Merry Christmas!

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then these must be worth millions! Hope your Christmas was as happy and joy filled as ours! Blessings to you in 2010!

A room to call their....

OWN! That's right, Jackson and Ryan officially have their own rooms! James and I got a wild hair yesterday while cleaning up the toy room in anticipation of things to come this week. (A big fat guy with a white beard who always wears red!!?!?) We decided it was as good a day as any to separate the boys into their own rooms. This is actually a pretty big deal, because they have never had separate rooms before. Okay, so Jackson spent the first 2 years of his life by himself, but like he really remembers the quality time spent with his stuffed animals in his crib! No, they've only known life with each other. I wasn't sure if Ryan would even go for it or not, being the younger brother and not knowing what it's like "on your own" and everything, but he was extremely enthusiastic about it when we asked them. So, we spent the better part of our day cleaning out, moving around, and throwing away stuff so the boys could have their own rooms! I have to say they turned out great and I'm loving it so far! We'll paint and decorate in the near future, but for now I'd say we have a good start! It was wonderful to send them to their rooms this afternoon for "room time" where they both fell asleep! :-) Jackson's' new digs! He got the old toy room as his room. He loves it!
Ryan's' new room. He is still in his same old room, but with everything re-arranged it's like a brand new pad!
Now Hailey already had her own room, but since the toy room is no longer, she now has toys in her room for the very first time! She is PUMPED! (Mom, not so much!)

Just singing in the rain!

Hailey was determined to play outside the other day, even though it was pouring down rain! All on her own she put on her brothers yellow rain boots, her jacket, got her umbrella and went out to play! It didn't last too long, but she sure was cute out there!

Oh Christmas Tree!

Oh Christmas tree, how lovely are your branches! We took our annual trip up to the Christmas tree farm this past week and had a BLAST playing in the snow! There was a good couple of feet of snow and we decided to make it a snow day for the kids and have some fun family time! We found our perfect Christmas tree right away, well after we shook the snow off of it, made some snow angels, and then got down to business - SLEDDING! We had to drive around a while to find the perfect spot, but we did find it and had so much fun! Hailey was the bravest of us all, tackling the big hill solo in her little torpedo sled, the boys decided to ride with Dad the first few times to get the feel of it and then went out on their own. We ended the perfect day with a yummy pizza dinner at our favorite pizza place and then headed home to decorate the tree and watch A Charlie Brown Christmas! Ahhh, I love this time of year, don't you?

So Thankful!

What a wonderful Thanksgiving we had! We got to spend it with my Mom's entire family -the first time we've ALL been together since mine and James' wedding I think! We stayed with my Gramma Bubba and went to my Uncle's house for the big day. My brother and his family joined us, along with my two cousins and one cousin's girlfriend, whom Jackson just adores! The kids LOVED getting to play with their two cousins, Lorelei and Duncan, whom Hailey fondly refers to as her friends Worewei and bebe Dunc! We played games, watched Star Wars much to the boys delight, went to the park, did a little Black Friday shopping :-), and just enjoyed being with family! Thank you to my family for hosting us and making it a wonderful Thanksgiving for us! Hope everyone had as much fun as we did!

My brother, Kevin, and our Gramma Bubba!

The kids with Great Gramma Bubba!

My big brother, Kevin and his wife, Michelle, Lorelei and Duncan!

Gramma Bubba with her kids - my Mom and Uncle Glenn!

COUSINS! We had to give Duncan a camera to play with so he'd sit still!

Hailey's "friend" Worewei! They had so much fun together!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween 2009 was a great success! We got to celebrate twice this year, once at our church's harvest party on Friday, and then the big trick-or-treating on Halloween night! Both were crazy and tons of fun for the kiddos! They enjoyed bounce houses, cotton candy, popcorn, soda, and of course tons of CANDY at the harvest party. It was so fun to see all of our friends dressed up and having fun. The night of Halloween James worked so I invited several friends to join me and the kids for some dinner and trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. We had a yummy pizza dinner and then got all dressed up, (even I dressed up this year using one of my many costumes I have from doing the church Christmas plays over the years) and we set off for some trick-or-treating fun! There were seven kids altogether and six adults and boy did we have fun!

The kids did a Star Wars theme for costumes this year. Jackson was Darth Vader for the second year in a row, with the addition of the breathing device, Ryan was Bobo Fett, (yes, that is a Star Wars character), and Hailey was the most beautiful Princess Leia I have ever seen! She managed to keep the wig with the buns on for most of the night too! Anyway, we had a great time celebrating this year with good friends and lots of candy! Hope you had a great Halloween too!
Jackson "Darth Vader" Irvine, Tommy the Pirate, Ryan "Bobo Fett" Irvine, and "Princess Leia" Hailey!

