Oh My!

SNOW DAY!

For the second time this winter, we have been "blessed" with snow. Now, I am pretty sure everyone knows my feelings about snow. I do NOT care for it! I am cold all the time with out it so why would I want to go out in it? But, that being said, I did have fun playing in it this year with my kiddos from school and with Shea and Mattie. I think they said that we have not had this much snow in over 30 years. Crazy!

What is new at the Burks house these days? Well, Shea is obsessed as ever with Pirates and Star Wars. I even had a friend from school help me redecorate Shea's room with a pirate theme. It turned out pretty cool if I do say so myself. He has grown up so much and I cannot believe he will be in Kindergarten next year. I think he is excited about coming to my school. He is still mommy's little guy. The other day, he "gave" me one of his prized star wars toys as a gift. This morning, he told me not to listen to daddy - only him. Uh-oh!

Mattie is becoming a little lady and has quite a little sense of humor. She makes the funniest faces and is getting really good at giving us "the eye." She has become a little parrot, copying everything we say and do. We cannot keep the girl fed. She is constatly bringing us things from the cabinet, handing it to us, and giving us cute little puppy dog eyes while signing "please". How can you resist that? She is quite a little climber too. She learned how to push out the kitchen chairs over to the counter, then climb on the chair to get to the jar where the marshmallows are kept (her favorite). The jar had to be moved! Apparently she figured how to get out of the crib last night seeing as she wasn't in it when we went in to get her this morning. TROUBLE!! For such a little thing she has BIG personality.

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Catch Up Time! December

This December seemed to fly by. I think I got all of the Christmas shopping done in one week. Once again we had about 5 Christmases. Some of our pre-Christmas activities included riding on the Polar Express, breakfast with Santa (in which Shea would not talk to Santa without his Target catalog and Mattie just screamed!) and a trip to the Gaylord Texan to the ICE exhibit.

This year we even had a white Christmas. I don't ever remember having a white Christmas in Dallas! We all thought it was very cool. Well, everyone except the dog!

#1 Houston: After a 6 hour trip filled with car-sickness and screaming babies, we finally made it to Nauntie and D's for our first Christmas of the season. We also got to see Jay, Romy, Sherrry and Robbie. We all had lots of fun. Shea got the new Millenium Falcon. The thing is bigger than he is and one of us has to carry it around for him.

#2 My Parents: Christmas eve is always at Kaki and Paw-Paw's house. Mattie fell earlier in the day so she had a nice black eye for all of Christmas. All the kiddos got tons of presents. Shea once again got lots of pirate gear and some cowboy dress up stuff - complete with stick horse.

#3 Santa: As always Santa was very good to us. I guess we were all well behaved through the year! Mom and Dad got new bikes! Shea got Pirate legos, a new gun, and bendaroos. Mattie got a new pink car and lots of "Little People" toys. She wouldn't get out of the car for days.

#4 MeMe and Pop Pop: Down to Chris's side of the family for Christmas morning. Shea got tons of Playmobile pirate stuff which took us about 4 hours to put together. Mattie got fun toys, but I think her favorite was the pair of squeaky shoes. She loves to stomp around. At least we always know where she is.

Another Christmas gone. We are truly blessed to have so much family to share the holidays with and so many happy memories!

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Catch Up Time! November

So much time has passed again since my last post. As Shea would say, we are just "busy, busy, busy." Let me see if I can catch everyone up on the last few months.

November:
The weather was pretty nice for a lot of November so we spent lots of time outside. I think we spent an entire weekend outside in the fort we built out of the "pirate ship" and camo teepee. We had lots of fun but I must say that I am a little to big to fit inside there - hence my legs hanging out in the picture.

Mattie discovered that the vacuum blew out air when the attachments were being used so she would stand in front of it and let her hair blow in the breeze. This made her look like she was part of a model shoot with her jammies hanging off one shoulder and her long hair blowing.

We did out traditional Thanksgiving morning Turkey Trot and had lots of fun. Shea ran practically the whole thing. Thank goodness there are lots of us there so someone could keep up with him. Lord know I am not about to run!

Nanny and Pop-Pop "without the mustache" were in from New Jersey so we had lots of time to visit with them. Jay also was here and brought his new camera to help us with our christmas cards. I believe he took almost 700 pictures. Due to the wiggly nature of the kids - only a handful were usable :)

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October Happenings

October was a busy month. With school, soccer, sunday school, Halloween and just random other stuff it feels like we never sat down.

SICKOS:

I spent lots of time this month figuring out make-up work for all the sick kiddos in my classes. Strep and the flu were running rampant. I was lucky enough to catch the flu! I was confined to the bedroom for 4 days. Fortunately, I had a very mild case so I was never too bad - just couldn't get rid of the fever. I am knocking on wood as I say this b/c now that it is written it is inevitable to happen but I am soooo surprised that Shea and Mattie have not gotten the flu. Mattie has had several people at day care with it and so has Shea. Mr. Shea did have a sinus infection but for once we did not have to go on steroids for the horrible cough! Yeah - that daily asthma medicine is working!

