Thanksgiving...getting ready for the holidays.

In my opinion, the best part of the holiday season is all of the family traditions. I look forward to our traditions each year and hope that someday the kids will too. I hope someday, they will want to continue the same traditions with their own families. My husband has a tradition of his own around the holidays--forgetting that we have traditions! Every year we go through the same thing, I pull out the cookies sheets the day after Thanksgiving to do our annual cookie baking day and he acts surprised, or I call mom and dad to borrow their air mattresses because we always decorate the big tree on Thanksgiving and then sleep in front of it that night as a family and wonders what I need them for. I think I need to write them down so that if something happens to me, someone will know what traditions to continue. As we were decorating the house on Saturday with the remainder of our 9 Christmas trees (I know, overkill), I brought up this conversation. I told him that I was concerned what would happen to all of our family traditions if something happened to me. He stated that he knew one thing for sure--he wouldn't be putting out the Santa toilet seat cover or the annoying snowman that talks to you while you are trying to pee! Glad he could make me feel better! In his defense, he was hanging perilously between the couch and the fireplace, replacing our usual curtains with our Christmas ones!

The kids are more like me, though! They put on their annual Thanksgiving play. It gets more interesting every year as they get more into it. And, we did sleep in front of the tree on Thanksgiving night.

Traditions are starting to change as the kids get older, though. For instance, I don't think we will be able to do our funny family Christmas card much longer. This year, when they came in the mail after I had ordered them, I showed them to the kids and asked them what they thought. Boy, have they turned into critics! Delaney said she didn't like it, Dawsyn said it was "OK", but the best reaction was from my little Republican who stated that it was nice, but it would be better if he were being paid for the use of his image! The use of his image??? He wants royalties on the family Christmas card??? Yeah, some traditions may need to change!

Little D is ONE!!!!

Our Baby Beluga, Our Little Tie-Breaker, our number 5, our whole reason for starting this blog has turned 1...and boy did he like the cake!

My little baby boy has the sweetest face and the sweetest disposition. However, he is quickly learning that, in this family, he better make his ideas and concerns known--like when he head-butted me and screamed because we took his cake away!

Being number 5 means you don't have to worry about walking, or even crawling that much at a year old. He is the baby of the family and everything is done for him. He has four older siblings who adore him and bring him whatever he needs. On top of that, he is the "church baby"--constantly being passed around at church, the "school baby"--probably the only one year old who goes through a school hallway and has kids yelling out, "Hey Drake!" and it all makes me wonder what the future holds for our little guy. It seems the older kids are already fitting into their little places in the world. I don't ever want Drake to feel like there isn't a place left for him. He holds just as much promise, just as much love, and has just as much backing from us as he would if he were an only child. Whatever the future holds, I hope that he always follows God's plan for his life and never feels lost in the shuffle because he is so special to all of us!

Dawsyn turns 8!

Our Baby girl is 8! And, with Dawsyn, birthdays are no small event! It was a day-long celebration! She had a great birthday with family coming for a small party on the day of her birthday and then 10 friends staying for an over-nighter! We definitely decided that having 10 girls was a lot louder than having 10 boys. By 11:00 PM, the boys were playing their video games or passed out from running around. With the girls, I finally had to make them stop doing fashion shows and American Idol at 3 AM! :) And... the girls eat A LOT more! They downed so many cheese balls, some of them still had orange hands in the morning!

Dawsyn's birthday breakfast.

Our Little Monkey who gets the next turn for a birthday! He will be one next week--unbelievable!