I'm back!

I promised I would come back to post more later, so here I am. Let me see, after my birthday and Thanksgiving came Christmas preparations. We did the very traditional thing this year and drove to the local tree farm and trudged around in the mud searching for THE tree with our little ones. Luckily, we experienced some great weather that day and we didn't freeze our tootsies off. After at least 30-40 minutes of tree tracking, we finally settled on one. Daddy sawed it down and we dragged it off to the hay wagon. We burnt our mouths on hot cider while the tree was secured to the top of our minivan. I decided that next year we should pick one of those beautiful Douglas Firs that have already been cut down at the tree farm. They were spectacular! And no mud trudging required.

The kids were so much into the Christmas spirit that it was hard not to get into it as well. Their excitement about decorating the tree and the house was over the top. They were skipping around the house in their Santa hats singing Christmas songs and make believing Christmas morning everyday. They would "wrap" some of their toys in blankets and pretend to have Christmas day with each other opening presents. It was precious. Don't assume life in the Eash house is all pretend and lollipops. Yes, it's true there are some fun times. Those times are interspersed with lots of fighting between the kids. Mostly between two little boys in particular. As a matter of fact, I just sent those two precious boys to their room after Sullivan threw the Playstation remote (Busted! Yes, I let my kids play video games and they watch tv, too.) at Nolan and hit him square in the back because Nolan was going to delete his game. Ah, I can feel the love. Now I can hear Nolan spewing hateful comments about his brother from his room. Here, this will lighten the mood....some cute photos!
Christmas cookies! Remind me to read this blog next year before making cut-out cookies so I can prevent making the same mistakes. The dough recipe I used this year turned out quite nice for rolling and decorating, so that is a keeper. I used the Wilton recipe that I cut out from the back of one of the cookie cutters I bought. What I won't use again is the cookie icing for decorating. It dries hard, shiny and pretty but it is not kid friendly. I tried putting the icing in ziploc bags with a small hole snipped off one of the corners only to have the icing come out of the top or explode through the seams. Next year I think I will stick with my buttercream recipe for the cookies. It will easier for the kids to manage. Regardless, they thoroughly enjoyed making and decorating the cookies and I think Santa really liked them, too. I am still not done with the updates, but alas my children need me to provide nourishment so I must go. I shall return.

November/December 2008 Updates

I've totally been a slacker with this blog! November has flown by and now December is pretty much over as well. Let me back up to Thanksgiving, which is about as far as I can remember. (My memory is not what it used to be. I blame the kids. Isn't that what Moms are supposed to do?) My Aunt Mary (My Dad's sister) flew in from New Mexico and stayed with us for about 6 days and celebrated Thanksgiving with us. Our first Thanksgiving in our new home and we didn't have to rearrange furniture or anything to accommodate everyone. My grandma (Aunt Mary's mother) was able to join us for dinner and enjoy four hours of freedom from our local nursing home. My sister, Stephanie and her boys were here as well as Matt's mom, sister and sister's boyfriend. Dinner was yummy as usual.

Oh, wait....I did have a birthday in there, too. I turned 32 this year which is hard to believe. That is a real grown-up age. You would think having four kids would make me feel like a grown up, but I still feel very young. We went out to dinner to celebrate and Matt made me a chocolate cake from scratch! It was deliciously rich and tasted like it was from a fancy restaurant. Not a bite of that cake went to waste.

More to come, my computer is slow at putting pics on here!

2008 Santa Photo

 


Check out our Santa Photo, I will let Rachelle elaborate, but it was a good time!

Halloween 2008

Halloween 2008
Luckily a shot in the heiny was just what I needed to get out of my deathbed in time to celebrate Halloween with my little Goblins. I had been shot down with strep throat or something of the sort on Monday and after three days of antibiotics I was still very sick. Went back to the doc and you guessed it, they gave me a good old-fashioned shot in the booty. But enough about me (no pun intended), on to the festivites.

