping her. She wanted to go go go with her brothers.

Maya started to really cling to her teddy bear. She snuggles it when she sleeps. It is her soothing security item. She loves to feel it on her face. 

Here is Malachi proud of the tower he built all by himself. 

 

Malachi still loves his snuggles. He snuggled up to Adrian on the backyard swing.

 

Malachi working hard to rake the leaves while Levi is at school.

The school had the best pile of leaves to play in.  

Maya's first time with bubbles. That face is fooling. She generally dislikes the bath. I think what she does not like is water on her face.

 

Christmas tree light glow!  

  

Levi got strep throat in the fall. No surprise since he was exposed to it so much at school. But he had his throat swell up big again like it did last April. Adrian ordered antibiotics and I took him into the doctor. She sent him immediately to a pediatric ENT. Turns out Levi had a thyroglossal duct cyst. Basically the thyroglossal duct is supposed to disappear in utero, but it did not for Levi. When he gets a throat infection this duct also gets infected and swells up with puss. The ENT wants to surgically remove the duct because it may just keep getting infected. We are still not sure if we want to have the surgery done.

For Thanksgiving we got together with the Christensen's and the Olson's at the Christiansen's house. The Olson's had extended family in town so there were a bunch of people there. It was fun to have a big gathering. It was a little bit chaotic with lots of people and lots of food. Which to me feels just like a holiday at home with family. It was a good time. We have been on our own so much for holidays that a big chaotic gathering felt just like the way a holiday should be.