Christmas Season 2009

I am feeling overwhelmed. Not with Christmas--that is over now. Overwhelmed with blogging. I haven't been, and I feel I have so much to catch up on. All our Christmas activities. So I will just hit the highlights, with pictures.

There was lots of Christmas baking--pumpkin cranberry bread, peppermint cookies and toffee. Some for neighbors, some for a cookie party.

Vinnie had his Holiday program at school. It was adorable, of course.

There was lots of classroom parties to attend to. Vinnie had face/hand painting at his party.

Zachary made fun snowflakes at his.

Joey's class made individual gingerbread houses, which was very cool. I will definitely remember that for future crafting with the kids.

We decorated our own gingerwood house. Yes, I meant to say wood. It is a wood house that we reuse every year, and even decorate for other holidays.

Christmas eve was our traditional Mass, followed by lasagna for dinner.

The kids all hung their stockings.

We set out cookies for Santa and carrots for his reindeer.


Santa came! As usual he brought way too much stuff.




Vinnie received lots of Lego sets. He loved putting them together. Unfortunately, his little brother loves pulling them apart and now the pieces are all over the house, never to be put back in the shape they were intended. Sigh...
This year we had Grandma Liz with us, making the Holidays even more special.

Best quote of the season? That would be from Pete. After declaring how bummed I was that Christmas was over, and how much I enjoyed it this year, Pete exclaimed "Yeah, and you didn't even get bitchy!"

Now isn't that what Christmas is all about?

Merry Christmas!

(click to make the pictures bigger)

Random

It is a beautiful Sunday afternoon here in California. I snapped some pictures of the boys playing.

Zachary playing out in front. I swear this kid should be in modeling! So photogenic.

This is why all his jeans are ripped!

Christopher playing with his helmet.


Joey and his friends were jumping on the air cushion and making Christopher pop into the air. It was hysterical to watch!

Christopher loved it! Just another lazy Sunday here at the Contini household.

Happy Birthday Zachary!!

Zachary, age 9 months

Pete and I were putting the younger boys to bed last night when he looked up at me. "11 years ago tonight, we had nobody to put to bed."

Wow. That seems like a lifetime ago. And like it was yesterday. I am blown away by the fact that I have an eleven year old.


Eleven things about my 11 year old:

1. He is on the safety patrol at school and takes his job seriously. Pity the poor parent who doesn't pull all the way up in the drop off line! On a regular basis I hear from the adult leaders how Zachary is their most responsible and reliable kid.

2. He is serious in the classroom as well. Pete and I heard lots of great things from Zach's teacher at his conference this year. One of the things that stood out because it is so true to Zach's character, was her comfort at calling on him in class. She mentioned that so many of the boys at this age like to be silly and say things to get a laugh. Not Zach. She said she breathes a sigh of relief when Zach raises his hand because she knows she can count on him for a thoughtful and intelligent answer.

3. Despite the seriousness above, he has a great sense of humor! He can throw out zingers that surprise me because I don't expect them from an 11 year old.

4. He has a strong sense of his self. If his friends are doing things at recess that he doesn't feel comfortable with, he has no problems walking away. I hope he remains so true to his self as peer pressure intensifies.

5. He is quite the slob--messy bedroom, messy handwriting, messy everything. No one is perfect!

6. I am constantly surprised at how filthy he gets at school. I bite my tongue though because I know it means he is spending his recess running and playing sports with his friends.

7. He is a good and loyal friend, and picks good kids to be friends with. He stopped bringing peanut butter to school because he had a nut allergic friend. One night at a sleepover he put his ice cream back when he realized his friend couldn't have any. He sticks up for his friends.

8. He is a good big brother. One of the yard duty moms yesterday was telling me about an incident recently when Vinnie got hurt and was crying (which is a daily occurence, but that is another issue). As she was comforting him, 2 boys from different directions came running over to find out what happened. It was Zach and Joey. She said it was like they were watching over him from their areas of the playground. They may bicker at home, but they have each others' backs.