SOCCER:

Shea has been playing soccer. He is the littlest one on the team as he was put on an older team. 4 year olds are not very good at soccer. By the last game of the season we finally had a few things figured out. Shea took a very hard penalty kick to the chest but handled it like a pro - after some crying and kisses of course. I think Dad took it the hardest.

HALLOWEEN:

We made it through this halloween with only 1 costume for Shea (last year we had 3 or 4). He went as Wesley the pirate from the movie "Princess Bride." I think he was the only 4 year old dressed like this! Mattie went as Tinkerbell. She picked the Pink Poodle costume 1st but it wasn't in her size. I was going to go to another store but then wised up and realized she is only 1 and is not going to remember so what did it matter if she wasn't what she picked out. Tinkerbell was in her size so we went as Tinkerbell. Yeah for Mom for this moment of clarity! We had lots of fun with all of our festivities with friends. We hung out with Kaci Rae at the Y, hung out with friends in the neighborhood, then trick-or-treating with other friends. We had lots of fun and both kids got lots of candy - the good stuff!

KITCHEN:

You don't even want to get me started. No - it is still not finished. Almost. We have all the major stuff just need painting finished, handles and knobs, and the backsplash. It looks really nice but I am sorry we even started this project. I think the funniest thing that happened was when we put in the new refrigerator. Shea looked at it and said, "Helllllllllooooooo georgeous!" I was practically on the floor I was laughing so hard. He learned this from Alvin & the Chipmunks.

OTHER:

Shea is doing great at school. He is writing so well and can count really high and even subtracted for Devin - about the number of green beans he still had left to eat. He and Chris went to the Speedway to watch a race. Shea said it was too loud. His is quite crafty in how he gets things he can't reach. For instance, he uses his ever present sword to turn on lights. One day I got mad at Chris for leaving the pool gate open which he apparently didn't do. Then Shea let us know - very proud of himself- that he opened the gate. He figured out that if he turns the toy bucket upside down he can reach the lock to the pool gate and get to his toys outside. Needless to say that gate is locked with the key and the key is hidden.

Mattie is crazy. Her favorite word is "NO" and she is not afraid to let you know that she is not pleased. She can now say mama, dada, bubba, no, and stop. She will scream bloody murder until she gets what she is looking for and then laughs with a maniacal little laugh - Dr. Jeckel and Miss Hyde! Her hair is so curly - just love it. I was finally able to get it into pigtails with out her yelling at me. She also now has tons of teeth which she uses to bite everyone when they don't get out of her way. Yes-sir-ee she is quite a handful but she is very funny and like to make people laugh and she gives the best hugs - complete with little pats on the back.

New things!

What is new around here? Nothing and tons!

Shea has started Pre-Kinder and has to wear uniform each day - so cute. He loves his class and was excited to see all of his friends back after the long summer. He is taking guitar lessons and playing soccer. We have only had 2 weeks of both - so I will fill in more details later. Shea is still obsessed with pirated and wants his room redecorated to reflect this obsession!

Mattie is at a new day-care. She is staying with a good friend of our's who runs an in-home day care. Our little miss is a little hot tempered and has started biting people. We all dodge whenever she opens her mouth but some of the other babies haven't figure this out yet! She now thinks the dog and cat are hilarious. This is a major turn around as I thought she may not be an animal lover. Mattie has started walking and is finally getting some more teeth in. She has quite a little personality on her in is quite funny. We also love that she goes to sleep easliy each night - we learned what NOT to do after the 1st.

I am having a great year at my school. I am teaching 4th grade Math and Science. I never really enjoyed 4th in the past but I am really loving the change this year. I have two great classes. Still struggling with balancing everything but doing a much better job of it so far!

Chris is good. Football season has started so he is camped out all the time checking on his Fantasy Football stats. He is also coaching Shea's soccer team which he is handling quite well even though he isn't sure about it!

The kitchen has been a boil on my butt! This was supposed to be done the week we were in New Jersey. Six weeks later - no kitchen. I have cabinets but nothing is working yet. I got tired of washing dishes in the bath tub so I switched to paper and plastic. I think even the strongest environmentalists would agree with this decision! Things are finally moving forward so hopefully it will get finished soom - knock on wood!

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New Jersey

We had a great trip to New Jersey this year. The plane ride was a little crazy with Mattie- she did NOT want to stay in her seat and let everyone know about it!

Our first day trip was to Ocean City. The weather was cool and rainy but we still had a good time. Shea rode all the rides with his cousin while I just got to sit and watch - BUMMER! The one thing I was allowed to go one - got me SOAKING wet! Because of the rain we weren't able to go down to the beach.

Anther trip we made was to Philadelphia. This was really cool. The weather was absolutely perfect for a walking tour. We ate authentic cheesesteaks and walked around what used to be Benjamin Franklin's house and Post Office. I got to have a little reinactment of "National Treasure" as we walked past Independence Hall - you know - where to find the glasses that will let you read the map...

Another cool thing was the "Pirate Adventure Tour" we took. We got painted up like pirates and boarded the ship. W got to fight off the bad pirates and hunt for the treaure. Some parts scared Shea a little bit but Mattie, Pop-Pop and I had a great time. I think I am going to open up a boat like this around here somewhere. Anyone want to invest?

We had a great time but were happy to come home after our very busy trip!

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