Christmas Party

Last weekend we had a Christmas party at church. The 3 boys got to sing in the little program they did. Tim was right in the front row on the end. He was so funny singing and bobbing his head to the bells. He was in his own little world. I thought this picture was both funny and ironic. At the Christmas party they had a Santa for the kids to visit. The kids stuck to the same thing they told Santa at the mall!! I thought the photo was both funny and ironic with Santa and the photo of Jesus in the back.

This is one of the boys from church playing the harp for the Christmas Nativity at the party. Maddie was completely infatuated with watching him. She just stood there for quite some time staring at him. Maybe she will be interested in a string instrument!

I was given the grand responsibility of decorating the church gym for the Christmas Party. There were 28 tables for about 220 people. I spent most of that Saturday up at the church decorating and setting the tables for the party.

This is one of the tables with the centerpiece in the middle. They were a big hit. It was amazing to me that I spent about 6 hours up there putting it together. It was all taken down in under 30 minutes.

Things are looking up for Christmas. I am finally starting to get into the spirit. The kids are getting excited. The first wrapped gifts went under the tree today!! They are so excited now!

Giving in to Christmas!

Well, for some reason this year, I have had some trouble getting into the Christmas spirit. I am not completely sure why. It could be the mounting pile of projects and responsibilities that have to be done by Christmas. I am not sure. We are going to be traveling to Florida for Christmas and I guess I just thought that we wouldn't even put up a tree. Well, after this first snowfall. (Wasn't much and didn't last long. But, it sure was pretty while it lasted.) I gave in (to a lot of guilt and pressure!) and decided to put up the tree with the kids. Of course we had to be a bit picky on what ornaments we put on the tree since we have tile floors. On about the third ornament, Maddie bounced it across the floor confirming my hesitation to put glass ornaments up!!
Slowly I started to give in to the whole Christmas season!

Maddie had been talking about going to see Santa since before Thanksgiving. She came and told me that she wanted Santa to bring her a Pink Shopping Cart!! That is a girl that knows what she wants. She went right up to Santa and told him all about this shopping cart she wants. She has not wavered from that wish!! She was not scared at all. Now the whole going to the mall to see Santa with thousands of other people did nothing for the lack of Christmas spirit!!! I think it was a step backwards!!

Timothy asked Santa for a Nerf Blaster and a Bakugan!!

Christopher asked Santa for a Nerf Gun and assured Santa he thought he had been a good boy!

Zack asked Santa for an airsoft gun. He was firmly warned against asking Santa for something that was going to be strictly forbidden by Mom. He asked anyway hoping Santa would trump mom. We will see what Christmas morning brings!!

NEVER EVER Flick a Dog in the Eye!!!

I have decided that if I were to ever write a book (if!! Like I have time for that!) I would write a book about all the things you learn being a mother that no one ever tells you when you are holding that tiny sweet sleeping baby!! Among the many things the boys have taught me, Maddie is sure to have her own chapter!! Starting for sure with Never Flick a Dog in the Eye! Especially when the dog is sleeping ever so soundly and you are supposed to be sleeping ever so soundly!!

So here is how it all started!! Sunday night Maddie was put to bed (several times!!) Timothy was already sleeping with Buster snoring on the end of his bed. Maddie (being mischeivous as she is!) decided she would try to wake Buster up by poking him in the eye!! Boy did she wake him up!! He was startled and bit her right on the wrist!! She wasn' bleeding too much but it did break the skin. We took her in to the ER and had it cleaned out and dressed!! Well, one would think that was enough and we were good to go!!

Not at the Hughes House!!

This is how Maddie looked by 7 the next morning!!

Fever, no appetite, and a swolen red hand (under all that gauze!!)
I took her to the pediatrician and had it looked at again and they were thinking it might be getting infected so started her on antibiotics!! Let's call that good!
Not at the Hughes House!

So here we are on Wednesday morning after being admitted to the hospital for IV antibiotics and a series of bloodwork and X-Rays! We arrived at the ER at about 10p.m. and were taken up to our room in pediatrics at about 3a.m.

She has some sharpie drawing on the right arm where the redness was happening and under that stylish sock she has an IV! Yup! She won't use either hand.

So, when you can't use your hand to put food in your mouth, this is what a 2 year old resorts to!!! Great idea. She was having us feed her popcorn by hand!! Fun! I was pretty sure I was going to lose a finger!

As of right now, we have to stay through today and into tomorrow. They want her to tolerate oral antibiotics and get some blood work back to identify what type of infection she has. Her X-Ray looks good. There was nothing broken in her wrist causing the infection. They also have tested her for the flu as she had a couple of unpleasant symptoms and are treating her just in case. The original test came back negative! Yeah me!!

