2010 In Review

I thought some of you might be interested in reading our 2010 Christmas letter. Many of you interact with us on a regular basis so you don't receive our yearly update so hopefully this will be a treat for you! I pray for health and happiness for each of you and that you will follow the link for Declan's Journey and read his story. I also pray that some of you will be moved enough to make a donation to a Pediatric Cancer fund and to pass his story on to your friends and family.

Love,
Erin

Dear Friends and Family,
What a year 2010 has been!! It has been non-stop here in the Spahr household. I feel like I haven’t sat down once all year! Having 4 little ones has kept me busy, but the year has been full of bright spots. Mostly small moments of playing in the basement, the backyard and eating a lot of pizza!! We are all looking forward to seeing what 2011 will bring our family and getting to venture out into the world.

Nathan turned 5 in May and started Kindergarten in August. He is really enjoying school. He loves riding the bus and buying his lunch each day. Thanks to my dad he has learned how to ride a bike (without training wheels!) and how to tie his shoes. His favorite toys are his Transformers.

Tate turned 2 in January and is quickly approaching his 3rd birthday! We’ve worked hard with him this year trying to improve both his speech and behavior. We are so proud of his accomplishments. He went from not speaking at all to using two and three word sentences. He still has trouble with pronunciation, but he’s trying really hard in speech therapy to improve. His biggest milestone was saying his own name in October!! He’s still our stubborn and independent wildman- you can depend on him to do the unexpected (like flush his brother’s toothbrush down the toilet!) but that just makes him who he is!

Lana and Jackson celebrated their first birthday in October. They have hit all of their milestones and are doing amazing. They both crawled early and learned to walk at 10 months. Lana is very outgoing and loves to play with her older brothers. She laughs hysterically when they tackle her. She also loves her dolls and is often found “talking” to them. Jackson is our shy guy. He is often scared by the physical play of his older brothers. He loves music and loves to dance and clap. He is just the sweetest little guy. He is content to sit quietly and watch the chaos around him.

I don’t have much going on outside the kids and house. I enjoy two mornings a week exercising at my local YMCA. We tackled some big home improvement projects, completely redoing the first floor bathroom and the living room/dining room/kitchen. Life is certainly crazy but I’m finding a way to be thankful for every moment. When I think about all the little ones fighting cancer it breaks my heart and I wish I could do more to raise awareness about how much still needs to be done to save them! A baby boy named Declan has changed my life and how I think about the precious moments I have with my kids. If you’d like to hear his story I’d love for you to go to www.declansjourney.com or donate in his memory at www.journey4acure.org.

TJ: I am still working for Microsoft spending most of my time with government customers, and mainly the USDA again this year. Six business trips in 2010 did have me away from the family throughout the year. I worry about them while I am away and I honestly don’t know how Erin does it on her own. I am very lucky to have such great kids and a super-mom wife to get us all through it.

Merry Christmas!! We hope that your journey this year will bring each of you much joy and happiness!!!

Tis the Season!

I know. I know. I'm behind again. Life is just soooo crazy busy for us!! We seem to move from one busy day to the next with no break from the craziness. Since it's the Christmas Season we did want to wish each and every one of you a VERY Merry Christmas!! May God Bless You and all those you love!!

Happy 1st Birthday Lana and Jackson!

It's so hard to believe that it's been a whole year since you were born. We've had quite the year to say the least. I'm so proud of all the things you've accomplished and am looking forward to all of the adventures we'll have together in the future. We love you very much!!!

First Day of Kindergarten

With 4 little kids you can imagine that we've had a very busy summer and start to the fall season. We had a huge milestone in our house recently. Nathan started Kindergarten. So far he's really enjoying school. He likes riding the school bus and buying his lunch. Enjoy a picture from his first day of school.

Jackson's 3 B's

Jackson's three favorite things in the whole world happen to begin with the letter "B." He LOVES his Binky, his Blanket, and his Bottle. Enjoy the picture of him hanging out with his three favorite things!

Lana is Growing Up!

Lana is one determined little lady. She is definitely a lot like her big brothers. She is not content to just sit still and she wants to make sure her voice is heard in this crazy house!

She started saying "Dad-Da" the other week and she says it as loud as she can constantly. You can hear "da-da-da-da-da-da" no matter where she is in the house or where you are. She has also learned how to sit up by herself and she has started crawling. There won't be any stopping her now! As you can probably see from the picture, she has also gotten her first two teeth. She has discovered that it's very funny to chew on some poor unsuspecting person's hand when they're holding her! They are usually quite surprised when she BITES their hand instead of just sucking on it.

She is definitely a cutie pie!

