Vivianne's First Word

Vivianne turned the table on me and kinda ruined my Christmas! lol!  (not really)  The first 6 children ALL said "mama" as their first word.  All of them.  Every. Single. One.
So Jeremy said that Vivianne said "dada" and "daddy" on Christmas Eve.  I was at the store and thought he was just hearing things.  Well, on Christmas day Vivianne decided to seal the deal and full fledged just started babbling saying "dada, dada, dada" over and over again.  I literally could not believe my ears.  The betrayal.  The horror!  I was in denial and had to listen to her say it many, many times before my poor ears had had enough!  There was Jeremy grinning from ear to ear and there I was, stunned and poorly, blankly staring at the daughter that broke my streak.  Merry Freaking Christmas to me! Bah humbug!  (But, in all seriousness, Jeremy deserved it and I am happy he had one kid say "dada" first.  It really does make him ever so happy!)  #firstwordproblems

Started Yesterday, Finished Today

I don't know why but, nothing is going my way.  The whole month of December has sucked and now we're headed into the dreaded months of January and February when the depression will really set in.  So over it.  I keep telling Jeremy that we need a second house somewhere warm and sunny to escape to for three months out of the year.  It would avoid this whole problem every.single.year.  Most everyone around me is driving me insane.  It is also nearing the end/beginning of the year when I start thinking about goals, dreams, and plans of the future and thoughts of the previous year.  I always have big dreams. This year I plan on getting healthy.  Not skinny.  But, healthy. 

We are waiting to hear back from the Amish guys with a quote for the remodel of the Carthage house.  I hope they can get it done in January.  Our lease comes up in this house in July and we want our Carthage house sold by then.  Although, I have been using it for studio space and it is just perfect.  The amount of lighting is great and the size of room is perfect.  Really I could have a different set up in each room.  That would be fun.  But, can't do it in reality.  We must get that house sold. 

I think another goal this year for me is to stay away from Facebook.  I just don't think it is good for me personally.  Yes, there are good things like being able to keep in touch with people you normally wouldn't but, the question is, if you wouldn't keep in touch with them normally, why the heck are we sharing our life and watching/reading theirs?!?!  It is also depressing sometimes to see how judgmental or critical people are of others so openly on facebook.  I have done it too.  There are happy announcements too but, negative weighs them out on my feed at least.  I always catch myself comparing my life, my parenting style, my views and beliefs, my kids, my house, pretty much everything, to other people's.  It's just not good.  I want to focus on what truly makes me happy.  I want to nurture real life relationships rather than these mostly fake ones on facebook.  At the same time, it is going to be super hard to stay away from facebook.  It is like a sick drug that you just can't stop taking.  I might have to make my account dormant or something.  I will log on to load and promote photography though through my Captured by Colista page.  hmmmm, I might have to start small and say I can only log into my personal account say like, once a week or something.  Maybe once a month?  I don't know but, something needs to change.  I could go through the whole "delete half my friends list" route too.  hmmmmm....

Random Pictures (Circa: End of August 2014)

 Eden and Liam were playing dress-up-sword-fighting and Viv was enjoying the show! 

 I love this one!

 Vivi Lu is such a good little baby.  She always has smiles for everyone!  We have been comparing baby pics of Liam and her, and boy is it ever close!  She is so much fun to be around too!  

 

Eden's Minnie Mouse Dress

 She is hunting her brothers.  Barbie and bus in one hand, laser gun in the other. 

 Tip toe, tip toe! 

 She just loves dressing up!  And I love the things she comes up with! 

 How cute is that!?!?  SUPER CUTE! 

These pics were taken the day that I took Sarah and Matt's pictures.  She followed me out to the car like this!! lol! 

WTF

Well, I had my whole Christmas morning breakfast planned out.  Every year for the past three or four years now I have made an overnight Christmas casserole that we can just pop in the oven in the morning.  This year I made sure to get all the ingredients and be prepared this week so I didn't have to go to the store for anything before or just after Christmas.  Well, Vivianne had Jeremy and I both up all night.  Poor girl needs to get to the doctor today.  Anyway, I finally came upstairs with her at 5am.  I find the McDonald's burger that Tristan saved eaten, the wrapper laid out across the stove with every last little tiny sliver of onion laid out across it.  Oh great, so Tristan was up in the middle of the night again. Then I opened the fridge and found that someone(hmmm, I wonder who) had opened the package of individual orange juices that I had gotten for the kids to have on Christmas morning.  I don't usually buy them, I get a big jug because it is cheaper that way but, thought I would splurge a little for Christmas.  And now there won't be enough for everyone.  It is SO annoying.  I know, in the scheme of things, it doesn't really matter but, Tristan has been told not to do these things like a freaking thousand million times and it just NEVER sinks in.  So, I went into his room where he is sleeping and find his garbage can overflowing, crap everywhere, and there as the crowning glory, the orange juice carton, sitting majestically on top of his book shelf.  I woke him up (6am) and told him to have the room spotless like lickety split and that he had ruined my Christmas morning breakfast.  Between him and Viv this day is starting out great.  Oh perfect, she puked again.

