Busy, busy, busy

Hello everyone,

We hope you all had a wonderful holiday. We are having a wonderful holiday vacation. We have taken a lot of wonderful pictures and I would love to share them with you, but our hard drive is full. We want to wish everyone a Happy and Healthy New Year! We hope 2010 brings lots of love, happiness, health and success to all of you. We hope to see you in 2010. We have a few trips planned this year...March we will be in North Carolina(visiting Teresa and a conference for Nathan), May we will be in Montana(working on our cabin), and June we will be in Alaska(visiting Doug, Uncle Brent and Aunt Mena)!!!!!
Happy New Year! Be Safe if you are traveling tonight or this weekend.

Cookies and snow!

Today is supposed to be our pajama party, but Pennsylvania is getting a snow storm! Just about everyone has called to say they are not coming. The roads do not look too bad right now, but it is snowing hard, and has been since early this morning. The weather channel says it will stop by 7am Sunday. A little too late for our party. We are all disappointed about the party, but we are enjoying the beautiful snow.
Leaf and Nonnie made gingerbread today.

Leaf is telling Nonnie about the gingerbread man book we read. Everest was outside playing before we had breakfast. He was out shoveling with Papa. We had breakfast and he wanted to go out again. We decided to go for a walk. (I think it took us as long to get ready as it did to walk!)


Everest ran and ran with the dogs. Hopefully he will sleep well tonight!Hope you are enjoying some snow too!

No luck

Well...he wasn't ready to go to sleep. After another fun filled 30 minutes of screaming, I warmed up the truck and went for a drive. It took another 30 minutes for him to fall asleep. I put him down at 1 am and we were back up at 2, then 3, then 4....you get the picture. At 7, Everest came into the room and woke us up again. I am hoping to take a nap today. Leaf's cheeks are bright red today, so maybe it had nothing to do with all the pizza he wolfed down.

It is midnight!

It is midnight. I should be sleeping. Teresa and I are making the 10 hour drive to PA tomorrow afternoon. We are going to Everest's holiday concert and then heading out. I need to be rested, we are anticipating driving until 2 am. So why am I still awake and blogging???????
Leaf decided to eat 3 pieces of pizza tonight. Now his tummy hurts and he has been screaming since 8, and I mean SCREAMING! At 11:30, I decided to bring him downstairs so everyone else could sleep. He is sitting on the floor playing now. His tummy seems to feel better when he is upright, but I can't hold him any longer, so he is on the floor. He is exhausted. He keeps laying his head on the floor, but after a minute or so, he starts squirming around, cries and then sits back up.
I have learned my lesson. Even when your child is screaming for another piece of pizza "just say NO".
He is crawling up the steps!!!! Maybe he is ready! Yeah. Wish me luck.

Christmas Parade

West Lafayette, Indiana boasts the longest Christmas Parade in the state. We decided to check it out. It was cold outside, but the sun was out and Teresa was visiting. The parade was in downtown West Lafayette (about 4 miles from our house), so we biked.
They were not kidding about it being the longest parade. It was over 2 1/2 hours. There were more fire trucks than we could count. All of them put on a great show, lights, sirens and horns. The West Lafayette football team won states so they rode on the fire trucks.


After an hour and a half we were all freezing(at least the adults). Luckily there is a lot of room in the bike trailer, we brought every blanket in the house. Everest did not mind especially when his favorite float came by...more exciting than the fire trucks, candy, and Santa.......

THE BOILERMAKER SPECIAL! This train is cool. It travels all over the US. It is a truck converted into a train, so it can go up to 60mph on the highway.
We had a great time, but we were very ready for Santa to make an appearance. He was on the last float. The minute he went by, we jumped on our bikes and headed to the nearby Starbucks for hot chocolate. There was no way we could bike straight home. No one could feel their fingers. After about 30 minutes in the coffee shop, we headed home. We pretended to be the boilermaker special all the way home. Toot toot!