Summer Haircuts

For the past couple of years TJ has given Nathan a buzz during Memorial Day weekend. This year we decided that Tate had enough hair to get one too.
It's a great summer haircut! It makes life so much easier in several different ways. First, it helps with bed-head in the mornings, bath time at night (because there is less hair to rinse shampoo out of). Second, because their hair tends to grow fast we take them for haircuts every 4 weeks when they don't have buzzes. Giving them a buzz cuts at home eliminates all those trips to the Hair Cuttery and helps our monthly budget. Since my kids tend to spend the summer in our backyard and camping it also makes it a lot easier to search their hair for ticks and keeps their hair from looking too dirty when they've gotten hot and sweaty.

Nathan still isn't a big fan of the clippers, but he puts up with it because he likes having his hair short during the hot summer months. Tate was very excited about getting his haircut by Daddy and happily went first when Nathan refused to. He laughed and smiled through the whole haircut and was amazed by how his head felt when TJ was done. He looked so strange to me the first couple of days after his haircut but now that I've gotten used to I think it really looks good on him.

The Graduate

We have an official preschool graduate in our house. Nathan graduated from Good Shepherd Preschool yesterday during a really cute ceremony at the school. The kids had a nice program singing some of their favorite songs from the school year, including "You Are My Sunshine," "Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee," "Skidamarink" and "God Bless America." At the end of the program each child was recognized individually and given their diploma.

Nathan was especially excited because not only did TJ and I attend the ceremony, but my mom and sister also attended.

The school has been a wonderful place for Nathan. He has had some amazing teachers and made great friends. It has also been a great place for him to prepare for Kindergarten. I am confident that when he heads to school in the fall he will be completely ready.

Nathan's Thoughts on Preschool: Ms. Karen and Ms. Stef were good teachers. I learned a lot. I will miss you this week. I am going to Kindergarten next fall. I liked preschool. I liked the blocks with the tractor set. I learned stuff. I learned how to write letters. It was fun. My friends were Tanner and James. My favorite letter to learn was "F" because "fish" starts with "F." My favorite part of graduation was "You Are My Sunshine."

Happy Mother's Day!

Of course this wasn't my first Mother's Day, but in many respects it felt like my very first Mother's Day. They last six month's have certainly felt like a trial by fire, so being able to celebrate Mother's Day right after the twins turned six month's old felt very appropriate.

Mother's Day weekend started with a Mother's Day Tea at Nathan's preschool. It just so sweet having him pull out my chair and serve me. He had also made flowers out of tracing of his hands, a poem with his handprints and a shadow picture of his profile. I loved being able to spend a little one-on-one time with him.

On Sunday we attended church in the morning as usual and then going to my parents house for lunch. Nathan loved the Monkey Bread we had at his Mother's Day Tea so much that he wanted to make it for dessert for our Mother's Day dinner. Nathan, Tate and I had a lot of fun rolling the pieces of dough in a mixture of cinnamon and sugar and literally throwing them into the cake pan. It's such a simple thing to make and such a big hit with kids!

Baths in the Big Tub!

The babies have officially graduated from the infant tub to the big tub! They love their bath chairs because the chairs enable them to safely splash and play. They have also discovered that bathtime is much more fun when you have someone to play with. They are just so cute! Enjoy the pictures from their first bath together.

Seven Months Old!

Lana and Jackson are seven months old now. They have gotten so big in the last couple of months. At their six month check-up they were both over 17 pounds!

They love their solid foods. I'm really astounded they have both liked everything that they've tried. For breakfast they have oatmeal mixed with a fruit, and for lunch and dinner they typically split a container of fruit and two containers of vegetables. But by far their favorite food are these little baby rice cakes made by Baby Mum Mum. They each can eat two of them at every meal! They are also learning how to hold sippy cups with handles and enjoying a small amount of fruit juice mixed with a larger amount of water.

They're also on a pretty consistent schedule. At night they will both sleep about 12 hours, going to bed around 7:30pm and waking around 7am or a little later. Lana almost always sleeps through the night, while Jackson will occasionally wake up looking for his pacifier. Once he has found it he quickly goes back to sleep. I consider myself very lucky to have two good sleepers. Nathan and Tate didn't sleep through the night consistently until after their first birthdays. Both twins are also taking consistent 2 hour naps during Tate's afternoon nap. Nathan and I LOVE the quiet time this provides.

Lana has even gotten her first two teeth! She loves to show them off! They are both very mobile. They roll everywhere they want to go. Lana is also getting up on her hands and knees and trying to crawl. I suspect it won't be long before they are both crawling, sitting up on their own and pulling themselves up to stand.

An Interview with Nathan

Q: What do you want to be when you grow up?
A: A fisherman and a hunterman.
Mommy: "Those aren't jobs. What job do you want to have?"
Nathan: "I want to read meters for a job."

Q: What's your favorite thing about preschool?
A: Going outside in nice weather and playing blocks inside.

