our first hair cuts!

ky & sy both got their very 1st haircuts today. auntie heather blessed 5 grubbs with new do's today! only ky & sy are featured here because it was a milestone. i've waited almost 3yrs to fill in this line in ky's baby book! here they are... before & after
we just cut off the baby hair she was born with!!!
okay. it was really just a trim. i thought about photoshopping something dramatic for her, but do i really have the time for that???

i bet nobody will ask "boy or girl?" anymore!

climbing high

grandpa joe came over to go to the park with us!

when i was pregnant with sy, the kids saw grandpa almost every week (and a few times a week when i was really sick) while i went to the ob. it's been a while and we've not made a good effort to regularly see eachother, so today was the first day of the rest of our lives. oh. today was the first of hopefully regular time together. :) we went to a new park in our area and the kids had lots of fun. grandpa got to play a couple games and also sit back and watch me play with the kids, which i don't do a lot of at parks because i'm usually busy just keeping track of 4 kids!

we had a great time and look forward to next week!

sy is cruising!

he can now make his way all the way across the couch, past the saucer, and to the bookshelf! it's really incredible because he still doesn't really crawl. he spins in a general direction on his tummy. well, i was surprised. daddy keeps saying "he wants to walk!"

definitely not from my true love, but...

sing with me! on the 10th day of the new year my true love gave to me... 3 puking kids, 2 blow out diapers, and an overflowing toilet! (there will be no pictures accompanying this post!)
it's been a fun day. i just needed to get that out. so. my washing machine is working overtime today!
my dear kiki who is the only kid not sick came and "taunted me" (singing oo, oo, oo, oo, oo to the na, na, na, na, na we're working on not hearing in our house) while i was cleaning up the full 2 inches of water from the bathroom floor. i came out to speak with him and asked why he might need discipline. "idk". i thought i'd guide him to the answer - which he really didn't know because he wasn't really taunting me. "what was mommy doing?" - "cleaning the bathroom" - "what did you do wrong?" - "i went pee pee" - ok. nevermind.
then there's jojo. he wanted french toast for breakfast. we didn't have enough eggs. i said we'd go to the drive-thru dairy when sy woke up from nap and have french toast for lunch. (ky had only thrown up once at this point and it seemed like we'd be able to manage a 10-minute car ride). ky went down before sy woke up. so we had to wait for her too. when she was stirring i loaded up sy and jojo got in the car. kiki said he needed to run back to go potty (you already know what happened there). i came back in to get ky to put her in the car, but had just stepped into the house when i heard jojo yell from the car. i ran back and saw he was going to be sick. i got him out of the car just in time - only the driveway and the neighbors lawn were offended. then kiki came yelling at the front door with only a shirt on, "mom help! my shorts got a little wet when the toilet overflowed!" WHAT?! i ran inside. sure enough, water's still running... i shut off the water. grabbed every towel i owned which had not yet been used to clean up other fun things and threw them down to try to avoid ruining our carpet and vanity. ran back outside to retrieve poor sy (who's been strapped into his seat the whole time) and tell jojo to come in. whew! i told jojo that french toast just wasn't going to happen today. BUT he looked so sad and asked really nicely, so...
once things were back together and a load of towels started in the washer, i loaded the kids in the car to retrieve some eggs from the drive-thru dairy. i stopped momentarily to wash off the driveway and dilute our contribution to our neighbors' lawn at which point i also hosed off my pants - unintentionally, of course. oh well - i thought - nobody at the drivethru will care if my pants are wet.
on the 2 1/2 mile drive to the dairy, ky got sick 4 or 5 times and jojo twice. i had containers for that purpose. each time i thought - what in the world am i doing!? but it didn't stop me. each time i asked jojo - do you still want frenchtoast? and just like his mother, he would not be deterred from his mission. we've been learning about perseverance, but i am not sure this was the time to stick with anything!
sy fell asleep on the way home. ky & jojo wanted to try some dry toast, which proved unsuccessful as it came back a minute later. kiki had lunch. we read "the magic school bus and the giant germ"(how appropriate) for "school" and now they're all asleep. except sy who of course woke up right about the time the others went down. after all mom was free to play now! :)

happy birthday daddy!

no more aquarium & construction fun

our aquarium passes have expired. this was our final trip. :( 4 kids on a sea turtle. what fun!

this is us on our driveway. our neighbor is doing a little construction. it is actually just a small job so we were all surprised to see this huge crane show up one afternoon. they just moved this one beam over the house. the operator had fun watching the kids enjoying his work and came over to chat with us before and after.

christmas!

we had cake at a birthday party for Jesus with our parkday friends.

here are our little ones making presents for their cousins. they worked really hard for a couple weeks on this project. 2 of the 3 boards split and had to be replaced and restarted. L but the kids had fun painting and nailing and learning about their ability to make something for someone else.

we had an amazing few days of Christmas. being with family is the highlight of the holidays for me! we had the opportunity to celebrate with my mom's (grandma jo's) side of the family... then with all our parents... then with the cousins. the kids had a blast. they were really well-behaved for 3 straight days of different people.
christmas morning the kids gathered and almost all smiled at the same time for a photo in their jammies. the pants were sewn the night before! (those elves are so last minute sometimes.) i wasn’t sure it was really worth it, but it made my day when my dad told me that my mom would have been proud. i don’t think he was referring to the procrastination, but the sewing J i’ll take it.

here’s the kids in front of the tree and fire ready to open some presents.

daddy got the family a croquet set and it got put straight to work. all the kids and daddy and grandpa joe had such fun. obviously we had great christmas day weather!

our last advent! we were so faithful to celebrate each evening this year and the kids have continued to ask if we can do advent. of course, we still do bible reading, but without the candles – which was the highlight. who’s turn is it to blow out the candles tonight?!?!

this is little sy in his “my 1st christmas” santa hat. awww. how cute!

our “big” gift this year was a keyboard! the kids have been playing non-stop and really enjoy it. it currently resides in the toy room, although there are plans to keep it in the “music room” with the drums that were the “big” gift last christmas. kiki & ky have enjoyed it most. jojo is still enjoying the drums, but seems to be so musical that he’d like any instrument. we also have a guitar that the kids play with, but it was really used more when we had someone in the house who played.