Christmas Morning

Christmas morning was sooooo much fun.

The hit of the morning was definitely the drum set.

Other highlights included: A Hot Wheels slot car track, Dora dolls, a magic set, aprons, shopping carts, Connect 4, ocean animal sets, and more.

After more family parties and gatherings, I can officially say we are done with Christmas.

**Side note for those that read (and here's a little hint if this particular family does)...we have ONE Christmas present left and it's for our good friends the Worthy Family. And....it promises to be awesome!

Mt. Spo.kane Tubing

While family was in town, decided to do a little tubing. It was sooooo much fun (aside from the part where I hit a wall of ice and sprained my ankle).

Christmas 2011

Yay for Christmas! Dan and I both agree this is our favorite Christmas yet. The kids are old enough to both understand and enjoy everything. We happened to find the gifts they wanted for a price WE wanted and it all fell together wonderfully.

Here are some pictures from the beginning of this glorious season:


Our first family celebration was with my parents and both of my brothers and all our families:

All the girl cousins got dolls with little chairs and afghans:

Annual cousin in Christmas jammies picture:

Greatma made all the kids capes each with their monogrammed letter. Adorable!

Nevus Update 2011

Every December we have Joshua's nevus check-up appointment. Because he's been growing out his hair we convinced him to get it shaved short (required to have better ability to see the nevus) by giving him a mohwak!



The nevus appointment went really really well. The nevus remains normal and consistent with his growth. This appointment was the first time I've ever heard the doctor say that I shouldn't remove it. The doctor's generally list the pros and cons and tell me to decide for myself. This is gut-wrenching and always leaves me stressed out, but this time he gave me a solid answer and for that, I am so thankful!

Joshua does have some swollen lymph nodes/glands in his neck and armpits which SHOULD be related to cold/flu season, but we do have a follow-up appointment with the pediatrician to confirm this. I will be relieved to just have that section closed.

We did switch to a July appointment, so we'll have a brief follow-up in July and then switch to yearly appointments in July so that we don't have to attempt the pass not only at Christmas time, but also in the dead of winter.

But overall....GREAT APPOINTMENT!!!!

**Also, while in Seattle we spent the day at the Paci.fic Sci.ence Cent.er. The kids had a blast. Here are some of our finer moments:

Ugly Sweater 2011

Every year we do an ugly sweater party. As our children have grown, the participants have changed, but it's always great fun.

Here are a few great shots of all the kids and adults:

Posing

A moment strikes, and what is a girl to do? Apparently a girl poses. And it only gets better.

A Moment

Sometimes you look at your kiddo at just the right time and you get to SEE that MOMENT. It's amazing. It's the greatest gift ever. It could be learning a new skill. It could be hearing something funny. But seeing that moment is magical.

This time I happened to see Katie gazing at the tree. She was looking with such wonder that my heart melted. Her pure joy in the lights was something I'll never forget. Seeing her feel that joy was magical.

I didn't catch that particular moment, but here are some of the following moments:

Christmas Party #1

Our first Christmas party of the season is typically Dan's military party. It is one of my favorite of our usual Christmas parties. The party is in a massive airplane hanger, Santa flies in on a KC-135, it's awesome. The kids were happy to sit on Santa's lap and for the first time, NO TEARS! Hooray! There was rock-climbing, bouncy houses, a cake walk, Bingo and more. The kids won tons and tons of prizes and presents and it was just a great gathering of people!

PLUS, we got some great Christmas pictures.

The Domrese Family 2011 in a KC-135

The kids in an engine intake:

The kids with Santa (our first Santa picture of the season):

Happy Thanksgiving 2011

Thanksgiving was once again at the Domrese. It was great! The kids played, the adults chatted, and good food was abundant. Did you think you'd get pictures of the children? Oops! We were so busy cooking and cleaning, we neglected to do that! But I DID get these pictures:

We made a "gourd"geous (Get it? Gorgeous?) turkey out of a butternut squash, some grapes, cheese, and a little pepper. The kids had a great time, and then ate it at dinner time.

I made mini-sugar-free apple pies. They turned out really cute!

My Two Favorite Katie's

We took a day off of school and went down to Endicott (where I use to teach). I've taken the kids down a few times each year since I've quit teaching. I love the people there, I love to see my old students, the environment, it's just a lot of fun.

The kids enjoyed eating lunch with the big kids, recess, buddy reading time, and just playing in the classroom. I enjoyed chatting with my friends!

Our Katie was named after my good friend Katie. My friend Katie is an amazing person. I've never met anyone like her. She is so positive, so compassionate and caring, and just an all-around great person. And it seems she and my Katie are a good match. :) My Katie does not go to people easily, but can go to Katie easily. Maybe it's the name? Either way, I love to take pictures often so that Katie grows up and knows the person she is named after.

The First Snow of the Season

It snowed! Hey, maybe it was only a couple inches, but it snowed! Enough to put the kids in snow clothes and send them outside. By themselves, can you believe it? I've never had kids old enough to send outside without them getting stuck, falling on their face, etc. Of course, pictures were necessary, so I had to bundle up and head out as well.

The Greatma Wall of Fun

We love playing at greatma's house. We go out there once a week to play, visit, and have fun. I love that the kids are so close to her. Not often do you really get to know your great-grandma, and really spend time with her.

On this particular day, the kids needed some fresh air and decided to play outside. They were climnbing and jumping off the wall (not abnormal but super cute). Here's the best pictures I got.

The Wobbly Tooth

We went to the dentist in July, upon checking Thomas' teeth he announced that Thomas would be short a couple teeth the next time we visited.

On November 5th, we were sitting at Luigi's having a family dinner when it happened! Thomas bit into a piece of bread and out that tooth came! At first he was excited, then a little scared at the aspect of losing a body part then excited again!

The tooth fairy had not anticipated this happening (maybe the tooth fairy was in denial?) so she was unprepared. We had decided that each child would get a $2 bill for each tooth. Grandma Dolly would give the kids $2 bills for Easter and Christmas. It was something special she did. We thought this might be a fun way to carry on grandma Dolly's tradition and memory through the generations.

Just last week Thomas lost another tooth! While brushing his teeth! Down the drain it went. Luckily I had somewhat prepared him for the possibility that he might swallow his tooth, so this was not a huge surprise. Again, super excited. And this time the tooth fairy was more prepared!

Happy Halloween 2011

What a crazy crazy Halloween! The kids are getting to an age where it's really enjoyable, even *gasp* fun! The boys were both ninjas and the girls were a lion and a monkey. No great pictures of just them, it got too crazy and I forgot. Oops!

Trick or treating at grandma Patti and grandpa Bob's house the night before:

We visited grandma Patti at work and trick or treated through her office:

On Halloween, continued our traditions. We visited greatma when she was at dinner:

We trick-or-treated at grandma Alice's and then had dinner with her:

We then went to the South Hill and really enjoyed walking up and down about  5 blocks with the children. Their buckets were full, Molly was near asleep, we left on a high note with NO CRYING CHILDREN! It's a new era for the Domrese family!