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Everything is different when all the kids are home from school.  Thomas and Ila are the only ones not in school, so they spend their days together, but when everyone is home, Ila is glued to Charlotte’s side.  Isaac does his own thing and Thomas and Nicole end up together.  They’re the worst combination because they don’t understand each other.  Nicole has autism and doesn’t understand social rules and Thomas is too young to be able to compensate so they are regularly having mis-communications that turn into yelling and fighting.  They do enjoy each other and seek each other out to play, I just have to be nearby to facilitate.  Here they are playing with blocks together and generally having a good time.
Unfortunately, the next morning some of the kids decided to draw all over the blocks with permanent marker.  Here they are cleaning them off and quite possibly making a bigger mess than they are trying to clean up.

This was actually my first picture of the year, but I didn’t want it to be the lead picture on the post.  Ila came to me crying and showing me her hands which were very red and sore.  I tried lotions and cool water, but the only thing that soothed them was Calamine lotion.  We suspect she has some sort of allergy.  The only new thing we could think of that she encountered was some new liquid hand soap.

We celebrate our anniversary every year as the “family birthday party.” We celebrate a little differently every year, but our one consistent tradition is breaking a pinata with light sabers.  Here is a picture of the kids filling the pinata.  We filled it a few days early, which is why this picture is here and not next to the other pinata pictures.

Zach and I are in charge of the Webelos (10 year-old cub scout group).  Isaac is behind the flowers in this picture.  For someone who knew almost nothing about scouts, it’s been a learning experience for me.The bus picks up right in front of our house every morning.  I always watch until my kids get on the bus.  I took this picture because right in the middle you can see Isaac with his arm around Nicole keeping her warm.  I thought it was sweet.  I didn’t tell him to do it or even mention that I saw him out there holding her close, but I was proud of him for being thoughtful and kind.
Teaching kids to do chores is an uphill battle, but I assume at some point it will all be worth it.

Thomas was pretending that his little kitty toy was controlling that knife as he ate peanut butter with Ila. I love those brown eyes, but he’s picked up this nasty habit of chewing on his fingernails. I should probably read up on how to break someone of that habit, it’s one I’ve never encountered.

Our family birthday celebration was not very involved this year.  I felt like I was still recovering from Christmas and all the December birthdays.  Zach and I have now been married for 15 years (January 7, 2000).  Zach’s parents and sister had dinner with us and observed our tradition.

This is Zach’s cat, Sandy.  She is silly and likes to attack things.  One of her favorite things to attack is the dust that’s visible when the sun shines through the windows.  Here she is on her hind legs like a prairie dog, waiting to attack. Thomas got mad that I was taking pictures of the cat and insisted that I take pictures of him.  I took a few and then showed him.  He angrily insisted that I take a happy picture of him.  The irony was not lost on me.

With all the big kids back at school, Thomas and Ila enjoy a tea party. I was trying to capture the joy on his face as he was playing with this toy car, but he was moving around too much to get a good shot.  Trust me, he was laughing uproariously every time he drove it. The weather here has been nuts.  It was raining and Ila had to go out and be in the rain. This is one of Ila’s Christmas gifts.  It’s similar to something we had when I was a child.  Apparently Zach’s family had the same thing.  It must have been really popular for our generation. Nicole got up ridiculously early and then spent over an hour playing loudly with these bath toys in the bathroom. Nicole smuggled some bread into her bed and then slept on it all night.  It was dry and hard when I found it.  I don’t know how she slept on it, it must have been terribly uncomfortable. Nicole has also been spending a lot of time on the computer which is why there are princesses all over the computer desk.  On this particular day, Thomas and Ila were both playing the same thing on Starfall together, only I failed to capture it in a picture.Zach drove with his parents to his aunt’s funeral in Oregon.  When he came back, he gave each of the kids a giant Charleston Chew.  It probably would have been wise to cut up the candy and give them pieces, but I wanted to take pictures of them eating this enormous candy.  In the end, they basically just ate the chocolate off and I ended up throwing most of the middle away, which is fine because they didn’t really need that much sugar anyway. I’m one of the art moms for Isaac’s class.  In January, I am assigned to be the assistant, but the mom in charge had a sick kid so I was going to be on my own.  Only I had car trouble and I asked my father-in-law if he’d like to help out in the classroom instead of just being my chauffeur.  I think he really enjoyed interacting with the kids and I was glad to have him there so it ended up being a marvelous arrangement.
Nicole is very creative.  At first she created a party for all her stuffed animals, then she arranged them like this and told me she was driving them on a bus. Charlotte with her Lego cake creation. Thomas had his best friend over.  They were having such fun trying to sing and dance to the nursery rhyme songs that they decided their trucks should come watch. Here is another of Nicole’s interesting/creative set-ups.  She was playing a game and I don’t understand how it works, but she had rules in her head that dictated which crackers she ate and when she could put a new cracker on. Her next game involved setting up lines of cards and driving the cars around them. And the last picture of this set is of my kids all snuggled up together watching Charlotte do something on her tablet.  I love the affection between these siblings.