Q: What are you looking forward to most about Kindergarten?
A: Going to a school named Deer Crossing (see his original answer to the first question to understand why this is so exciting to him!)

Q: What's your favorite thing about having brothers and a sister?
A: I never had a sister before. I like to play Transformers with Tate and playing Dinosaurs with all of them.

Q: What is your least favorite thing about having siblings?
A: When they knock things over that I build.

Q: What are your favorite...
Food: Fish
TV Show: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
Movie: Wall-E
Toy: Wall-E
Drink: Chocolate Milk

Q: What other things do you like?
A: I like Spongebob. I like to play games that Tate can't play.

Q: What are you looking forward to the most this summer?
A: Warm weather outside

Q: What do you want to be doing when you're....
10 years old? A. Hockey
15 years old? A. Playing Soccer
20 years old? I don't want to go where grown-ups go to school (college) after Big Boy School (high school). I want to get a work job.

Tate Talks!

I've written before about how little Tate talks. He's still pretty far behind a typical 28 month old, but he has really started to add new words to his vocabulary. He is still only saying one word at a time, and he doesn't say his name either, but nonetheless we're excited about the progress he's making. Although we're still waiting for him to use action words and words that express his feelings, he does a good job of telling us what he needs and wants. He is still making up words, which can make it difficult to figure out what he's trying to tell us, but overall we're excited to finally see him making progress. He's been saying basic words like ball, brother, boat, hat, fire and hot for awhile now. By far his favorite word is "eat." The child eats me out of house and home! We're really hoping that he continues to make steady progress because his increased vocabulary has really cut down on the number of temper tantrums he throws and helped him to not be so moody, frustrated and whiny.

His new words are:
Pizza
Trash
Tractor
Sticker
Tigger (his favorite show right now is My Friends Tigger and Pooh)
Key
Cheese
Juice
Scissors
Eye

Some of his made-up words are:
Gig-e-ya: we still don't know what this is
Guy-ya: represents anything liquid or the color blue. For example: water, juice, milk, rain, lake, river, etc.
Ga: Pap
Bab-O: Baby or Babies (specifically the twins)
Bee-boo: Binky
Bay-boo: Bottle
Gi-Gi: Basement

Happy 5th Birthday Nathan!

I really can't believe that my little boy is five years old already. He has really fallen in love with Snoopy in the last year and wanted to have a Snoopy themed party. He had one party of our large extended family and one party for all of his little playdate friends. He loved both parties and really enjoyed all of the wonderful gifts that he got.

Here are a few pictures from both parties.

Happy Easter!

We had a blast Easter weekend doing all of our traditional Easter activities. This Easter was particularly special because it was Lana and Jackson's first. As a bonus we had gorgeous weather that weekend too!
Easter weekend for us is always filled with fun activites. One of our favorite activities is to dye easter eggs with my parents and my sister. The kids love making colorful eggs, but I think it's always Laurie and I that have the most fun. We also attend the Easter Egg Hunt at our church. The kids especially love the Magic Show performed by a christian magician (although the adults are getting a little tired of his tricks since he never seems to change his act very much from year to year. LOL!)

Easter morning at our house always starts with a hunt for easter baskets hidden by the Easter Bunny. It's getting harder and harder for the "Easter Bunny" to find creative places to hide their baskets, especially because he has to hide 4 baskets now!

Of course Easter to about more than the Easter Bunny, Easter Eggs and Easter Bunnies so we celebrate Christ and everything that he means to our lives at our morning church services.

After church we went back to Nonny and Pap's house because the Easter Bunny had hidden some eggs there and the kids had Easter Baskets from my parents and from my sister. Then we headed over to Nan's house for dinner with the Higgins family. Nathan and Tate especially loved being able to play with Fred, Wyatt and Patrick all afternoon. Lana and Jackson loved all of the attention that they got.

TJ missed most of the day because his mom was sick, but the kids and I reallyenjoyed every minute of the day.

Time Flies!

A friend of mine asked me at the end of April when I had made my last blog post. I replied "at the beginning of the month." But I quickly realized that my last blog post was at the beginning of MARCH, not April. It was rather shocking to me that it had been almost two months since my last post. It certainly didn't feel like that much time had gone by.

We've been quite the busy bees. I'll try to catch up in the next couple of weeks.

A Day in My Crazy Life!

If you want to know what my day is like, just check out these pictures. I made the mistake of joking to all my Facebook friends that I was going to carry my camera around with me all day and take pictures. For some reason they thought that would be a really great idea and couldn't wait to see the results. Well, I decided the share the results with all my blogger friends too. This is it, this is my day in a nutshell. You know I like to keep things real, so feel free to laugh! Sometimes that's all I can do!

