Christmas Photos

Christmas photos!!

This year we decided to have a secret santa gift exchange before we left for Hilton Head to visit family for the holidays. We all drew names and had a big adventure at target with a $20 limit. It was so cute to see what everyone picked out for their person. Hudson won the best gift award with this giant teddy bear that he picked out for Brooke. I think it was her favorite gift of all! Her face when she opened it was priceless! All in all, I think it w

as really successful. I wanted the kids to get excited about giving gifts as well as getting gifts... and with so many of us in the family, I thought it was a good tradition to start and continue as they get older. We left for hilton head on thursday and got to see all my extended family. I think there are close to 30 of us in all now. I can't believe how all my cousins have grown. Brittany (the cute blond in the pictures) is now 25... hard to believe at

her age I had had 2 weddings and was pregnant with my first baby! A few of my cousins are now in college and high school... uggh... my kids are getting older, my cousins are now adults... I must be in denial that I'm getting older too!

Hilton Head was so fun. The little cousin bonding between my kids and my brother's kids (Ronan and Isla) was adorable to watch. It always makes me wish we lived closer to them. That picture with Hudson's arm around Ronan melts my heart. Hudson loved having someone to play Lego's with and bond over Star Wars. I wonder who Isla is going to gravitate to... she's right between Nellie and Brooke in age. Brandon and Cat had those adorable pj's (Ronan and Isla had matching ones as well) and looked like the perfect family with their 2 kids and one on the way.

The picture with everyone looking at the laptop is Christmas morning when we were watching the video we got of Santa Coming down the Chimney! Seriously... we captured him passing out all the presents! Watching this video was the BEST part of Hudson's Christmas. None of us can believe that we actually SAW SANTA! I will try to figure out a way to put it on here as well... I think this video was the highlight of my Christmas as well. There was so much holiday spirit involved in the setting up and anticipation of this video. Loved it. Thanks Brandon for making it so special. All in all, I think it was an unforgettable Christmas, totally worth the 11 hours it took to drive to and from Hilton Head. My family is so loud and funny... I hope all my kids stay as close as my mom and her siblings have. It really is a special group of people. I wonder if 50 years from now, it will be Gregor and me surrounded by all our kids, grandkids, and great grandkids... I sure hope so.

3 more

ok.. I can't help posting these... 2 more videos of Larkin when she was 3 yrs old (Hud would be 5) and one of hud when he was 4.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Birthdays

Hudson and Brooke had their birthdays yesterday, 8 and 4 years old respectively. I will get photos up soon of their fun parties (Tubing for Hudson and Ballet Party for Brooke) as well as christmas etc. In the mean time the kids and I were looking back through some of our old videos... they all wanted to see what they looked like at Nellie's age (she will be turning 2 on Sunday January 15th). I put a couple of them below. They are all so adorable at 2 (good think they are cute at this age... because they sure are punks in their attitudes)! I put one of baby nellie there too to remind me how tiny she used to be not even 2 years ago! I started to realize that hudson is going to be driving in 7 years and off to college in only 10 years, which these days doesn't seem long at all (of course that would make me 44 and that is just scary).



Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo PrintingHudson turns 2 with a party at our house. We had no friends at the time... so it was only us. Oh how things were different for Hudson back then.


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo PrintingLarkin seems so grown up already at 2 years old. Singing songs, talking to us, hiking on her own in sugar hollow. I think by this time we had a few friends to invite over to our house to celebrate her big day.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo PrintingI don't have a video of Brooke's 2nd birthday. I don't know how that happened (third child I guess). But this was taken just a day or two after her birthday. Look how long Larkin's hair is!


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo PrintingIt seems like yesterday that nellie was this tiny little wiggle worm. I miss having a tiny baby around (although I don't miss waking up all through the night to feed her).

Nellie says...

We are on our way to hilton head for christmas... a fun filled 11 hours in the car. Luckily the kids are watching their movies and playing games and generally happy travelers. Nellie has been cracking us up though with what she's saying (especially for a kid that's not even 2!). A few examples:

"Oh my goodness mommy...water!"

"Knock knock, brooke"... ( "who's there?")  "Debi's house". (Debi's house who?)...debi bumped her head..hahaha
(Brooke and nellie can go on like this forever with jokes that make no sense but always end with both girls laughing)

"More dorito please mommy...huddy has it"

"Mom, wha happened...my dbdb (aka dvd) not working"

"Ah man, my didi (blanket) dropped...get it mommy"

"Mommy...here's what I want...nuggets, chocolate milk, fries, toy Ok mommy ok. You got it?"

"Mommy, I NEED a wipe! My hands soooo sticky"

"Uh oh mommy...brookie has bloody nose"

2 more hours to go...almost there. Now I'm wishing everyone would just sleep for a little while. That's what I want to do!

cutie Nellie

Thanks Brette for this adorable picture of Nellie... It's totally frame worthy if I can figure out a way to photoshop out the snot.

