Christmas 2011

We are heading into Day 4 of Christmas 2011 and what a Christmas it has been. At 11 and 9 Peter and Molly just about believe in Santa still and even if they do have an inkling about what happens they still have that belief in the magic of Christmas. The three little ones have spent the last 4 weeks in a flurry of Christmas preparation at school, home and church so they were pumped up by Christmas Eve. It was truly the BEST Christmas ever - the kids are old enough to appreciate things other than the presents but still get incredibly excited about their presents - the big and the small ones. As a Mom I couldn't take my eyes off of my children - the smiles, the hugs, the incredible joy that came with each new Christmas surprise.

Ellie loved her hat and flower but refused to pose for a picture!

Two of my favorite guys!

Abby and Uncle Bob having some fun before dinner!

Papa and his girls!

Our 2 Peters!

Annie and Katie - BFF's

Silly girls - these two have spent 3 full days together and they cannot get enough of each other.

Auntie Renee and Grammy hanging out on Christmas Eve.

Auntie Karla cooked all day and made an incredible meal!

The kids watching "Santa Tracker" to find out how close he was!

The kids made these adorable little name cards.

The kids table - it actually turned out to be the quiet table!

The raucous adult table! Karla made three lasagnas, fresh salad and bread - it was delicious!

Papa and the kids goofing around.

Goofy faces!

Buggy looking gorgeous in her Christmas dress!

I LOVE this picture of Peter and Ellie! They actually look alike a little bit in this picture!

Ellie Bean finally letting me take a picture of her! Her happy dance, special rendition of Jingle Bells and gorgeous smile made Christmas amazing!

Lizzie posing with one of Katie's babies!

My firstborn child - Peter looks like a teenager lately and now that Grammy and Papa got him an Ipod Touch for Christmas he is also acting like a teenager. He still indulges me in some snuggles and quiet conversation and I treasure that as I realize how soon it will be that I am not his primary source of support and fun!

Buggy dancing for Papa.

Katie fed herself dinner and then moved onto her cat.

Daddy and his girl!

Annie loves to style Uncle Ed's beard!

Grandma getting tickles and smiles from the girls.

Happy Birthday to Jesus!

My beautiful girl loved the cupcakes - she had three!

Ammie Bananie - making a silly face!

Nana and Papa Rucci - one of the best parts of Christmas Eve is getting to hang out with them! The kids adore them!

Bob and his Mom!

We left Karla and Pat's house at around 9 and got the kids home and in bed before ten. They were excited for Santa but so tired that they fell into bed and we were able to finish all of our wrapping and setting up! Auntie Renee stayed with us on Christmas Eve night so she helped out and was so exicted to wake up and see the kids open all of their presents!

The stockings are all ready for the kids to start on when they wake up!

We tried to keep Christmas simple but there were alot of presents!

Lizzie was groggy but the first one to wake up!

Molly had to wait a good thirty minutes before she could start on her stockings.

Annie found this present the second she walked into the room and could not keep her hands off of it - she desperately wanted to see what was in it!

Annie was VERY excited when she opened her American Girl Doll.

Lizzie Bug

Ellie would not put down her Elmo lotion to open presents.

The tag on Annie's gift - I love how she writes and know it won't last long.

Molly loves her books!

This was one of Lizzie's favorite presents - a dust mop, broom and apron.

Bob loved his Daddy mug with the kids pictures on it!

Playing with their gifts!

My beautiful girl loves her puzzles.

Auntie really liked all the stuff we put in her stocking - the kids helped me fill it up.

Daddy and Peter

We took some time to have breakfast and clean up a little and then we headed over to Grammy and Papa's house for brunch and more presents. Poor Katie got sick during the night and so Pat and Karla were not able to go to Vicki's house so we got to spend the entire day with them. Katie even started feeling better by the afternoon so it was wonderful!

My girl.

Making a heart for Mommy!

Lizzie dancing for Papa.

Ellie Bean looking beautiful in her purple dress from Grammy.

The girls LOVED the Dora book that Grammy and papa recorded for them. Now they can listen to Grammy and Papa tell them a story anytime they want.

Kk stopped over in the morning and took some cute pictures with her godson!

Ellie Bean loves her KK!

Papa always has a full lap!

My gorgeous goddaughter!

Abby and Molly love spending time together! They are such good friends.

Peter with his favorite gift - his Ipod Touch from Grammy and Papa.

Annie and Papa opening some presents.

Ellie loved this very loud toy!

Auntie LuAnn stopped over to say Hi and was great to see her. She is here from Las Vegas for a week and so we are having a Harding Christmas tomorrow night - I can't wait to see everyone again!

Katie and Annie loved their ballerina music boxes from Grammy and Papa.

Katie is finally starting to feel a bit better.