Catching Tate in the sink trying to brush his teeth and running to get my camera so that I could capture it on "film" is what inspired me to spend the rest of the day documenting my crazy life!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2050921&id=1046651177&l=cd6b01a8da


p.s. I've changed some of the settings on my Blogger account. ANYONE can now leave a comment or a message on my blog. You do not have to have a Google account. Please, if you are reading my blog let me know. I'd love to hear from all of you and get your feedback.

This blog started as a way to keep my out of town family up to date on my kids, but it quickly turned into a personal journal about my life, my struggles, my journey, and my great triumphs. But even though I write for myself, I'd still like to know someone other than me is enjoying it.

This is also my version of a scrapbook. My pictures and my story are here for me to look back on and remember. One day I'm going to transfer all this wonderful information to a "real" scrapbook. But until then, I have my blog.

Kindergarten Registration

On Monday I took Nathan to register for Kindergarten. My how 5 years have just flown by! He was so excited to go see his "big boy" school! We even met his best friend Hannah there so that they could register together. They are so excited to be going to the same school in the fall. They are hoping to be in the same class. I know they are both looking forward to riding the school bus and Nathan is looking forward to buying his lunch at school.

I have to admit that I'm just as excited about him going to Kindergarten as he is. I will miss him so much during the day, but at the same time it will be a relief to only have 3 kids at home. Tate will be almost 3 by then and the twins will turn 1 about two months after school starts. It will also be nice to not have to worry about driving back and forth to preschool three times a week with the other three kids in tow.

He's always been my little buddy, my partner in crime, the only kid I can have a conversation with during the day, and my little helper around the house. I'm going to miss him. But I'm so proud of the good boy he is and I can't wait to see what God has in store for his life. I think he's going to do great things! I just sometimes wish he didn't have to grow up to do them.

The Mommy Revolution! No More Faking It!

Most of you probably realize that I am pretty real on my blog. I try to give you a pretty good idea of what's going on around here. This is as real as it gets. I'm not perfect and I'm willing to admit it. I don't have it all together. I barely survive each day but I wouldn't trade my stay at home life for any other but sometimes I get frustrated because I can't do it all.

If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm done faking it! I've been inspired by one of my blogger "friends" to prove it! So, here it goes.

This is what my house really looks like! I admit it. I can't keep up with it. I have four kids and only two hands. We also have 6 people living in a 3 bedroom house. There is just not enough room for everyone's stuff. There are only so many hours in the day. I feel accomplished if I've managed to keep my kids fed, out of trouble, and clean everyday! We even try to throw in some book reading and some preschool homework! If I'm lucky I get most of it cleaned up on the weekends when my husband is home from work and can occupy the kids while I tackle the house. That's *IF* I'm lucky!

Yummy In My Belly!

The twins were able to start eating cereal last week. We started with rice cereal mixed with their formula. They were so excited at first to try something new, but they quickly realized that they really didn't like it.

They were so cute. I would give one a spoonful and then the other. When it wasn't their turn they would get so excited. Smiling and kicking their little legs. Then when they got their next spoonful they would realize that they don't like it! Bite after bite was the same. Excitement followed by disappointment! It was just too cute.

After a week of cereal, they are slowly starting to like it more. SLOWLY! It has also helped improve our day around here. They have started sleeping more during the afternoons after lunch. Often falling asleep at the same time that our 2 year old is napping. It's so nice to have a quiet hour or so in the day.

Tate Turns 2!!

Wow! Has it really been two years already? Our little guy celebrated his second birthday on Sunday, January 31st. His "real" birthday was the same day, so he felt extra special being able to have his birthday party on his actual birthday!

Our original plans were for a birthday party on Saturday the 3oth, but we were snowed out! It started snowing that morning and by lunch time it was obvious that no one was going to be able to make it to our house for the party because of the snow. The poor little guy was so disappointed.

Luckily I had a toy Firehouse in my car that I was going to take back to the store because we had decided to get him his own Leapster for his birthday, so we wrapped up the Firehouse and gave it to him to open. It really helped the little guy cheer up. Nathan, Daddy and Tate spent the rest of the day pretending to be firemen: driving the firetruck, putting out fires and sliding down the firemen's pole.

It worked out so that we could have his party the next day. Almost everyone was able to make the party on the new day. We were only missing TJ's brother, his wife and our nephew.

Tate loves dinosaurs, so of course we had a dinosaur themed party! He got lots of wonderful gifts, had a blast playing with all his "cousins," and loved blowing out his candles and eating birthday cake.

The only downside to the whole day was that our poor little Lana had an infected ingrown hair at the back of her head. As the day went on, it continued to swell, eventually becoming about the size of a golf ball. TJ, Lana and I left the party a little early to take her to Urgent Care to have it taken care of. She was feeling much better by the time we got home. My parents stayed for the boys after the birthday party until we got home, which made the kids very happy because Pap got to help them play with all Tate's new toys.

I still can't believe he's 2!!!