Enjoying some treats at the Harvest Party!

Princess Leia gettin' some candy!

My Star Wars kids!

Don't they look "scary" good?!?!

Pumpkin Patch!

Mrs. Spring's Kindergarten class!

Ry-guy with his pumpkin!

Ryan and his best buddy, Jett, on the hay ride!

Ryan and his friend, Charlie, on the train ride!

Ryan's Kindergarten class got to take a field trip to the local pumpkin patch the day before Halloween! It was Ryan's first field trip, riding the bus and everything! I got to go as a helper and James and Hailey tagged along as well! It was so much fun and such a perfect day to go - the weather was excellent and it wasn't too crowded since it was so late in the season! The kids got to see a pig races, ride on the train, go on a hay ride to pick out their very own pumpkin, and then enjoy a picnic lunch complete with the farms' own apple cider YUM! Ryan loved it, especially since he was with all his buddies! Hailey had a blast too, she thought she was a part of the class! All in all, a great field trip day!

Pumkins!

We had some fun last night carving up our pumpkins for Halloween! We did three, one for each of the kids, and I think they turned out pretty cute! James did Ryan's, on the left and Hailey's, on the right. I got to help Jackson with his Star Wars themed Yoda pumpkin, in the middle! It was a chore trying to carve it, but it turned out pretty good, especially at night with the candle in it. It was hard to get a real good picture of it, but you can see it best in the 2nd picture, where the kids look all fuzzy! Yoda has one arm forward and the other arm is back holding a light saber. Ryan did a scary pumpkin face and James tried to do a girl with big lips and eyelashes for Hailey! I think they turned out great! We are looking forward to our church's harvest party tonight and then trick or treating tomorrow around the neighborhood! I will have some cute costume pic's I'm sure, I can't wait! Hope you have a safe and happy Halloween!

Cork Boat Races!!!

That's right, cork boat races! James and I have saved corks for YEARS because James told me that one day we would do something fun with them! Well, that day finally came last week when James and the boys made cork boats and we raced them in the pool! It was so fun, I'm sure we'll do it again and again. The boys helped put them together and each colored their own sail.

Ryan proudly displaying his handiwork!

Notice the LETTERS on Ryan's sail - I'd say Kindergarten is paying off! :-)

Jackson drew a "guitar hero" design on his sail.

Of course we had to have "riders" on the boats. Making the maiden voyage for Ryan was Luke Skywalker and for Jackson it was Lego Batman!

Lego Batman had an accident and went overboard but...

Dad was quick to rescue him and save the day! It sure helps to have a fireman around for such emergencies!

Then James had to join the races himself with his own custom designed boat!

Our cheerleader, Miss Hailey-girl! She enjoyed cheering the boys and their boats while scaring Mom and Dad that she was going to fall into the pool and we'd have to jump into that FREEZING water to save her! Fortunately, she managed to stay on the sidelines the whole time! What a fun time for everyone!

Update!

So, I thought I'd give you quick little update on how things are in the Irvine house. I've been sick for the past three days or so and really hope that I'm not sick tomorrow! I am a lousy sick person, especially when James is gone for 48 hours and I get to take care of everything by myself! I know I've been short tempered with the kids and have been apologizing to them constantly - usually right after I've gotten done yelling at them for something! I feel horrible and it's made even worse by all the guilt I feel for not being able to be 100% for them. I'm quite sure I've ruined their childhoods and doomed them all to years of therapy! :-} I do have to say that if not for the generosity and care from a wonderful neighbor, I would be doing a lot worse!! Thanks, Jenn!

The kids are good, despite their horrible mother, and plugging along just fine. Hailey has amazed everyone with how well she's doing with her potty training, or should I say the lack of training needed! I can say with almost 100% certainty that she is OFFICIALLY POTTY TRAINED! That includes nap time, bed time, and doing the deed all by herself! It really is amazing at how fast and completely she got it, but that's my baby girl! She even tells me to "go far away" if I try to come into the bathroom with her! Ha!

Ryan is continuing to learn by leaps and bounds at school and home! He is starting to sound out words and read and is even doing math by himself, he just doesn't know it yet! He was counting the number of pepperoni's in his lunchable today and as he ate one he'd say now there's "this" many left. He was subtracting! I think he is so smart, but he doesn't always see it! I still can't believe how big he's getting either, I think the days of Jackson handing down clothes to Ryan are soon coming to an end! I've always told him he'd end up being bigger then his "big" brother!