Christmas Coffee

http://www.goodscoffee.com

If you are looking for a wonderful gift for family, friends, coworkers or anyone else you know; check out Good's Coffee. Liz and Jordan Good, (Nathan's sister and brother-in-law) own and operate a fair trade coffee roasting company (with many organic varieties). Unfortunately, I am not a coffee drinker (although Liz is determined to change my mind), but I have given their coffee many times as gifts. People love it. They have a large variety of regular, decaffeinated, and flavored coffee. This year they are offering a coffee and chocolate gift basket.


They also offer announcement coffee. They made these for us when Leaf was born (before we changed the spelling of his name). The label was on sample size coffee packets for us to hand out to our friends. We had no idea they were doing this until they arrived. It was a wonderful gift. They will do labels for any special event. Pretty unique gift! Much more exciting than cards and the people receiving them are appreciative.
I love their dedication to natural, organic and small farm fair trade coffee. I also love that they are a family company and committed to being as eco-friendly as they can. They are a great family who is doing what they are passionate about (and knowing them as family members-they are VERY serious about good coffee).Check them out, you will be glad you did. Oh, and if you live in Lancaster or want to give to someone in that area, they have free local delivery. What could be better than surprising someone with fresh roasted coffee at their door.

Happy shopping!
http://www.goodscoffee.com

Best Birthday Gift

We got tickets to the Purdue basketball game on Everest's birthday. He was so excited to go, but he was not feeling well. We decided to have him lay around the house and nap most of the day. We went to the game thinking we would only be there for the first half.....we were wrong. Aunt Teresa is visiting and everyone was decked out in Purdue gear.
We were way up high, but Leaf didn't seem to mind. He loves all the action!

At half time, Lisa and Doug (our neighbors who have awesome season tickets), came up to visit us. They asked Everest if he wanted to sit with them for the second half. He is standing (at the bottom left of the picture) using his megaphone he and Nathan made.
You can see him holding his megaphone like the cheerleaders do. The camera man below him, filmed him a couple times, but they never put it on the big screen.
Lisa making sure Leaf becomes a Purdue fan too.

Croup

I took Everest to the doctor on Thursday. He was wheezing and having trouble breathing. The doctor said he has croup even though he is not barking (coughing) much. He slept for 5 hours when we got home. No school and no Hockman Christmas Party for us =(
Teresa and I had planned to drive to PA Friday and Saturday to go to our annual Hockman Christmas Party. I haven't been in a couple years because we have lived too far away. This year we are within driving distance (well if you consider 10 hours in a car...or truck...with 2 screaming kids driving distance, then yes we are within driving distance). Sorry we are going to miss out. I can say I will not miss seeing the blood pudding, deer heart, cow tongue or whatever other "goodies" will be there. Enjoy dad! I want to see pictures of my dad trying all this food. Seriously though, we were looking forward to seeing everyone. Hope you have a great time and we can't wait to see pictures.

Birthday Blues!

Everest has the Birthday blues. He is sick! He started having a scratchy throat last night, and he did not sleep well. We decided to keep him home from school today (he was looking forward to his birthday celebration there). We have tickets to the Purdue basketball game tonight, but I do not know if he will be able to go. He is taking a nap, we will see how he feels later.

Happy 4th Birthday Everest


Four years ago today at 7:48 (Mountain Time), Everest came into our lives. He was a healthy, beautiful baby boy. Everest had a very sensitive tummy, due to all his allergies. Now, four years later, he is outgrowing some of them (dairy and soy...YEAH!).

4 months- Mowing with daddy.

10 months

16 months

2 years- Maple Grove Hot Springs

2 years- feeding the humming birds at Corines

2 years- Teton National Park

(almost 3) with Leaf

3 years-

Today, Everest loves to PLAY, run, ride bikes, jump on his trampoline, read....read...read, build and create with everything and anything he can get his hands on, and dress up. We love you so much. Happy Birthday Pumpkin!

I just want to PARTY!