Abby loved her Justice outfit.

Lip gloss is always a hit!

The girls loved playing together with all of their Christmas presents.

Uncle Ed left for Utah the day after Christmas so he got there late!

Uncle Ed and all of his nieces and nephews! They were all very uncooperative!

Loving on Ed before he leaves!

Annie Bananie

Lizzie is out cold on the way up to Auntie Kate's house to see everyone else!

Uncle Ed and Peter

Uncle Ed gave Katie this Lion so she won't forget him while he is gone!

The dinner table - nothing like a full table on Christmas!

Anny's favorite - dessert!

My beauty enjoying some dessert!

Molly and Lila

Molly loved her gift from Auntie Meg.

Auntie Meg got Lizzie an electronic candy machine - she hates us!

Peter in his Red Sox hat - he loved it!

Lila opening her presents!

KK and Ellie snuggling!

Auntie Beth and her goddaughter! Such pretty girls!

Annie had to get in on the pictures too -she adores her auntie!

Love this picture of Auntie Beth, Grammy and Molly girl!

Auntie Meg and Mommy - Mommy is trying to get on the Auntie Meg's FB profile pic.

Molly wants in on the action!

Auntie Beth and Bob!

I still have pictures from the Mack Christmas but I am exhausted and ready for bed! We have had an amazing Christmas season filled with family, friends and love! We are so blessed!

GNM - ILY!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Now that I don't keep the blog for the babies I have less time to talk about them - one of my favorite pastimes. Auntie Beth is coming home in a few days but I am still trying to keep up with pictures so she doesn't miss anything and my Harding - Wheeler fan club has now begun issuing requests for more twin updates! So here we go! Brendan is a ham - he loves the camera and putting on a show. I stopped over for a while the other day and Brendan grabbed his giant candy cane and started dancing, playing and hamming it up for Auntie! I LOVED every single minute of it! I was one lucky auntie this day - hugs, kisses, and snuggles galore from the moment I walked in the door!

Those big blue eyes are going to get this little guy anything he wants!

Miss Lila is not so fond of Auntie's camera obsession - she humors me but only when she is good and ready and if I push too hard I end up with lots of pictures of the back of her head! Here she is with a Dunkin Donuts munchkin - yep, I bribe them for my affection if I have to! As against picture taking as Lady Li is she is as affectionate and loving as a baby can get. She plays then lays her head in my lap for a minute then plays and then comes back for a hug - warms this aunties heart!

"I need more donuts, Auntie!"

Little Angel! Love her tiny little teeth!

My favorite Brendan look!

Once she was dressed Lila wanted only to run!

Pretty Lila smiles!

Laughing at Auntie making ridiculous faces! How cute are these two!

Now to the title of the post! My beautiful daughter has really taken an interest in recycling and tends to be our conscience when it comes to all things green! This year we decided to suspend use of wasteful products like aluminum foil, plastic baggies, sandwich bags and non-bio-degradeable trash bags. We also traded in some of our non-green products that use chemicals that are not safe for the environment because of Molly's research. The kids have now completed an estimated 76 days of school and thanks to our new lunchboxes and our no plastic rules we have saved over 1000 plastic baggies - Molly's goal! We have also decided that our cleaning supplies which we make ourselves are better that the old ones and with a little effort we are able to even do the bathrooms now! The one thing I was reluctant to give up - paper plates - is on Molly's list to go on January 1st! Ugggg! The moral of the story is that one inspired kid can change even this stubborn moms ways with the right information and enough passion! What a kid!

I also had teacher conferences this week and, although, it's a lot of business and less fun stuff in the older grades I am so proud of my kids. Both of the big kids got medals last month for high achievement on the CMT's - it was amazing since both of them felt as though they didn't do as well as they could have. Obviously, they both did an excellent job and Noah Webster (not that I'm bragging but...) was the top elementary school in the entire district for CMT scores! Peter and Molly both had excellent teacher conference reports - Pete needs some work in math and Molly could use some as well and that was the only caveat to their incredibly positive reports. They both do exceptionally well in reading and language arts. Molly and Peter both do terrific with their instruments (Maybe some musicians in our future despite Bob and my complete lack of talent) and excellent in science.  Yes, you heard right - excellent in my beloved science class! Since I was the bozo who got an almost perfect score on my English section of the SAT's but barely got into college because my Math score was so low I figure there may be some tutoring in our future! Either way both teachers stressed to me how kind, respectful and polite my children are and as any parent knows that is such a compliment and so important! It is nice to know that they do it outside of our house when there is no one watching! I also (big gasp) had my first conference for Annie since she started school. Mrs. Careiro and I can gab for hours so we tried very hard to stay focused and I think its safe to say that Ann is thriving in school. She is a little quiet (especially considering the H-W who came before her) but social, polite, kind and a little sponge! She is right on target for kindergarten despite being on the younger side and Mrs. Careiro just adores her! Annie's best friends are Kasey, Molly, Gavin and Shiney. She loves going to school but still really misses going to Grammy and Papa's house on Mondays! Luckily Papa and Grammy spend lots of time with Annie other times so we generally get her to school on Mondays with just a few tears!

