Opening the Wii

Wii Thank you-- and the grouchy 4 year old!

They LOVE it! Thanks Mom and Dad!

Christmas!

Our days of 'couple' pictures are temporarily on hold.
We live with a little 1-year old camera hog!

Ready for Christmas Mass

Excited for opening presents!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas is a fabulous celebration of the birth of JESUS!
I am reminding myself of this as we head into Christmas Eve today.

I pray for everyone to have a peaceful celebration.
No stress! Store bought cookies are ok, if they mean that you will celebrate with less stress.

I am trying to be very low key this year...
There is still a lot to do, but I insist on enjoying it!

MERRY CHRISTMAS to you and yours!

Nominate a family to receive FREE photos!

My Sister is giving away a $600 portrait package!
http://melaniereyesphotography.wordpress.com/

An indication of the complication of mothering 7 boys

I rarely just 'write' a blog entry. Truth be told, I am not an exerienced or interesting writer.
My other secret is that one of the major reason I blog, is to have material to cut and paste right into my kids' scrapbooks. (I DO love scrapbooking! The old fashioned way!)

Anyway, it is complicated mothering so many children. I love it. I wouldn't have it any other way. But, sometimes I drown in the details of life!

For instance, when it is time to go to Mass, it is a miracle if everyone can find their shoes. The other thing that makes me crazy are the toothbrushes. I have given each child their own color. They each have a pillowcase and towel in their special color. This has helped a lot! But, I have yet to find brown or black toothbrushes.. AND.. the kids want THEIR special toothbrushes from the dentist, no matter the color!

Anyway, this week. The toothfairy visited my skeptical 7 y/o. He was telling my sister that he got TWO WHOLE DOLLARS from the tooth fairy. She was shocked. Do you know how much that adds up to? 7 boys with all those teeth? "Well," I explained, "that is just for the FIRST tooth! The tooth fairy brings a little more the for the first one!"

Then Francis says in his very skeptical tone, "But, MOM, YOU are the toothfairy and this ISN'T the 1st tooth, It is the third. Explain THAT to ME!" LOL. Well, like I said. Even the toothfairy gets overwhelmed keeping track of the details of this busy family!

Happy Advent!

The Happy Couple ;)
(No, the windows and tree are not crooked.. the camera is!)

An Ornament my Grandma made for me when I was younger.

Cheerful, AKA, Liam

James' ornament-- used to be red, I assume. Isn't it so cute?

The Gang

My sweet Michael!

We are so excited to celebrate Advent and Christmas in our new home. We have been SO blessed this year! We have a New baby, new friends, and new home! We are homeschooling (and loving it!) and life is just plain good!

Today was a greeting card picture type day. Really. OK, not CLEAN like a greeting card living room or kitchen, but beautiful. We all got along. We decorated and sang and relaxed. It was wonderful. Our family is such a huge blessing!

Here are some fun pictures from our day. Enjoy!

Couple more Martial Arts videos

Seamus, so serious, after receiving his new belts.
Poor kid, the was called "see-mas" again.
Sigh. SHAMUS-- should have just spelled it like that for everyone!

Francis being congratulated for his White Senior award.

Liam, Center. His teacher is the guy in the black on the left.

Teaching Peter 'the moves'. I missed the real action. Oh well.

Seamus, Francis, Liam: Belt Testing (From White to White Senior)

Liam's Test. Tonight.

Seamus and Francis on Monday.
Liam was too nervous to participate. There were 35 kids testing! It was really crowded!
So, he did his make-up test tonight.

I am really proud of my boys!

Peter turns 4

IMG_6695rn5x7, originally uploaded by attached2my3boys.

I got the picture from my sister. Isn't it sweet?

Pete Turns 4 and Seamus Turns 9!

Seamus turns 9!
My sister, Melanie made the cupcakes (Cherry, yummy!)
I made the small cake for the kids who don't like cherry.

Seamus has already built this ship. He was up at 6am to get started!
Note Peter's silly look. They were SO wound up!

I just realized that I don't have any pictures from Peter's birthday-- I think my sister took them with her camera... Will have to post some later!
Peter was hilarious when we sang to him--
he covered his ears and was yelling through the whole song.

Life at the Fifelski's

So, do you like my new look? I need to figure out how to shrink the pic of Timmy.
He looks like a giant :)

Anyway, My sister Melanie is living here. I am on cloud nine. Seriously.
My niece and nephews are so darn cute.
And, what can be better than to have my own sister right in the same town???

Melanie took a newborn and family photo shoot for us about a month ago.
Email me if you want to see the pictures!

Our homeschool is up and running. Full speed ahead.
Life is full-- as I like to say--
And I am not complaining!

I love the freedom of homeschooling. We decided to have a bonfire tonight.
And, we can! And, if we want, we could sleep in tomorrow!
(But, we don't want to! I hate late mornings!)
No late night homework, making lunches for school and getting projects done.
This is a lifestyle I think I can get used to!