The City of Christmas

This evening when Jeremy got home from work we decided to toss everyone into the car and head over to Keokuk to see the City of Christmas.  Vivianne screamed bloody murder the whole ride to Keokuk.  She either didn't get rid of her ear infection or has a tooth coming through.  We got to McDonald's and ordered the world's biggest drive thru order ever (probably not, but, it sure felt like it).  At this point we needed to pull over to sort food so we pulled into Walgreens.  As I am sorting food, the wound from yesterday when I snipped my finger with the scissors opened up again and was getting blood all over.  Jeremy ran inside Walgreens to grab band-aids and some Baby Oragel just in case Vivi was actually teething.  I sorted the food as best I could and we went on to the City of Christmas.  By the way, the boys were GREAT during all of this.  And so was Eden.  And Liam was super helpful with Vivi and with sorting food out. We couldn't believe that Vivianne was the source of our noise and stress, lol!  We drove through all the lights and ate our nasty McDonald's.  And yes, it really was nasty.  I think I'm gonna vomit. Ugh.  But, the kids enjoyed all the lights and there were a ton of new ones too!  We stopped at the house that has the lights timed to music and watched a couple of songs there.  Then we looked at lights all the way home.  Eden loved trying to find the lights.  Something cute....she says "liced" instead of "lights".  It is so funny!  Anyway, a good night together as a family.  One to remember. 

Nauvoo Pumpkin Walk and Kelley Family Pumpkin Day 2014

 The kids walked in the parade this year.  Well, those three did anyway!  Liam might have been in there too.  There were so many people lining the streets that I kinda lost them until the end of the parade! 

 Kevin in full Beetleguise mode.  He goes all out every year and never fails to deliver.  He always embodies the whole role and makes it awesome!  I just wish I had my tripod so I could have gotten some decent pics of him.  

 Some of the pumpkins on the walk.  It was so crowded that I literally only saw these ones at the end of the walk.  Maybe one of these days the organizers will figure out that that many people can't find in a two block sidewalk space.  It's seriously getting so ridiculous that I don't even want to go up there anymore.  

 Kelley Pumpkin Day was awesome as usual but, much more laid back and fun that usual too.  We ate, played, crafted, carved, joked, and had tons of fun! 

 Tyson brought some hair paint and all the kids got in on it.  

Heck, even I got in on it this year! 

Like Grandpa Trapp

Cullen is totally channeling my Dad today.  His new train track was broke and needed fixed.  He bent down to fix it and afterwards said: "Fixed it.  I'm a genuis!" 

Funny Froo

My Eden has my fashion sense I think! lol!  She loves to dress up but, this day she was ready to go to school like this.  We convinced her to change out of her pajamas but, the hat and glasses had to stay. 

Perfection

 These three cuties were laying on the dining room floor together one day just playing and snuggling!  I love how all of the kids love Vivianne so much!! They all adjusted to her so well and everyone looks out for her.  Almost to a fault because there is always someone in her face, lol!  This is perfection!

Look how Viv and Liam are making the same exact face!  Twinsies!  All three of them look alike actually!  wow.

Sweet Moment

This morning I snipped my finger with the end of some scissors while helping Asher set up his Beyblade Statium that he got from Trisha and Josh at Kelley Christmas last night.  A bit later Cullen came up to me and saw my finger with a band-aid on it.
Cullen: I'm sorry that happened.
Me. Yeah but, it will get better soon.
Cullen: (Gives me a Kiss on the arm)  That is for the hurting. 
Awww, he is the sweetest!  Totally made my morning. 

Beggar's Night

 Nauvoo has Beggar's Night the night before Halloween.  Sometimes I like that and sometimes I don't.  The weather was perfect, even too warm at times.  I would rather have that than the rainy, cold, weather we had last year at Halloween time though.  

So, this guy is Robin (aka, Milo).  Isn't he cute?!  I didn't really try to hard to get the kids to do decent pictures.  They were all excited to get trick or treating and sometimes you just have to catch a few pics on the fly for memories sake! 

 I'm pretty sure that Milo's fingers got shut in the front screen door.  Poor kid.  So naturally I thought: Okay, Colista, now would be the perfect time to snap a picture of him.  Smh.  

 Cullen was a Pirate Captain.  He was a freaking cute one too.  I wish I had gotten an actual picture of his face!  He wore his eye patch and everything.  

He changed his mind about 25 times before finally deciding on pirate though. 

 Liam was Harry Potter.  I love, love, love, that he got into Harry Potter.  And he made the perfect Harry too.  

 Cedric was a mafia hitman.  Or a Mafia Kingpin or something.  Cedric has a style all his own and I love it.  

 Miss Froo was witch.  She loved her costume and so did I! It was amazing.  I bought it used for $20 off of Facebook.  I'm sure it cost a ton more brand new. She rocked it though and she got lots of comments from people while we were out trick or treating! 

 This is Batman.  Chase is a bit obsessed right now, as kids tend to do, lol! He made an awesome Batman! 

Asher was a Ninja Warrior.  He embraced the role and made it look good!! He was pretty proud of his costume too.  

So, we started at Debbie and Pat's house and went down Knight and Young street and were done.  The kids had plenty and we were just done.  ha!  We had a good time.