We decided to have a frugal Halloween this year....or maybe it was lazy.....take your pick. We picked out costumes from our stock of Halloweens Past. Nolan and Sullivan agreed to don the handmade clown outfits that were made by Matt's Grandma Miller for him and his sister years ago. I think those were the original wigs as well. Jillian and I put together an Angel for her using her Princess Laia gown from last year and her Tinkerbell wings from the year before. And Brendan's costume has been handed down from cousin Tristan, to brother Sullivan and now to him. Add a $0.99 halo from that Christmas aisle that's always up before Halloween and $3.99 for face paint and ta-da!!!!!!







What a couple of clowns! They each had artistic input in the design of their clown make-up. Sullivan's lips didn't make it past the first piece of candy he ate after the first house!

















As you can see, the older three had a hard time waiting for their little bubby. Brendan wanted to eat everything as soon as it was put into his bucket. And if he saw a dog in the house, he would walk right in and say, "Puppy!" Oh, I forgot to add that the only way we could get Brendan in a costume was to tell him he looked cool. Then he would say, "Bubby, cool!" And when he saw other trick-or-treaters he would point to them and say, "Cool!"














Candy feast! We usually let them dig in that night and eat as much as they want. Then the candy goes into lock-up and used for bribery (Or Mommy's & Daddy's snack attacks). Jillian reported having so much fun this Halloween. Sullivan, as usual, lost steam early in the evening and sat out the last few houses. We were lucky to get the pumpkins carved and on the front step before 6pm tonight due to Matt's travels and my sickness. I guess it all came together and the important thing is they all had fun.

October 2008

This will be our family's new home on the web where you can read about our comings and goings and view our photos. We had a crazy, busy, yet positive summer and naturally keeping up with our website went by the wayside. In addition, Matt made the decision to close his hosting business and is in the final phases of that process. Therefore, we no longer have the unlimited web resources we once had. I am still learning how to use this format and get all my photos up the way I like them. Matt is coaching Nolan's flag football team. Unfortunately his team has no returning players on it as it is supposed to have at least 4! Though his players have shown tremendous improvement, they have only won one game. Nolan is no star football player yet, but he's still young and he definitely is having fun and enjoying it. Sullivan is still loving soccer. Jillian started taking ballet and tap class again and is thoroughly enjoying it.

Nolan and Jillian are official first graders now. They ride the bus to and from school. They had to switch elementary schools after we moved across town this summer but I think they have adjusted well. They are in different classes, per Nolan's request, and that seems to be working well. Their first report cards were pretty good; nothing spectacular but the teachers had nice things to say about each of them.


Sullivan started Preschool in September and goes M,W,F from 8:30-11:00am. He has finally taken an interest in learning! He can spell and write his name and can count pretty high. He likes school and the teachers never have any problems with him. Though he is quite the antagonist at home with his brothers and sister. He is always doing something for attention from anyone.



Brendan has an intimate relationship with his stroller thanks to all the soccer and football games he gets dragged around to watch. That kid is always on the move, so restraints are required if I am actually going to watch any of Nolan's or Sullivan's games. His vocabulary has exploded and almost always talks when he needs to communicate with us. He is putting words together now and speaking in small sentences.

Sullivan turned 5 and wanted to have a party at home. What was intended to be a small party with a few of friends turned out to be a huge event with over 20 kids! It was a blast and thank goodness daddy rented that giant bounce house!

We are settled in our new house and we love just love it. Matt loves having his own office to work from in the house and the kids are loving the space. I am loving the large kitchen and my nice, private bathroom. We are hoping to get at least one more camping trip in this season. Matt is taking the two older boys this weekend after their games. They couldn't be any more excited about that. I am watching two little girls part time for a friend of mine that is in nursing school. That is working out very well, though I don't think I would want to do it full-time.

Welcome to the Blog..

This is the new home of our EashFamily.net Family Blog. We will be working on getting this straightened out soon.