Next week is Christmas and Auntie LuAnn is coming back from Las Vegas for a few days and the Russells from San Diego are coming home for a few days - we can't wait for Santa and all of our family to get to CT!

GNM - ILY!

Being different!

Every once in a while having a family that is a little bit different can be hard for our kids. The little ones still don't notice it but Peter and Molly have certainly realized that we don't look like a traditional family and people aren't always kind when they don't understand. We went to Middletown yesterday for a day of fun on Main Street - Santa, sleigh rides, holiday trains and other fun. We all had alot of fun but Peter was a bit reserved on the way home and later in the day Molly and he finally confided in me that two things had made them uncomfortable while we were out. The first was when a very nice older lady who knows our family asked which of our children were adopted and which were our "real" children. I have gotten used to this question - specifically with the older generation so I quickly said "All of the kids our our "real" children and Peter, Molly and Ellie are all adopted." My theory is that we want to make sure the kids understand that we are a family through and through and they are all our "real" children but we also don't want to dismiss questions of adoption because that is also something very special about our family. It upset Molly that the woman did not seem sorry about making such an uncomfortable statement and we talked about how that is part of our job as a famliy - not to judge people for not knowing any better than to make that staement but to help them understand so they hopefully don't make the same mistake with other people. The second issue came up while we were in line for the sleigh rides and another older lady who does not know us was trying to figure out who Peter's mother was to ask if she could give him candy. He repeatedly pointed to Bob and I and the lady did not understand because we were a different color than Peter. He finally brought her over and she the understood that she had been looking for a set of black parents out of habit. This infuriated Peter because it happens quite a bit when we are at places where people don't know us. We had a nice talk about how Peter might handle the situation next time - possibly with a bit of humor and Molly acknowledged how hard it must be sometimes to be different from most of your family. We talked about how special our family is and how important it is to always remember that families are created by God and his vision is perfect in every way. Molly ended the conversation perfectly when she said "God brings children together with the parents they are meant to have - that's why we all fit perfectly into Mama's arms no matter how big or small we are!" I feel very blessed that the kids and I have an open relationship and we can talk about things that are uncomfortable or upsetting - I hope that they continue to come to Bob and I for guidance as they grow! Being a kid is not easy but we are raising some pretty incredible kids - Yes, its my blog and I get to brag!

Lizzie with her cookie monster backpack - she loves to pretend that she is going to school with Ellie!

My big girls ready for school!

Lizzie and I headed out to a playgroup with my two cousins - it was so much fun to see them and spend some time catching up!

My girl is loving going to school. She had a great first week. Miss Newman said she is wonderful - fits right in with the class and follows along with her classmates! She comes home exhausted and ready for a nap but energized but what she is learning.

Ready for some decorating of the tree!

Our five beautiful kids in front of our adorable Christmas Tree!

Everyone snuggled up! We were trying to get a Christmas card picture but it didn't really work out!

Elizabeth is all snuggled up in he giant stocking.

Molly looked like such a teenager to me - it was freezing in Middletown.

First stop - donuts at Park and Rec so Daddy can introduce the kids to everyone.

Next stop - Papa's office! He didn't know we were coming and left! We were not happy!

Molly loves the chocolate sign - my little goofball!

Santa came to hand out candy canes!

As you can see, some of the kids were more impressed with Santa than the others. Annie was thrilled but poor Lizzie was scared out of her mind! It was kind of comical!

My beautiful Bean!

Molly Girl - she was a trooper with just a sweatshirt on!

Annie Bananie loved the whole event! She is just like her Mama - she doesn't like to miss anything!

Mr. Grump -a-lump!

Buggy fell and would not leave Daddy's side!

On the sleigh ride going down Main Street in Middletwon - doesn't get better than this for Annie!

Annie could have stayed on the ride forever - she loved the horses and got her Daddy to agree to take her horseback riding when it gets warmer!

The kids with Danny and Star - the beautiful horses that we so friendly!

We had a great day in Middletown - they do the coolest things there! CHC is sponsoring Midnight on Main Street on New Year's Eve and we can't wait to go with Auntie Ann and Sister Anne! Amato's Toy Store on Main Street has the coolest holiday train display I have ever seen - if you are in the area you should stop in and see it! We are hard at work helping the elves get ready for Santa and we have five firm believers in this house - probably the last year for that!

GNM - ILY!