Welcome to Everest's construction zone! My plan was to make him a shirt with a 4 on it for today, but I found very cute construction material and I couldn't resist making pants too. These pants were made with a lot of love, considering I made them 3 times. (I got the instructions from Amanda Blake Soule's book- The Creative Family and Handmade Home. I highly recommend both books and her website Soulemama.com.) I was trying to hurry, so what should have taken me 1/2 an hour, took me over 4 hours! But I am very happy I persisted and made the pants too.

My friend Courtney came over Friday night and helped me decorate. Thank you for all your help, the construction zone looked great!

Leaf wearing his party crown. Ready to do some building!

One of the activities was painting. The kids painted a picture, then they got a photo mat with a dump truck cut out (you can see Jill holding one). They put the picture in a frame, the photo mat on top and tada...a dumptruck picture!
We put rice in a container with lots of small toys for the kids to find. They had a blast digging through the rice and finding all kinds of treasures. We also made homemade playdough for the kids to construct, create and build.
We could not have asked for a better day in December. The sun was shining! Hooray! It was cold, but not cold enough to keep 5 kids off the trampoline! They had a great time jumping and knocking each other over.
Happy Birthday Everest! Funny story about the candles...I got these cool candles that burn whatever color the candle is. When it was time for the dirt (we put brownies in a dump truck), I was in a hurry and put the candles in upside down (one end looks like a wick, the other is rounded and you have to unscrew a cap-my finger was over the word unscrew, so I missed that part). I lite the "wick" and we began to sing....the candles burned out before we were halfway though the song. Luckily I had put in the balloon candles from Leaf's birthday as decorations. I lite those while we sang and all was fine. After the party, Nathan went to put the candles away and discovered I had put them in upside down. He has had a lot of fun teasing me about this.
Last but not least, we broke the pinata. We were worried that each kid would not get a turn before the pinata broke. Instead each kid had 5, 6 or more turns. We finally just let them hit it without a mask.
Leaf and Lisa (our neighbor) watching all the excitement.
The pinata never broke, but it did fall off the string. As soon as it hit the floor the boys tore into it. There were all kinds of goodies in there, horns, lizards, pencils, bracelets, etc, but no there was not any candy. =)All the kids had a wonderful time. We enjoyed watching them play and build together.

Begging

Leaf has been feeding himself more lately. Boy this kid can eat...at least that is what we thought. Kenya has been begging a lot more often and it is driving me crazy. (She rode to Pennsylvania with Bonnie. She is staying with my parents until we get there in 2 weeks. I am driving with the kids, so we figured one less thing to worry about would be good.) Kenya has been gone for 3 days and I am realizing, Leaf is not a tidy eater.

No wonder Kenya lays under his chair when he eats, even though we constantly chase her off. This was after one meal! I had no idea he was so messy. My floor is always so clean after he eats.

Party preview!

Everest turns 4 next week! I can't believe 4 years have gone by, they really do fly when you have kids. Everest wanted a construction party. We invited a few friends from school and have been planning for a month. We are making it a handmade birthday as much as possible.
Here is a sneak peek of some of the things we are doing. The festivities begin Saturday at 11am!


When we mentioned a party he said he wanted a pinata. At first he wanted a dump truck pinata. I tried to think of a way to make a dump truck pinata, but came up with no ideas. I told him we could do a wrecking ball or caution cone. What do you think? And yes, we even used homemade glue (it was less messy than commercial glue).
Proud of his cone. All we have to do is fill it.....not with candy.

So much fun! I want to be 4 again!

It's beginning to feel like Christmas...

We put on some Christmas music today, and hung a few decorations. I can't believe it is already December. We have been so busy planning and creating for Everest's construction birthday party on Saturday, the holiday season snuck up on us.
Who needs toys? Give them bells, a container and a santa hat .....instant fun!
Even Santa made an appearance. (for those who do not know me well, I have enough Christmas socks for everyday of December. I love fun socks!) Hope you are getting into the holiday spirit, what ever holiday you celebrate!