IT'S A BOY!!!

                Ollie's new haircut!! 

Well for the length of Oliver's short little 16 months of life, we have been growing his hair out. it was quite long there for a while. in fact it was so long that he was being mistaken for a girl, so i went to get his hair cut because it was driving me crazy. Rob was not on board with the haircut, because he thought it was so cute with all of his curls. Anyways- i got his hair cut last week and as we were walking out of the salon and i had already paid (not happy with the cut anyways) the stylist (if you can call her that) asked me if Ollie was a boy or in her words- 

"oh- is that a boy?" i was so flustered with all the kids with me that i was not about to have her cut it again. Needless to say, when we got home, i was so upset and rob took him out a few days later to get his hair shaped up. He now looks so handsome and you definitely would not mistake him for a little girl!

LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW

what is this white stuff? 

five happy little kids!!!

okay- i was having fun too!!

Well in the midst of all of our wednesday activities, i had heard rumors of snow flurries and possible ice.  i thought- yea right, it was 60* two days ago....... boy was i wrong. by the time nico and i got home from guitar and the grocery store our roof was white and the flakes were huge. All the kids were so excited to be seeing snow. Jakob has been asking me when it is going to snow for a month now and Nico wishes we lived in Utah so we could have snow all the time. Needless to say, they were in heaven!!!! They all had so much fun playing in, dancing in and trying to eat the snow.  now we are just hoping that when we wake up we will have enough snow to make a snowman and have no school. we shall see.....

BOWLING FOR JAKOB

jakob's ready to bowl!!

he is so excited that he hit most of the pins.

today was such a fun day with Jakob...... now that Jakob is in the Gwinnett County School System, he has so many fun opportunities. Today was special olympics bowling. He had so much fun bowling and cheering on his friends. he scored an 85 and came in 4th place with a ribbon and all. Jakob did great taking turns bowling with all of his friends and was so proud of his little yellow ribbon.

OH WHAT A BEAUTIFUL WEEKEND

Well as you all know my birthday was on thursday. i began celebrating on wednesday when some of my girlfriends took me out to lunch at the delicious macaroni grill. YUMMY!!! i was child free as another friend of mine watched the kids for me. Thursday of course was my birthday and i put all of the wonderful festivities of that day in the blog below. it was a wonderful day!! On Friday, i went along with my day as usual..... take the boys to school, get annelies ready for her day and take her to school, run my errands, work out and pick all the kids up from school. busy, busy..... but that is just the beginning of my day!  My mom came over to babysit the kids so that rob could take me out for my birthday. As i was getting ready for the evening (not knowing where we are going), rob tells me not to dress so nice, maybe just jeans and a t-shirt. (what the heck???) so i hesitate and he asks me to trust him, with a little smirk on his face and he asks me to wait for him downstairs. so i do and about 10 minutes later he comes down dressed up and looking sharp!! now i am really confused. i have no clue what he is planning. so we hop in the truck and head down the road to who knows where... 

so later i find myself with rob at BLOOMINGDALES to choose whatever i want to wear for a nice evening out to dinner. oh did i mention the personal shopper that was involved, i believe his name was eric. so we proceed to the dressing room with lots to try on.... i was in heaven. we left the store about two hours later with an adorable black dress that cost more than my whole wardrobe, some new designer jeans that look amazing and don't even need to be himmed, my very first pair of spanx (awesome ladies, i highly recommend!!!) and an incredible pair of 2 1/2 inch pink pumps. the only thing left to do was to make the purchase, head to the dressing room to put it all together and go to dinner with the best husband ever. i felt like a million bucks and it was such a fun experience. 

this is my yummy birthday cake from my mom made by her catering friend!

for dinner we found ourselves with 7:30 reservations at a nice little jazz cafe called sambuca's in the middle of buckhead. the atmosphere was perfect, the music was live and the food was incredible. i have to say that rob did an amazing job making me feel like a queen!! i will never forget my 30th birthday. thanks rob!!!

as if that weren't enough, i got to wake up saturday morning to a house full of babysitters and make my way to kennesaw where i met my sister and mom for a delicious lunch at Henry's, which is a new orleans style restaurant.

