Declan is at the perfect age for Santa and the holiday season this year. He is so excited, nervous and eager to see and learn it all. We visited Santa at our church this past Sunday. Here are a few pictures from our night.
Declan patiently waited his turn holding on to Colin's hand the whole time.
I love Liam's look of amazement and wonder as he checks out Santa.
Declan a bit nervous but hangs on tight as Santa talks to Tristan and Colin.
The four big boys. Declan "saying" please to Santa.
I know crazy two posts in a week. Hopefully I can get to at least one a week there is a lot of catching up to do.
For starters check out this little guy.
He just turned 7 months!! Grayson seems to be growing pretty fast these days for starting out so slow. He is a happy baby who struggles with acid reflux yet still tries to smile through it. He has been rolling around for almost two months, just started army crawling and is working on sitting up alone. His face lights up with an ear to ear smile when any of his big brothers come over to play. Enjoy a few photos of Grayson from the past few months. Just click the link below. Grayson May- September
Tristan is in fifth grade, Colin is in fourth grade and Liam started Kindergarten. They are all enjoying school so far. Liam is in the dual language program which means he is taught in both English and Spanish. For one week he starts the day in the Spanish class in the morning then changes after lunch, then the next week it switches. It is a great program he can already speaks Spanish with Colin they think it's funny when they say something I don't know. Liam loves school, all day kindergarten did take a little getting used to. It is a bit longer than his two and a half hour preschool.
Declan is two!! My sweet little boy is growing so fast. He loves playing with his big brothers and taking care of his baby brother. He is a ornery, silly, loving, happy guy. Delcan loves The Backyadigans, playing outside, swimming and jumping. I love watching him explore and learn. He doesn't eat a thing yet, somehow grows. He is still my best sleeper taking three hour naps and asking to go to bed. Before you know it he will be five like this guy.
Liam turned five on June 11 and pretty much asked everyday since if he was starting kindergarten. It took some time for him to realize that just because you are five you still have to wait for school to start in August. It's amazing how old five can seem to the mama. On the one hand he is still my little guy but on the other he's my big five year old trying to reason his way through the world. Liam loves science and is always trying to understand and figure out how things work. He is smack dab in the middle between the big boys who he wants to be just like and the little boys who look up to him.
And Colin is 9! He turned nine on May 28th. He is an awesome baseball player, Lego builder, story writer and artists. He loves to swim, play soccer in the backyard, go on bike rides and explore as much as he can. His laugh is in toxic and his dimple is so cute. He has a wild imagination, and a unique ability to create an amazing world in Wizard 101 (a computer game). It is so intricate and yet so real to him. Minecraft (another world making game) has taken over a bit this summer.
No matter how you say it Tristan is now 10 years old!!!!
Tristan celebrated his tenth birthday on April 22. It was pretty low key since he was not feeling well. We kicked off the weekend with the school carnival on friday which they kindly always have on his birthday weekend. The morning of his birthday started slow with breakfast and presents then it was off to the ballpark for a game. They won!! We then went to Hu Hot for Tristan's birthday linner (lunch/dinner) as it turned out. He loves being able to pick what he wants from the buffet and watch the guys cook it on the big flat grill. But I think the best part is the s'mores you can make at your table. We then had a peanut butter chocolate cake at Gramma and Papa's house. Where he got a catchers mit and immediatly went outside with Colin to break it in. They played for a good two hours. Guess it was a success. I say it every year I can't believe how old he is getting but 10! Geez he is old. He is also wonderful.
The following Monday when the boys had no school Tristan invited two friends to celebrate at Sempeks bowling. Which also included laser tag and go karts (let's hope he gets better at driving in the next 6 years). A simple but tons of fun day!!!
It was a beautiful day this year! The weather was perfect for egg hunting. The boys and Gramma dyed around 54 eggs give or take with a few that were broken in the process. Declan didn't quite get the gentle part but he sure had a great time.
We enjoyed a great lunch made by Gramma, hunting for eggs, playing horse shoes (who knew it would be such a hit) and spending time family. Click the link for a few pictures from the day.
On Sunday February 19th Grayson Emmett Shockey decided to join the world five weeks early. He was born at 8:53 p.m. weighing 6 pounds 15 ounces and was 19 1/2 inches long.
For five weeks early he's a big healthy boy. He began his entrance into the world Saturday afternoon and slowly joined us a short thirty one hours later. Due to the fact that he was born at 35 weeks gestation he was required to go to the NICU for 24 hours. Luckily our nurse was also a NICU nurse and Grayson scored an 8 & 9 on his apgar test so he was able to stay with us about two hours before they took him away. It is quite strange to go through labor and have your little one taken away. However, because he was early we were happy to let the nurses and doctors check him out and do whatever was necessary to be sure he was healthy. We were blessed Grayson only needed a little help keeping his temperature up and by his 1:30 a.m. feeding he was already out of the baby warmer and in his own little bassinet. Unfortunately due to the hospitals policy he was not able to join us in our room until 6:00 p.m. on Monday. We could spend as much time with him as we wanted in the NICU as well as bring family in to see him. Tristan and Colin were able to go into the NICU also and meet their new brother unfortunately Liam was sick and he had to be over six to enter the NICU so he and Declan were unable to meet his brother until we went home.
We are extremely grateful for the amazing help from Aunt Lindsey, Gramma, and Uncle Brendan with Tristan, Colin, Liam and Declan. It was wonderful being able to focus on the delivery and Grayson and not have to worry about how they were doing. I know they did not even skip a beat when they realized I was gone and Lindsey was there to take care of them. Lindsey had a few more boys than just ours since we were having a sleepover with 3 friends at the time. So yes I left Lindsey with seven boys between 17 months and 10 years old. She did great of course and because we did not know what was going to happen with Grayson Uncle Brendan ended up taking the friends home around 11:00 that night. I had thought it was a safe time to have a sleepover before the baby was born. I guess it just sounded like way to much fun and Grayson wanted to join the crowd.
As you will see in some pictures both Tristan and Liam were not feeling the best on the day Grayson came home. Liam had a really bad ear infection, fever and cough and Tristan was fighting a fever so they both wore masks when we brought Grayson home. It was wonderful to have all my boys finally together and at the same time it was nice of Gramma to take them home with her so Grayson and I could settle in and keep the sick germs away. They ended up staying with her for the week. By the time everyone was back home together no one was sick and Grayson was finally eating right. We were able to enjoy being a family of 7! Yes I said 7!
Tristan has had the privilege this year as a fourth grader to participate in the robotics club. He meets once a week after school to learn about robotics and to create a VEX robot for competition. He has been to one competition so far and made eigth place out of thirteen. He was very excited!! He will be competing again sometime this month. (he can't wait since he gets to miss part of school for it :)
I guess it had to happen sooner or later but I sure was liking the nice weather and would have done just fine without any snow this year. It's been wonderful to play outside in lighter coats and not have to bundle everyone up. However, the boys were very excited to finally have some snow to play in. Declan did not like the process of getting ready to go outside and wasn't a big fan of the snow when we finally made it out. He did end up playing a little while but wouldn't leave his gloves on so it was short lived. Liam, Tristan and Colin played outside for almost two hours building snow walls, knocking them down and enjoyed a good ol' snowball fight. (That's when Liam came in) It has been a fun weekend to just stay home play in the snow, enjoy hot chocolate and have some down time as a family of six before the little guy gets here.
