Happy Holidays!

Wishing you lots of joy and happiness in the New Year!

Love,
The Martins :)

Snow Day!

We got a jump start on Winter Break with a snow day today! So, we decided to do what you're supposed to do on a snow day...play in the snow! The kids were excited to get out in the white fluffy stuff. Here are a few pictures from our outdoor play today.

Jacob LOVES to shovel snow...and he spent 3 hours this morning outside doing exactly that. He helped with 3 of the neighbors driveways, but then told me that he "didn't like the snow on our driveway" so he couldn't do ours. Nice...because it's different than the snow that fell on our neighbors, ya know. I couldn't get the child in the house...he wanted to stay outside and continue on his shoveling mission. After much coaxing, he finally came in but went right back out again after a quick warm up. Even our little Marissa joined in on the fun. She really likes to sled! I would pull her to the top of our neighbors driveway and run down as she would belly laugh the whole way. She was so cute in the snow.

Jenna's such a goofball. She and Nicholas had alot of fun making snowballs and climbing the snow mountains. Stay warm!!

He loses another one (with a little help)!

Jacob lost his second tooth today and he has his Aunty Melissa to thank for it! Just like with his first tooth, he was very excited and spent most of the day wiggling and wondering if it would fall out today or tomorrow. I was betting that it would (naturally) fall out tomorrow....and then Aunty Melissa showed up with the "tie a string to it and slam the door" idea. I was skeptical that he would go for it....but he was all about getting that tooth out and wanted me to immediately find him a piece of string. When he asked if it was going to hurt, we told him that it might...but he still was focused on it coming out today...so he went for it.

It was so cute...the whole time he just blindly trusted my sister and anxiously awaited as she got him ready to go. The pictures tell the whole story, but it was absolutely hilarious and so much fun. Aunty Melissa made him promise not to be mad at her regardless of the outcome and insisted that he himself slam the door....which he did! Feeling a little anxious about the door slamming part, I tried to casually step into the laundry room right beforehand, but Jacob was kind enough to wait for my return. So, Jacob slammed the door and out popped his tooth! I think we were all a little surprised that it actually worked! In honor of his bravery, Melissa rewarded Jacob with $5. (Nice, the tooth fairy now has to top that tonight...thanks, Lis). Like the first tooth that he lost, he's planning to ask the tooth fairy if he can keep this one, too. He's looking forward to sharing the news with his teacher and friends at school tomorrow. So, here's how it happened...

First, Aunty Melissa tied a string to Jacob's tooth....

...and then to the door.....

..all set...ready to go....he slams the door....and then...

...out popped Jacob's tooth! Thank you, Aunty Melissa!

Look out...Nicholas is THREE!

Our little monkey turned three earlier this month! He had a great time celebrating his big day with friends and family and thoroughly enjoyed both of his birthday cakes. He chose a train cake for his kid party, but then got to pick out another one to celebrate with family over his birthday weekend. This one was a construction site cake and as you can see it was the highlight of his birthday. He insisted on eating his entire piece of cake AND ice cream with the toy excavator that decorated the top. We all were ready to move on to presents, but no...Nicholas was still digging and eating. It took quite some time and was funny to watch.

It's hard to believe that three years have gone by already. He's such a great kid...full of spunk and lots of energy. But he's really keeping us on our toes these days always exploring the world around him and finding something (bad) to get into. He doesn't like to stay with "the herd" when we're out and about and is totally content to venture off on his own...or migrate into a new herd...which is a bit stressful. I recently enrolled him in storytime at the library and he's managed to get himself kicked out twice already. What..you're not allowed to hit the other kids over the head with the cushions they're sitting on? I was horrified. He definately doesn't follow "the rules" and lately has been getting a real rise out of his siblings....just because he can. He's three...and he knows it!! I love that kid.

Nicholas loves his new scooter! He's been using Jacob's old one and was excited to have a new one of his own.
Happy Birthday, Nicholas!!

Meet Ian....

....the cute little boy that has his arms wrapped around Jenna in this picture. Given all the "Ian talk" that goes on around here, we were pretty sure that they were an item, and it was confirmed by Ms. Hollenbeck (Jenna's teacher) at her parent/teacher conference this week. Jenna has been requesting for quite some time that Ian come over for a sleepover...yes, a sleepover was the request. As you can imagine, Tom was beside himself. After calmly explaining to her that a sleepover would never on God's green earth occur, we settled on an afternoon playdate.

Happy Halloween!

The kids had a fabulous Halloween! The weather was absolutely perfect so we stayed out trick-or-treating until they were all tuckered out. They had a blast running around the neighborhood collecting their treats. Jacob dressed up as a frog, Jenna was a horse (no, NOT a cowgirl!), Nicholas was Thomas the Train, and Marissa went as Pebbles from the Flintstones. I was surprised that she kept the bone in her hair all night! Afterwards we had our annual Halloween cupcake party back here at our house. Needless to say, we have forty-seven pounds of candy and we're still coming down from the sugar high, but this was our best Halloween yet!