9. He is responsible and trustworthy. He comes home from school and goes straight up to do his homework. No nagging from us. If he says he finished, we can trust that he has. We can leave him home alone and know that he will follow the rules and do what he is supposed to. We can even leave him in charge of his brothers for (very) short periods of time.

10. He likes babies. It is striking to me, because most 11 year old boys don't pay a lot of attention to babies. Zachary is drawn to them (and not just his brothers) and will get down and talk to them, trying to make them smile. He talks about when he is a dad and has kids of his own.

11. He is the best 11 year old boy ever! Really!

Happy Birthday Zachary!!

We were ducked!

I came home for lunch a few days ago to find a flock of ducks on our front lawn.

I gasped, then noticed one was wearing a santa hat. Oh. Not real ducks. Turns out we had been ducked.

Some woman (who I do not know) is doing this as a fund raiser for a triathlon she is doing, For $20 you can send the flock to 2 other lawns, or do nothing and she picks them up the next day.


What a fun way to raise money! Of course we sent them off to 2 unsuspecting families. (My apologies to the Moore and Burrill families!)

Hey God, Sorry about Mass this morning...

It wasn't our best day at Mass today. It had barely started when I got paged. Pete went outside to deal with the issue, and didn't return until the Eucharist. Meanwhile, Zach was being a total pain, arguing with Vinnie and shaking his fist at him. Finally I had had enough and sent Zach outside. He also didn't return until the Eucharist. Fr Larry called the children up for the homily, so Joey and Vinnie went up. Vinnie then starting talking to the priest about some game he played, won some coins, blah, blah, blah. The entire parish was cracking up as I sank further into my seat. Fr. Larry finally got Vinnie to stop talking so he could finish the Mass. Meanwhile I was paged again, had 1 kid who needed to use the bathroom, and 2 more trips to the water fountain. Before Communion, Joey started having "stomach issues" (ie. was farting so I sent him to the bathroom) and he spent the rest of the Mass in the bathroom trying to poop. I was exhausted by the time Mass ended.

I certainly didn't want Zach to think he got away with something by being sent out of church for the majority of Mass. When we got home I made him go to his room and read the readings from Mass along with his Magnifikid magazine (it follows through the entire Mass for kids) and write a summary of each of the readings. I am guessing he won't act that way in church again.Seriously, does this kid have the worst handwriting ever?!

Happy Birthday Dad

George S. Record

December 11, 1944- October 21, 2007

We miss you Daddy!

Zach's bad week

Zach has had a pretty eventful week. It started with a dental appointment on Tuesday to have 3 teeth pulled. They weren't loosening up on their own and his big teeth were heading sideways so it was decided by the orthodontist that it was time to help them out.

(look how filthy his pants are--that is how he comes home from school daily!)

He did great! I was a nervous wreck before the appointment, not sure how he would do. He barely flinched with the novacaine shots, and barely even noticed the dentist pulling the teeth out. (which I was shocked to see how crude the method was--just grab and twist and pull.) He was mostly distracted with the TV.



Off we went with a mouthful of cotton to Jamba Juice. Zach has never been numb before and couldn't understand why everything kept dripping out of his mouth. Poor kid.



A few days later he had an appointment with the orthodontist to start treatment. A retainer was cemented in (which you actually can't see very well in this picture) to keep the gaps in his mouth there while the adult teeth come in. He was pretty uncomfortable for several days and struggled to eat anything. He even struggled with talking ( he sounded like he had a mouth full of marbles).

The doozy came on Saturday night. Pete and I had tickets to the Sharks game, so we ordered pizza for the boys and the babysitter. Poor Zach was still having a hard time eating, and struggled with the crust, so Pete cut the hard bottom off. As we were just about to walk out the door we heard a scream. Zach had taken it upon himself to cut more crust off with a steak knife and cut his finger. Really bad. It took a bit to take care of it, but we decided since it was a finger stitches weren't necessary. On a positive note, Zach knows not to use a knife again!

I am not looking forwarding to the head gear and full braces!