Another chapter in the hectic life of the Hughes family!

We will keep you all updated and make sure you know what is happening either here on the blog or through email and text or calls when we can.

This all seemed to happen so fast and out of the blue, it is amazing how quickly something like this can change all your plans!

Family Photos

Well, since this week was already crazy I decided to take some family photos. The weather was good (for photos), there were leaves on the trees and I found coordinating shirts for the whole family. This was a good recipe so far. I used the timer and wha la!! Family photos!! I am pretty proud of what I got out of it! The crazy kids running away!! I was really hoping for a serene inspirational photo of my kids walking off into the beautiful fall colors. Good plan! Wrong group of kids!!
The Boys!

The Girls!

The kids!

Hughes Family 2009

Trunk or Treat

With all of my little goblins being sick and the weather being tricky we decided we would settle on doing the church trunk or treat. It is 64 degrees and not raining. I don't think that will be the case tomorrow on halloween!! The little goblins!
Taylor is a princess in pajamas!! Now the boots, just happen to be a recent purchase and she can't seem to take them off. They suddenly match everything!!!

Zack explained his costume as "A Dark Shadow". There is something in Harry Potter called a Dementor that has a similar appearance. He was flip flopping between the two! He designed his costume and I got him the supplies!!

Since the kids had their picture taken with the SWAT team member in NYC this summer, Chris has been obsessed with them. Being a "SWAT guy" is all he has talked about since then. We put some things together and I sewed up a vest a wha la! Chris is happy!

Tim is our little vampire. He wasn't too interested in the fake teeth until the last minute. He was trying really hard to make a "spooky" face and not smile. That is a little hard for such a happy kid!!

And then there's Maddie! She wanted to be a vampire then a ninja. Not sure why but when we showed her those costumes she didn't like them because they weren't pink. She settled on a princess but had to go with wings since they were pink. The bottom line for Maddie is that she is Pink.

A funny sidenote about her pink infatuation. She wears Luvs diapers and they have the blues clues characters on them. There are 5 different animals and one of them is pink. Yes one out of five. She digs through the whole bag til she finds a pink one every time she needs a diaper change. Once we ran out of the pink character diapers, I had to start putting pink stickers over the blue, green, and purple characters!! She is our little pink princess!! (Thanks Tori!!)

Our Crazy Week and Scars!!

These are the two pictures I got of Timothy's wound!! He seems to be pretty cool with it. He is going to be a vampire for Halloween so he thought it would look even spookier.
This is kind of a long post. This day was quite the event!

This past week has been quite an adventurous one!! I went out of town last Wednesday to see my Mom and sisters for a fun trip to Minneapolis for Time Out For Women. This was supposed to be a fun and relaxing time for us girls to kick back and have some time to ourselves. Well, that is about the only thing that went as planned. Greg stayed back with all of the children. On Saturday afternoon he mentioned that Christopher had quite a fever and wasn't feeling too great. This carried on thru Monday when I arrived back home so Chris had to stay home from school with Dad and Maddie. By Tuesday when Greg was back at work I was graced with Christopher (still had a fever) and Zack (vomitting) home from school. Just as I was to go and pick up Tim from school Taylor's school called to let me know I had to come get her as she "didn't look good". Yeah me!! So, now all 5 were home! Wednesday Zack was able to go to school but Chris and Taylor were still home!! By Thursday Taylor, Tim, and Chris were out of school.

Friday morning I woke with a positive attitude that all would be able to return to school and I could accomplish my extensive list of errands and chores! HA! Hilarious!

First Taylor sounded like she was going to cough up a lung! She is home!! Tim was looking good and Chris had been fever free for a day and a half!! I had all the kids ready to go with lunches packed and Halloween treats ready and loaded in their backpacks. I decide to vaccuum a bit (the one rug in the house!) when all of a sudden there is the ear piercing scream from the basement! Timothy has taken the toy dinosaur to the face!!! I looked down the stairs to see Tim coming up with Zack leading the way with "the story" as blood is running down Tim's face!! Yeah me!! It didn't take long to see that we were going to the ER. I called Greg, told him to head back home. Let my neighbor know that I was leaving and see if she could handle getting boys on the bus. No problem. Taylor is going to stay with Maddie and we are good. Start to load Tim in the van, commence vommitting from Christopher!! What!! This is not good. Call neighbor and let her know only one child getting on bus!! I am pretty sure the neighbors think the circus moved in a year ago up the drive from them!!

Well, as you can see in the photo, we managed to get away with no stiches. Just some super glue!! That went much better than I imagined stiches going!!!

