Happy New Year's Eve!

Much to the horrors of our older children, this year Chris wanted to spend NYE with just the seven of us. We took the kids out to dinner to start our night. And YES, I did ask my family to smile nicely for a pic.....Thank you, Avery!

Meet Noelle

Here she is.....Madi and Kylie's new bunny, Noelle. She is adapting well to our loud, crazy, house. The girls are having fun taking her out of her cage, and letting her hop all around their bedroom. Right now they are trying to get her litter trained. Madi has informed me that Noelle is doing well with the litter training!

Mad

Hartman Christmas Party

On Friday night Geo and Denise hosted a 'Hartman Christmas.' Although we all had a great time seeing everyone, exchanging gifts, playing games, eating good food, it was an emotionally tough party for us. Tom and Dad were so missed.

Merry Christmas

Good Morning!!!!! Kylie and Madi were the first two awake AT 5:30am. We gave them instructions that they could NOT wake Kami up until 6:30. So, at 6:30 EXACTLY, all 5 kids came bulldozing into our room to wake us up. Here they all are about to walk down stairs to see if Santa stopped! But first, everyone dumped out their stockings. Apparently, when you don't have a fireplace, a staircase becomes a great alternative for hanging stockings.

Group shot!

Family gift!

It's a Girl. That's right, Santa brought a floppy earred bunny for Christmas. Here is Paulie meeting 'Noelle' for the first time.

Christmas Eve

Our Christmas Eve started out at our house with my parents and the C's coming over for dinner. Every year our township sends around a fire truck with Santa on top, waving to everyone before he heads out on his big journey! Here we all are screaming and waving and singing Christmas songs.

After dinner, we all settle in the family room to watcha a little "A Christmas Story." Here is CJ and PopPop relaxing.

Chelsey, Madi, Kylie, and Ally.

Kamryn's Christmas Party

Last week Kami had her 'Holiday Show' at preschool. Chris and I joined about 40 other proud parents as we watched our 3 year olds sing to a bunch of holiday songs. We were so proud of how great our 'baby' did.



Here she is posing with her best friend Ashleigh. Isn't it hard to believe that even at such a young age kids know who they want to be friends with.
Here is Kami posing with her other BFF.....her daddy!

The Christmas Card

On Sunday I realized that I needed to get moving on our Christmas cards. As I was sitting on my sofa Sunday night, ordering my picture cards online, I realized how far technology has brought us with card sending. 16 years ago we sent out our very first picture card of CJ. Way back then I actually had to take a whole roll of pics with a regular camera, take the film to a store to get processed, wait 24 hours for the prints, and hope to heaven that there was at least one decent picture. Then I had to take the picture we selected to a photo place and have them print my cards. 16 years ago I had to wait about 5 days for the cards to be done. When I finally got them home I had to write on each individual card, "Love, Chris, Jo Anne, and Christopher." SOOOO much work. Now, I snap a bunch of photos (still the most stressful part,) download the pics to my laptop, send the best one to an online site, select a cute design, and have our names preprinted on each card. Once I placed my order, I received a confirmation that they would be ready at 11am the next day for pick up. 16 hour service....amazing!!!!! Gotta love technology.

Here are a few that I liked, but didn't pick.

Santa Baby

Back in September, friends of ours, the McC's gave Kami a gift card to Build-A-Bear Workshop. Well, this past Saturday, Kami, my mom, and I snuck away to WG mall so Kami could build her own bear. Here she is placing the heart inside her new bear. When we were done making her bear we walked around the mall for a bit. When Kami saw the fountain she said, "Mommy, I need money to throw in the water...pleeaasseeee."

Here she is back home with 'Santa Baby'. She hasn't put her down since!

Coffee, Sweet, Coffee

Since I was a little girl, I have loved coffee. I have gone through various coffee phases over the years.....the grind your own bean phase........ store coffee in the freezer phase....... buy expensive, gourmet coffee phase.......WaWa hazelnut with Irish cream creamer phase.....and now......THE KEURIG COFFEE MACHINE phase. For those of you not familiar with Keurig, it makes individual cups of coffee. The coffee comes in individual pods that are placed in the machine. The pods come in too many flavors to mention. You can even purchase teas and cocoa. We set up our Keurig 3 hours ago and have already tried 5 different flavors. I have a feeling we will be up reallllly late tonight. I just love my new toy!!!

O, Christmas tree!!!

On Saturday afternoon, we gathered all the kids and headed to our favorite tree farm to cut down our Christmas Tree. Here are girls getting a ride from CJ on the tree cart before we found our tree.Chris is busy sawing our tree, but CJ is not thrilled with our choice this year. He wanted a really fat tree, but we wanted a tall, thin tree.

This year was a lot warmer than years past, so we ended up walking deeper into the tree farm than usual looking for the 'perfect' tree.' Of course by the time we found our tree, we ended up having a very long walk back to the entrance.

Chris posing with 'Big Willy' (Madi always likes to name our Christmas trees) before we start to decorate.

TAA-DAA---Kami posing next to 'Big Willy.' He's is not quite 11 feet tall. Believe it or not, 'Big Willy' is not the tallest tree we ever had, but he fits right in anyway!

