We Are Thankful!

Who wouldn't be thankful for these beautiful kids?
This Thanksgiving was spent really enjoying time with each other as a family. No stress. No cooking..... We went to Golden Corral for a festive meal. My mom and dad were here and went with us. We didn't have to spend hours in the kitchen cooking and cleaning. We simply loaded up in the minivan and drove over to dinner. We ate lots of yummy things like turkey, ham, rolls (the BEST), pumpkin pie, green bean casserole, sweet potatoe casserole, banana pudding and much more. Well, I say "WE" but I mean the grown ups. My kids just ate pizza and mac and cheese. Whatever makes you happy on Thanksgiving!!!!
After dinner, we drove down to the river and had fun taking pictures.

Josh had a clever idea that we stand on some posts and be funny. My dad helped me up and held my hand for a second and that was fine. Then he backed away and I was flying solo on that 2 1/2 foot post. heehee This picture really has a funny story behind it - Josh and I were originally holding hands and that was fine but then he let go and said, "grab my foot". I started screaming, "I can't!!! I can't look down. I am going to fall!!!!" I was really terrified. I am still such a chicken!!! Good grief!

I am thankful my parents came to stay with us for a few days. When they come here, we don't have to share them with anyone else. With 4 of their own kids and 13 grandchildren, sharing is a must. So I am glad they were just ours for the weekend!!

I am also thankful that my dad got up at 4:30am on Black Friday to wait outside of Staples (that didn't open until 6am) with me. :) After getting really awesome deals (like this new laptop that I am using right now...finally a computer not from the stone age!!), we went home and traded shopping partners. He stayed home with my kids while Mom and I went shopping ALL day long. Talk about "shop until you drop"!!! After getting up so early, he took care of the kids for another 7 hours. Thanks DAD! And thanks for shopping with me Mom!!! Good times. AND thanks for going to work to "make the money" Josh!!!! I love you all!

Do you notice a theme with our attire?? Yes, it is Josh's favorite NFL team - Philadelphia Eagles. He has liked them since he was a kid. He is very loyal to his teams, whether they are having a good season or not. That's my Josh...loyal and true!!!!! Go Eagles!!!

I had a GREAT Thanksgiving letting someone else do the cooking, having fun with the family and shopping like a crazy person. Life IS good!!!!

Fall Pictures

I love school pictures! It takes all the pressure off of having to go to a studio for portraits! I thought these pictures turned out nicely. What happened to my babies???

Jamie - 4th grade

Tyler - Kindergarten

Madison - 1st grade

This is how we roll....

A dear friend from High School, that I haven't seen in ages but recently reconnected with (Yeahhh!!) asked what a typical Friday night at our house looks like....Here you go!!!

Having friends come over for games while the kids entertain themselves. This week the kids were dancing in the garage! Good times!

Well....almost all the kids. The girls always keep going strong, but Tyler and Blake usually pass out much earlier!!! Tyler was watching Transformers on the portable DVD player and then fell asleep. So cute.

Halloween Craziness!

Happy Halloween from the Martins!!!!

I don't think I have ever experienced a busier Halloween season! It was CRAZY but oh, so fun!!! We started the week at a Halloween Party at a friend's house. There was homemade rootbeer (BIG hit with the kids~all the "smoke" from the dry ice), caramel apples, spooky Aunt Edna (long story...just trust me...spooky!!), carving pumpkins (thank you Josh for taking so much time and effort to create the BEST jack-o-lantern EVER!!) and just having so much fun!!!!

Of course the kids had Halloween parties at school. I tried to go in and help as much as possible with that.

We also had the annual Preschool Parade downtown. One of my friends from the kids' school said she was jealous because she misses those little things from the younger kids' activities. I told her that is why you keep having kids - so you can keep doing all the fun stuff!!!! :) Blake was a cow this year for Halloween. We have been practicing for over a month now on what a cow says. For Blake, it is somewhere in between "moo" and "boo" - perfect for Halloween! He was a little shocked to see a BIG COW stand next to him at the parade! This is actually the first Halloween in a LONG time that we had to wear jackets at the parade!!! It was nice and crisp. Not hot and muggy! Blake and I had fun!!!!