By the time I got home I now had to deal with Christopher being sick again. I called the doctor, got an appointment, and headed in!! Well, it seems that the way things are going, the kids are getting the flu (H1N1 with their symptoms) then that is pushing them into bronchitis or pneumonia. We get.......Pneumonia!! Chris is now on antibiotics and we are on the waiting game for the other 2 sick ones to get it. Greg leaves town on Monday so I am sure all this will catch me around then!! That's about the way it seems to go this week.

All in all, this has been a crazy week. It is almost over and I am looking forward to that!! I am living by a new motto (picked up on my getaway!) If you can laugh at it, you can live with it. I am certainly trying to laugh a lot!! That is the best plan I can come up with at this point!!

Our Newest Addition!

Well, After much talking, negotiating, and a too good to pass up deal, we have a new addition!

Sophia!!

This is our new little puppy! She is from a pure bred black lab mom and a great dane/St. Bernard mix dad!! OOPS!So far the kids are learning that she does this (sit) when you try to walk her on her leash. And if they like their toys, they should put them away or watch them become chew toys!!
Taylor is likely not going to be able to pick her up for long!!

After a few barks, and some explaining of the territory rules by Buster, the two have decided they are good together! He does think she is a little off when she gets down on her front paws and barks at him in an attempt to get him to play.

This will be another fun challenge/adventure for our household!! Just when things look like they might calm down, we mix it up a bit!!!

New favorite photo

I am pretty sure this is my new favorite photo of Maddie. This happens to her everytime she goes on the trampoline. I try to keep her hair in a ponytail so she can jump without it in her face. This day it was especially crazy!! I am sure it has something to do with humidity or lack of!! It just cracks me up. Of course she has no idea what we are all laughing about since she can't see it. When I showed her the picture she was cracking up at herself too!!

Our little Ballerina

Along with all the kids going back to school, Maddie started her new class. She is going to a ballet/tap class and is so happy to wear her little ballerina getup!! She has been to 2 classes and is still a little shy about going in herself. She will warm up to it I am sure!Maddie was ready to go and I wasn't so she decided she would go to ballet class on her wormie by herself. I caught up with her at the end of the driveway and we went in the van!!

Happy Mother's Day

Well, here is my annual Mother's Day post!! The new school year has started!! This means many things for us. The kids obviously go back to school. The calendar gets very full with activities. Despite all that goes on, it is my favorite time of year because things can get into a schedule!! It is always nice to get things into a routine. Taylor is in 7th Grade!!
Timothy goes to Pre-K everyday of the week. He is thrilled!!

Zack is in 4th grade!!

And Chris is a First grader!!!

This leaves Maddie and I by ourselves for the morning hours. I was really looking forward to this time. It is funny though how much Maddie doesn't seem to like it though. She really misses her brothers and sisters. I am pretty sure though it is only because she has realized that when I say no, there is no one else to go and get it from!!!

Canada

Well, after all the traveling we did this summer, we decided to take one last quick trip! This was just our family and we decided to go at the last minute. We went to the Canadian National Expo (like a state fair) and the Toronto Airshow. The favorite exhibit was the lego construction area. We could have done this at home!!!
Chris worked up the courage to feed this very hungry goat!!

The kids each got to choose a ride. This of course is what Chris chose. I was pretty nervous to have him ride this by himself so I nominated Greg to go with!!

And off they go!! Chris loved it and didn't get nervous one bit. I don't think he sensed my nerves!!

The older 3 got to participate in a Nerf Dart Tag game. They got them all dressed up in their protective gear and played capture the flag with nerf guns. They loved it and Zack even won the sportsmanship award for encouraging the other kids! Go Zack!

The airshow had started and this is pretty much what Maddie thought of it the whole time!!

I could not resist taking this photo!!

I have to be honest. After reading my brother Paul's blog about the airshow this summer I got pretty homesick! It seemed weird to miss the airshow. But, the Blue Angels made an appearance at the Toronto Airshow and we got to see it. It will never matter how many times we see this, it will amaze me everytime.

The most anticipated moment was the flight of the F-22 Raptor. This is what the boys wanted to see more than anything. This is their current favorite airplane. Timothy was telling me today that if we just got one of those we could go to California and get some Salame anytime we want and it will only take a few minutes! Not sure what that will do to the gas budget but we will see.

I thought this was cool. This is a Canadian Coast Guard helicopter. It dropped a couple of men in the water and then went through the whole process of "rescuing" them from the water.

And of course we had to see the Canadian Snowbirds.

We had a great time and it was nice to finish out the summer with a quick family trip. We enjoyed just being us and being relaxed with eachother.