Mommy and brooke day

Brooke and I aren't letting my one-armed funk get in the way of our mommy and brooke day! We had our personal driver (gregor) drop us off for a little ben and jerry's before we head to the movies. Fun fun times today! I love you brookie!

Notes from Katie

Hi Everyone,
Kiki is busy helping me with my essays for UVA so I figured I would help her with her blog writing!
I have been her for almost 4 weeks and I have crazy stories to tell. All the kids have been great and really started to be themselves around me. I am so glad that Hudson shares my love for Harry Potter. Kiki is reading him the second Harry Potter every night and today we started watching the second movie. He keeps asking me questions that I really want to answer but I don’t want to ruin the story for him.
The other day Hudson was riding his scooter and kept running into the girls on their bikes on purpose. I asked me why and he gave me a simple answer- “because it’s fun”. He definitely loves to mess around with them, but he is very caring at the same time. I was at the park down the street with all 4 kids the other day and all of a sudden Larkin was missing. When I noticed, Hudson immediately ran into the street to look for her. It turns out that Larkin got tired and walked back home. She went inside and turned to Kiki and said, “Do I have to tell Katie that I came home?” Yes, Larkin, next time I would love it if you told me before I panic that I lost you.
I pulled the lacrosse sticks out of the garage the other day to play with Larkin and she is pretty good. I was really impressed and now every time we play outside she wants to throw the tennis ball with the lacrosse sticks. I don’t know what I would do without Larkin because she is always willing to play with Nellie and Brooke- aka she is the teacher and they are the students.
Brooke is nonstop energy. I don’t think she stops singing all day. When we pick her up from school, she is always singing new songs. The newest song is about the solar system. She signs it perfectly except she can’t seem to understand that Uranus does not have a “g” sound in the middle. We tried over and over to teacher her to say UR-ANUS… UR-ANUS… then we all just felt weird and stopped. Uraganus is fine, She is also really into Yoga right now. She loves being Ms. Kelly’s helper at yoga class and the chicken song is her favorite. I wish I had pictures of her walking awkwardly on her toes pretending to be a chicken because it is hilarious. Brooke also liked to remind everyone, every day that her dad is the tallest person in the world and that she can spell dad. She can also spell mom. Today I asked her to spell pig and I am pretty sure she spelled it p-o-i-k-j-e.
Nellie is the cutest little girl ever. She is finally at the point where she uses my name and asks me for things. It took me a while to realize that if she said “Nana” she wanted a yogurt. If she is ever upset I just give her a Squeezie to eat and she forgets why she was upset, unless I accidently pick a flavor she doesn’t like, which luckily only happened once or twice. She is asking about the potty more and more and is now at the point where she always wants to sit on the potty so I am thinking she will be potty trained early. The funniest moment I had with Nellie was when I went to get her from her crib in the morning. I opened the door and she had her feet hanging out of the crib and her arms grasping the bars. She was screaming and looked so upset. I finally realized that she was saying “BABY IS HURT, HELP, BABY IS HURT”. I picked up her doll baby and gave it back to her and asked “Is baby better?” and Nellie just looked at me and said, “Yep!”
Nellie is the best baby in the morning. She literally plays with her animals or sings songs in her crib until I come and get her. She will usually start with softly saying “mommy?” “daddy?” until she is forced to scream for them because she is still trapped in her crib. The other morning I actually heard her say “Katie” in her crib, which warmed my heart!
Brooke sings a muffin song that goes something like--- “two little muffins in the bakery shop, the kind with the sugar and nuts on top, along came NELLIE with a penny to pay…and she gets a blue muffin and she runs away” But at the end of the song, Brooke will say, “Sorry Nellie, no more muffins today!!!” and Nellie’s new response to this is “OHH MAN!” When she first did it, Kiki and I just looked at each other and started cracking up. It was too cute.
Sorry Gregor, I didn’t mention your name until now. Kiki thinks we are the same person… it’s a little strange, but comforting at the same time. It’s probably why I fit in so well here.
Love, Katie

Halloween with the Patsch Clan

Uggh... my phone pics. I'm a little disappointed with the quality... It kills me not to be able to use my nice camera to get my favorite fall photos.
Anyhow, Halloween this year was a success! Hudson was surprisingly not a character from Star Wars this year, and even more surprisingly didn't even carry a weapon... I never thought I'd see the day. He decided to go as a ZOMBIE. Katie did a great job with his makeup and somehow Nellie wasn't scared of him. Larkin was a funky witch. Brooke was a Cat and Nellie was a Pirate (recognize that costume? Brooke wore it last year). We had the annual neighborhood block party in front of our house including a parade and trick-or-treating in the 'hood. Good times (although next near we decided that it might be even better if we served adult beverages).