 After lunch my sister and i kissed our mother goodbye and headed off to our hour long full body massage. thank you missy and mom, you completed my weekend just perfectly. i feel rejuvenated and very ready for an amazing year. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

Well, yet another year has passed and i am now 30 years old. i cannot believe i am so old and still look so amazing!!! J/K. it has been a great day and i have been spoiled by my family. Being a mommy never stops, even on your birthday!! so we started out the day at 7am getting ready for school. at 8:15 me and all five little munchkins got in the car and headed off to two different schools to drop the boys off. somehow everyone got fed, clothed and hair done!! once the boys got to school, it was off to the doctors office we went. Ollie's 15 month check up with two shots, blood work and his weigh in. Ollie is still in the 5th percentile and going strong. what a shrimp. i am waiting for rob's height to kick in any minute. After the drama of the doctors appt. was done, we headed to the mall to do some shopping. Rob called to take me out to lunch and then we came home for naptime. ahhh relaxation, so i kicked my feet up for a few minutes and then got up to pick Jakob up from school. Once everyone was home safely, i made my way to the basement for my one hour workout and then off to dinner with the family. the food was great but the service was horrible. oh well, you can't have it all!! I know that this year is going to be a great one. i can feel it. i am so happy to be a mom and to be  30!!!!!!

FAMILY HOME EVENING

someone is not happy!

Nico came home from scouts on monday with a very fun game that we all got to play on tuesday night. we had so much fun and laughed. the object of the game is to suck as many smarties out of the bowl with your straw before the next person rolls doubles. it is so fun and the kids had a blast spending time together. Annelies did not have much luck with the dice, she ended up pouting most of the time because she did not get to try to suck out the candy. it was pretty funny. Nico was so proud of himself for making a game for all of us to play. GOOD JOB NICO!!

NICO'S DRIVING NOW

ollie was not happy to be on the mule!

Just in the past week or two, rob has been giving nico more opportunities to drive the mule (which is a golf cart type vehicle used for hunting). nico has taken full advantage of it and now has made it an after school activity. almost as soon as he and jakob get off the bus, they get annelies and climb in the mule the go mudding through the yard. Nico enjoys torturing the other kids and make them think he is going to drive them through the creek. he is so mean. it is pretty funny to hear the high pitched squeels coming from the back yard. Nico is enjoying the freedom of being the big brother and driving all his siblings around the yard. he thinks he's pretty big!!!

BACKING UP TO NEW YEARS

the fireworks show begins and the kids were very excited!!

rob and kyle had fun setting off all the fireworks for the kids

sofia was a little unsure about the fireworks, so she kept her distance

okay so i got a little ahead of myself.... we had a fun new years eve. we had our friends mollie and kyle goodrich over with there 2 little kids milo and evelyn. the kids had fun playing all night and eventually all crashed on the couch. the adults all sat around the table eating lots of food and playing a game called imaginiff. it was pretty fun but nobody was too impressed. we realized just in time that we were about to miss midnight, so we quickly turned on dick clark and counted down the last 15 seconds of 2007. we toasted the new year and sat back down to continue what we were doing. it was a fun night with good company. no resolutions were really made, just a continued hope that we will eat better, work out more and spend more time as a family. HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! 

SO FAR, SO GOOD

well Jakob started at Brookwood Elementary School on thursday and i could hardly sleep the night before in anticipation of what was to come. i was sure that Jakob would be throwing up everywhere or kicking and screaming in disapproval of his new school. But to my surprise none of this occurred!!! I guess he really understood what was going on and all the sign language used to explain his new school and teachers and friends really worked. YEAH!! we got to school at 8am to do a temporary IEP for his 30 day trial period. he was a little hesitant to get out of the car, but soon followed me in and it was fine after that. we met the teachers, he helped get the other kids off the bus and we headed to the class room. he found a place just for him at the coloring table with all the other students and basically told me to go away. i was so relieved!! At carpool the teacher said he had a fabulous day and i could tell by the huge smile across his face that she was not lying.