Pumpkin Carvin'

The kids were super excited to get their hands in the goop and carve their pumpkins! All of them participated (in some capacity) in working on their pumpkins and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. I also had alot of fun watching them work on their creations.




This is how Marissa and Nicholas spent most of the evening and they had a good time doing it. At one point Tom "removed" Marissa from the table and she threw a full bl0wn tantrum complete with tears and body stiffening...she wasn't done playing in the goop, Daddy! Needless to say, she ended up back on the table, but held a baby grudge for quite awhile.



























Wow, was Jenna ecstatic when Ms. Bonnie called last minute with news that she had found the PERFECT pumpkin stencil for Jenna!! She honestly is in love with her pumpkin. Thank you, Ms. Bonnie! This made Jenna's Halloween...I don't know what she's going to do when she realizes that we cannot keep it forever. It's not going to be pretty. And Jacob did a Cubs one (of course!). He did almost all of this pumpkin by himself...from cleaning it out to carving it up...he was into it this year. He saved one seed and is planning to plant it in the backyard.


















Going along with the theme idea from his siblings...Nicholas insists that his pumpkin is a "Thomas punkin", so we're going with that. (He's dressing up as Thomas the Train tomorrow).
Check back in a day or two to see the kids in their costumes and pictures from trick-or-treating.

Happy Halloween!

Marissa's On The Move

Just a little update on Marissa...she's 16 months old today! Lately she spends most of her time trying to perfect her walking skills. She's almost there, but still needs some assistance from her main support....which we lovingly call her "wheelchair". She's very attached to her wheelchair these days as it serves as her main mode of transportation . Sometimes she'll use Nicholas' dump truck for balance, too...but don't touch her wheelchair or you'll hear about it!






































Look...no hands!!

A Fun Fall Day

The kids had a day off from school today, so we headed out to a little pumpkin farm just down the road from us. I let each one of them pick out a small pumpkin to bring home, but we're waiting for daddy to pick out the special one that we will carve for Halloween. They enjoyed a hay ride and had fun running through the hay maze. I also couldn't resist buying another bag of freshly picked apples to make yet another batch of applesauce. The Martin's just LOVE fall!

Apple Pickin'

The kids were SO excited to head out to the apple orchard this year. Jenna has been chattering about our much anticipated outing for weeks now....and we had a beautiful day! We enjoyed a nice ride out into "the country" to a great little orchard that had lots of ripe apples available for picking. Good apple cider donuts, too!

Afterwards, Nicholas and Jenna helped me make homemade applesauce with the apples we harvested. :)

You can look at more pictures of our trip to Honey Hill Apple Orchard by clicking on the words "Apple Pickin'" and then "play slideshow".




Marissa picked her own apple perched on daddy's shoulders.

Nicholas had a taste for some Yellow Delicious.

The kids were happy to spend a fun day with their good friends, Robin and Tim.

It finally happened....

...Jacob lost his first tooth! Boy, has this been a long time coming for our little guy. Jacob has been anticipating this day for well over a year now. He's patiently watched while countless classmates and friends have lost tooth after tooth after tooth... always wondering why he didn't have any loose teeth yet.


We have encouraged him to be patient....that his turn would come soon and that he just had "really strong teeth". Well, today was the day...and it couldn't have come a day sooner! His bottom tooth was definitely wiggly, but I was still expecting him to hang onto it for a couple more weeks. But, when Madeline (yet another friend) lost her first tooth yesterday, I think he just couldn't take it anymore....he just had to help Mother Nature along a bit so he wiggled and tugged all day! He is absolutely ecstatic and told me that this was the second best day of his life (see below if you need to be refreshed on his best day ever). :)

To make the whole thing even more exciting, he lost it at school. He was the first one to lose a tooth in his class this year and got to celebrate by putting a sticker on the Tooth Tally sheet in his classroom. He brought it home in a little envelope and immediately transferred it to the special tooth keepsake box that he's been waiting to use for months now. Okay, I'm off to play the tooth fairy!!


Madeline and Jacob both lost their first teeth within a day of each other....how cool is that! Check out the note he left for the tooth fairy...he's happy that it fell out, but he's not parting with that baby tooth anytime soon.

Fall Ball

Jacob is giving soccer a try this season so this is his first time playing on a soccer team. His teammates decided that they should be called "Yellow Lightening" (they were almost the "Yellow Spongebobs"). So far he really seems to be enjoying himself. You know Jacob, he's always up for a challenge and has fully embraced the opportunity to perfect his soccer skills. Tonight was a big night for him...he scored his first goal of the season! Very exciting for all of us...he immediately ran to the sideline to high five his dad. It was a stellar day for Jacob...he lost his first tooth AND scored a goal...life is good.

Look at that game face!

Giddy Up, Horsey!

Uncle Jeremy and Aunty Sarah came in for a visit from Virginia this weekend. Jenna was very excited to take them to her favorite place... Blackberry Farm. Our little horse lover was happy to see that the pony rides were still open! Aunt Ali came out to spend the day with us, too.

Marissa "rode the ponies" with Aunty Sarah.

It was nice for Nicholas to have some
family around that actually looks like him.

Here's the genetic proof...he's really ours!