Better late than never!

Here are a few pics of my birthday weekend away with Chris and the kids. As usual, I messed up the order of the pics. Someday I will get it right. Here is Kami feeding a bottle to a cute goat at the petting farm.Kylie's turn to bottle feed the goat.

Chris, CJ, Madi, and Avery chilling out in the mountain home.

The mountain house we stayed in....just beautiful.

Hartman road trip!

Avery's turn.

The kids and I at the petting farm.

Chris and I sharing a bowl of soup....the bread bowl was better than the soup.
The girlies chilling out with their 'coffee'

Kami and I hanging out.

My '40' eve.

Only a few hours left of my 30's.......WOW.......I am old. I realized that I only listed 10 things about me....I just can't come up with 30 more things....so, I am done with the list. But I will share about my FABULOUS weekend. Friday afternoon Chris and the kids packed up the van, told me to get in, and we all left for a weekend celebration. They wouldn't tell me where we were going.....Less than two hours later we arrived in front of a beautiful house in the Poconos. Chris and and the kids surprised me with a weekend getaway!!! We had an awesome time, just the 7 of us, partying, playing games, watching movies, shopping, visiting a petting zoo, an animal rescue, and eating out. Pics to follow when I can find the camera. After our fabulous family weekend, we went over to C's for dinner with my parents, too. K and A made a delicious lasagna and salad.

5 days and counting!!!!

So I spent the last hour trying to come up with more things about me......and I'm struggling. I think I am an open book and everyone already knows everything about me. Oh well, here we go....

5. I was in a sorority in college, loved every minute of it, and still have my sorority jacket in my closet.
6. I can still do a damn good cart wheel. ( Although I never remember it hurting before...)
7. I LOVE to sing LOUD to great songs in my car. (Don't know why, but this really embarrasses CJ....especially when his friends are in the car.)
8. My favorite food is mozzarella cheese fries.
9. I HATE chocolate ice cream.
10. I want another tattoo.

6 days and counting!!!!

In case you are reading this and don't really know me.....I LOVE BIRTHDAYS!!!!!!! So much so, that I don't think one day is enough. In our family, we always celebrate birthday eve's as well as the real day. Well, in 6 days I will be celebrating the B-I-G 4-0....I know, I know......I'm too young to be this old. Since my b-day is on a Tuesday, and my b-day eve is a Monday....and Mondays and Tuesdays are our two craziest nights with the kids and all of their activities, we are celebrating my B-I-G 4-0 this weekend.

On my kids' and hubby's b-days I always do a birthday list. Well, 40 things is way to many to write in one post..So, here is a starter.........

1. I am left handed.

2. I have a tattoo.

3. I loved being pregnant.

4. I sucked my thumb until I was in college.

Well, 4 down....36 to go........

Another Madi Moment

This morning Madi had 2 teeth pulled....part of her orthodontic treatment. She did great. After we got her home, and she slept off the remaining anesthesia, she actually asked to eat. After oral surgery, your diet it a bit limiting...but right up Madi's alley...ice cream, pudding, mac and cheese.

A Hartman Halloween

Our Halloween began with Chris, CJ, and Kylie meeting up with K family at 6:45am at the train station to head down to Citizen's Bank Park for the Phillies Parade. They met up with other friends and family when they got down there. They partied, they cheered, they witnessed history. They spent a fortune on Phillie wear! Mike and Chris....just happy to be part of this day.

More than friends???


Last time there was a championship parade in Philly, these men were mere boys....well except for Alan!

CJ and his Uncle Mike

Avery went trick or treating at the C's house so this pic was actually taken the day after Halloween. Here's a funny thing.... Avery and Amberly wore the exact same costume, and they didn't plan it.

Kylie, Ally, and Alex went trick or treating as soon as they got home from the parade. In this case, Kylie and Ally did plan to be the same thing for Halloween. They actually bought their ears and t-shirts back in August!

Madi and her bff went out as bums. Even dirty, she's so damn cute!

Sorry, no pics of CJ. He gets embarassed by me and my camera! He and his friends went trick or treating wearing NO COSTUMES. Hope he had fun because he will be too old to go out next year.....hey, if your old enough to drive...your old enough to buy your own candy!

And here is our baby as Minnie Mouse! She decided to be the exact same thing she was last year. But because she has grown so much in one year, I had to re-buy the same exact costume all over again. No worry....she loves Minnie Mouse so much that will end up wearing it out!

THE DROUGHT IS OVER!!!!

Where were you between 7:37 and 10:00 Wednesday night? The Ives and the Hartmans were watching Philly history!!!! The last time the Phillies won, I was in elementary school. I know, I know....a long, long, time ago. After the win, we all ran outside, cheered, banged my pots and pans, and drank champagne!!!! So what does all this mean to us....well, I get new pots and pans, and Chris said he's naming our next kid Charlie Manuel!!!!!!

Okay, this has nothing to do with the Phillies....or does it???? Here are two pics from our front porch on Tuesday, OCTOBER, YES, OCTOBER 27th. Crazy!!!!!