Off to get ready for our cook-out/bonfire.
Thanks for stopping by!

PS. DID YOU VOTE YET????

Win a Photo Shoot with my sister!

Hey Everyone, My wonderfully talented sister is doing a BLOG contest!
(The baby pic above is of my Timmy, BTW!)
Go to www.melaniereyesphotography.com and click on BLOG.
Enter a comment to win a one hour photo session!
She will be doing sessions in MD, VA, MI (AA, GR, Lansing)
Check it out! She is awesome!

October.. for a few more days.

Football Season is over.. and we have time to be goofy! Yippee!

Mike and Pat. 1 and 1/2 and 12.

Headphones and a tail. Nice, huh?

My new haircut.

Vote for Values this November!

School Days: Michael doing a puzzle

Michael is not very verbal. He has a few words: Mama, Dada, Hi, Oh, Hey, Bye, mimmmy (Timmy), and something that sounds like '1,2,3, Go!'

This week we started doing the color/shape puzzle with him. He is so cute, how he yells when he gets frustrated. I am so in love with my boys!

School Days

I would like to share a 'snapshot' of a school day with my readers!

I know that many of you think I am nuts for homeschooling. And, yes, I am a little nuts.
But, I believe that it is worth it! I feel like I have fully adjusted to the 'homeschooling' way of life and I am enjoying the closeness with my kids and the routine of life.

We start with prayer/gospel reading/singing at 8:30. By Nine, the older boys are at work on their assignments. S & F have a folder for each day. P just has a lesson list that I created in Microsoft Excel. This semester we are studying Medieval History, Language Arts and Math, Spanish. We also have Football (P) and Martial Arts (S&F) and Catechism. Liam is reading like a champ and working on writing. He is also starting on Addition.

We are done with the core subjects by lunch. Spanish, Religion, and History are usually from 2-3. We take a break from 12-2 for lunch and chores.

It is going remarkably well. I was nervous about starting. I have a mother's helper 2 mornings a week. It is so helpful. She helps with the little ones and on some chores or tutoring the little boys.

OK, I have said too much. But, life is good. I know some days will be hard. But, I am very happy to be teaching all of my children again. Enjoy the pictures!

S&F doing K12 History online, their favorite subject!

S- Who almost always stands up at his desk.

F- Yes, he is holding a football at his desk!
Looking forward to recess, I guess!

Seamus practices journal writing. He decided to make a list of stuff in his drawer.
It sure cracked me up! Boys sure love their 'junk'!

Liam

Timmy-- Loving school. LOL

Michael and Peter doing a puzzle.

Pat-- doing K12 Language arts online

Michael and his puzzle

Wild Times at the Fife's

My sister, Melanie, and her children are staying with us for a while.. and we are having a BLAST!

We have 10 kids under the age of 12 and 3 adults.
The kids are ages: 12,8,7,5,5,3,3,2,1, 7 weeks. Only one is a girl!

Let me tell you, this is super fun!

Here are some recent pictures.

Diego, 3

Xavier 2

Michael, 1 and 1/2

Liam, 5

The one girl in the crew, Isa, 5. She is such a sweetie!

Almost the whole gang-- missing Timmy and Patrick

Word of Life Community's Fall Festival.
Do you see Diego, Liam and Isa?

Some of the pictures above (The really good ones!) were taken by my sister, Melanie www.melaniereyesphotography.com
She is moving into the area (Yippee!!) and is booking photo shoots right now!

More Fall pictures!

Some of you may have heard about our Septic Tank dilemma.. we had to replace it.. ALREADY!
The excavator also brought us a big load of dirt for covering it. The boys are having a blast playing in it.. And I am having a blast CLEANING Them (NOT!)

Gigi came for a visit. The boys love playing cards with her!

Poison Ivy.. Aaahhh.. Country life.
Poor Liam couldn't see out his left eye, it got so puffy!

Fall=Football, right?
Well it never really has for us.. until this year.
Patrick is playing tackle football of www.cfl-mi.com . He doesn't always like it...
It is a ton of work. But, he does enjoy 'pizza Fridays' and the games. (It's all about food and tackling people, right?) He is a lineman and is doing a great job. They had their 2nd game/1st win ever.. this weekend. Go Stallions!

Choi Kwang Do: Video!

These are short clips, but super cute... IMHO!

!

Gigi Arrives!

Singing (or playing) in the rain!

Choi Kwang Do

Francis

Seamus

Seamus, Francis, Liam
Liam wasn't feeling good (I found out after class!) and he was really annoyed with the boy next to him. Hence, the LOOK-- better known as a GLARE!

Boys with their instructor

Football! Washtenaw Stallions: Christian Football League

Pat in his practice uniform.

Pat's Varsity Teammates

Pat's team has not yet played a game. We enjoyed watching the "Varsity" team play, though!