Moo!!!!! His cow tail is the cutest thing about the costume! It sticks straight up when he crawls around. Thanks to my stupid camera and the flash not working, I couldn't get any pictures of that. Thanks Melissa for letting me borrow your camera at the party! I am going camera shopping this week!!!

After the parade and school parties, we went to the local library Spooktacular. All the kids had fun doing crafts, games, snacks and stories - except Blake who was just trapped in a stroller for 3 hours. Long day...but fun for the kids. Lucky for us....no school the next day on Halloween.

On Halloween we went to our church for dinner. The kids decided they would rather do the traditional trick or treating this year versus trunk or treating at the church. Since this was my first year in 6 years not in charge of the Trunk or Treating, we decided to go with the flow.

After dinner, we went to a big carnival hosted by another church. It had a ton of jumpy things and slides, pony rides, hot dogs, funnel cakes, cotton candy and lots more. Then we went trick or treating on probably the busiest street in our town. It was fun but we'll stick to our church or neighborhood next year - more light and less people.

Look Who's One!!

This has been, by far, the fastest year of my life! Where does time go? My baby has been with us for a year now. We have enjoyed every moment of this year with him!
Blake makes being a Mom an easy job. He keeps me on my toes, but he is really good. He is generally happy and easy going.
We just adore this sweet little spirit that has been sent to us!
We had a fun birthday party with Blake. He enjoyed his cake, presents and balloon. Jamie, Madison and Tyler really enjoyed helping with the cake and presents. (And the balloon didn't even last 24 hours...they enjoyed beating it to death. Oh well.)
He thought that digging into his own cake was just hilarious! I think he ate the most out of any of our other kids. He really thought he was something!

Happy Birthday Sweet Blake!

Jamie has been taking piano lessons for over 3 years now. This is a video of her playing "Jamie's Song" written for her when she was a baby by her daddy. And then she plays some of her songs she is working on for piano lessons. She has a great piano teacher and she does a very nice recital each Spring. The first year Jamie took lessons she received a trophy for her amazing work for a first year student. I really hope she continues to enjoy it and sticks with it. I would love for her to be able to play for church. We need piano players so bad! You know we are hard pressed for players when anyone looks at me and asks if I will play the piano. This is one of the many things I wished I would have learned when I was a child. My mom tried (because she plays so well) but I resisted. Sometimes there are tears because Jamie has to practice the piano instead of going outside to play but I hope she will thank me one day! Go Jamie!

Mum Fest

We thought we would go downtown and enjoy the Mum Fest this past weekend. We started our adventure by parking at the mall and taking the trolley to downtown. We had no problem getting right on at the mall. It took us down to the Farmer's Market where we met our friends, the Millers. There were a lot of things for the kids to look at but this one was the most amazing for the kids....Coastie the Boat robot. They really couldn't get enough of him. They were so amazed that Coastie could talk and move around. They knew he was real too because he knew what color shirt Jamie was wearing and that she had on a blue "Statue of Liberty" hat. Just amazing....
Coastie told them it was okay to give him a pat on the head. Nobody wanted to touch him though. As we were walking away, Madison stuck her hand out and poked him in the eye to see what he would do. It must have not bothered him because he didn't yell!!! ha ha
Checking out the race cars. And oh, by the way, did I mention it was pouring down rain at this point? Well, it was. The race cars had a nice big tent over them so we hung out here for a while. Then we decided it was time to get out of the rain for the day.......
We got in line for the trolley and of course it took A LOT longer this time to get where we wanted to go (to a nice DRY place)....40 minutes actually. We had to lighten the mood while standing in the rain waiting so we played with Blake and Josh's hair.
Can someone, ANYONE, give us a ride to our van??? Please? Can you believe we didn't get any offers??? Oh well. The trolley did eventually show up and all 11 of us hopped on board. What a day to remember!!!