Jackson of course is still a smarty pants and doing really well! Although he does have an attitude at times, but I guess that's all part of growing up, right? Right, I mean, everyone else has this problem with at least one of their kids, right? I'm not the only one?!?! :-} Jackson still loves school and does very well. He also loves to read, which I like to take credit for, and is always reading well past the mandatory 20 minutes for homework time. He likes to read a whole chapter book and see how long it takes him. He regularly reads for over an hour! He's also getting good at math and loves the time tests he takes at school. Those used to make me so nervous, but he loves the challenge. He did all the addition ones and is now trying to do 100 addition problems in under 4 minutes!

James is busy at work lately and moving around here and there. He's usually at the same fire station, but probably once or twice a month they have him move due to people calling in sick or something. He still loves it and I'm so glad he does. What a blessing it is to be happy and content with what you do!

Anyway, there's the update for now. Aside from my cold, we are all doing well and enjoying the fall and gearing up for the holidays! We are doing a theme with the costumes this year "Star Wars" Jackson is going to be Darth Vader, Ryan is going to be Bobo Fet (trust me, that's his name and he IS a Star Wars character) and miss Hailey is going to be Princess Leia! All I had to say was princess and she was all over it! I can't wait and I promise to post some fun Halloween pic's! Take care and enjoy the Fall!

She's a big girl now!

That's my BABY girl I'm talkin' about! Hailey is officially potty trained! Yahoooo! She's been wearing her princess undies for about two weeks now and we've only had about 4 or 5 accidents in that time. She's even making it through her naps dry and we're trying night time for the first time tonight!!! She's been wearing a pull-up at night, but she wakes up still dry, so tonight I gave her the option of wearing her undies and she was all over it!!! She's such a girl too, because she can take half an hour trying to decide which pair to wear for the day! I've started narrowing down her choices to only two, otherwise she takes all her underwear out of her drawer and lines them all up before she decides! (She has about 15 - 20 pairs!)
That's not the only big milestone for Miss Hailey-girl either. We also got rid of the pacifier, affectionately called a nonie by Hailey, completely! She got to go to the store and pick out a new toy to "buy" with all of her nonie's. After about two hours, (do you think she gets the indecisiveness from me???) she finally decided on two stuffed animals and a princess figurine! I was happy since it only cost about $10 total, and not the $50 I thought it would when we went down the princess aisle! I was surprised she didn't get the dress-up stuff, but hey - whatever works! The funny part was when I asked the sales lady to take her pacifiers from her, she kept trying to give them back to me without Hailey seeing! I told her to throw them away but she was sure I didn't mean it and put them in the bag. I had to ask her three times to throw them away before she finally did! Hailey has done remarkably well without them, only asking for them maybe three times and without any effort! I've had the harder time with it, I keep looking for them when I put her to bed and have to remember that they are gone!
Anyway, my baby is definitely growing up and becoming a big girl! I love you, Hailey-girl!

Happy Birthday Ryan!

The Ry-guy is 5 years old!!!! We celebrated Ryan's 5th birthday last weekend with a wild and crazy pool/bounce house party in the backyard! It turned out to be a great day for the pool, with the temp. about 100 degrees! I think just about everyone went swimming, at least for a few minutes! We were able to borrow the bounce house from the fire station again, which is so wonderful! The kids just loved it! We had quite a few friends and family over to help us celebrate and we all enjoyed Ryan's Transformers cake, ice cream, and watching him open the bazillion presents he received! Thank you to all who came out and partied with us - we had a blast! Happy Birthday my sweet Ry-guy, I love you!

Enjoy some pic's of the party!

State Fair!

We went to the state fair about two months ago and had a great time! I know I'm a little late in getting the pictures up, but better late then never - right? Anyway, we had fun seeing all the animals, especially the ones in the petting zoo, and riding the rides, oh and of course eating all the yummy-bad-for-you fair food! It was great! The best part was that we got to go for FREE! James worked some OT for the fire department at the fair and they gave him free passes and free parking for the whole family! Definitely more fun when it's free! Enjoy!

Jackson and Ryan rode the swings as their last ride and it was the best one! Can you tell by their faces!?!

James ran into an old friend and had to have his picture taken with him! :-)

Jackson was brave and rode the 'coaster! He's the one on on the far left with his eyes shut and arms up in the air!

Hailey's favorite part was the petting zoo, by a mile! I think she managed to hug every single animal they had in there, including a couple of pigs, goats, a llama, sheep, a deer... oh the list goes on! She thought they were the coolest!