Doctor Will

Yesterday I took Jake and Will for their 4 and 2 year well checks.  4 shots and a finger stick between the two of them.  It was not fun!  After we medicated with frosties, everyone seemed to be OK.  Jake found a doctor kit in the attic and has been checking everyone out ever since.  Last night he was checking Buck out.  Will took one of the doctor kit toys.  Jake said Will doesn't even know what a doctor does.  Buck suggested, "I bet he does.  Will, what does a doctor do?"  Without coaching or hesitation Will responded, "The doctor says, 'No more monkeys jumping on the bed!'"  So there.  He DOES know what a doctor does.

Halloweenie!!!

12th Annual Halloweenie is in the books!  352 hotdogs.  Not too shabby for a Monday!  It wasn't a picture-perfect Halloween, but we sure did have fun!

 Our friend took at least 20 pictures, and this was the best we got.

Wicket lasted as long as I could hold his hands down.  He loves putting things on his head...just not this hood.

 This is how he ended up.  Can you see the juice dripping down his belly and leg?  We did put shorts and shoes on him before we went trick-or-treating.  I told everyone he was dressed as #5.  And for the record, we are experiencing record highs in the mid 80s right now, so he was certainly not cold.  The Wicket costume was actually miserably hot.  He was so stinkin' cute saying "Trick or Treat, Thank you, Happy Halloween, Thank you, Goodbye, Happy Halloween, Trick or Treat, Thank You, Goodbye..." at every house.


Sticking with the theme, Jake was Luke Skywalker

 Ellie was Rey

 Eve was the Indian Princess with a broken arm

 John was Darth Vader, but with those flowing locks, we suggested he could be Anakin just before he turned to the dark side.

Summer, Emma, and Eve

Caelan, Riley, and John

Our friends Dana and Shannon pitched in to help again this year (and Grandma, too, but she missed out on the pictures)
Happy Halloweenie!!!

Eve's Compassionate Soul

Don't get me wrong.  Eve has a special knack to say the most manipulatively mean things, and she's got a temper to match it.  That being said, she is one of the most compassionate kids I know when it counts. 
Recently we were about to leave for school.  Will and I bumped into each other, and his forehead met with the corner of the wall.  Big bleeding gash.  I sat down with him, and Eve jumped quickly to our aid.  She grabbed some tissues for me, looked directly at the blood without flinching or making a big deal, and tried her best to calm him.  Right then her compassion really struck me.  It is certainly a gift God has given her.  I wouldn't be surprised if she becomes a nurse.  A really good one.
Then, this weekend, her compassion really struck me twice more.  I've been training for a half marathon.  She's been taking piano lessons.  Saturday was my race, and also a practice recital that she's been working hard for.  I hadn't really talked about it much except that we'd have to see if Grandma could take her because my race wouldn't be over in time, and the rest of the family would be at the race (the practice recital was for students only...not spectators).  Friday night she said, "Mom, I don't want to hurt your feelings.  I know you've worked really hard for this race.  But I've worked really hard for this recital, too."  I could tell she was sad she wouldn't be there to cheer me on.  My heart just absolutely swelled.
Then, Saturday evening, Mom came over to watch the kids so Buck and I could go to a concert.  A group called the Avett Brothers.  They have a song "Ain't No Man" that the kids love.  We weren't far on our way when Mom called and said Eve had fallen and we needed to come home.  Everyone from the cul-de-sac was gathered around her.  She fell off a scooter and her wrist was swollen.  Our wonderful neighbor nurse, Sandra, whispered to me she thought it was broken (and she was right...buckle fracture in her left radius).  Eve was very upset, clearly it was scary and hurt quite a bit too.  We got her calmed down and comfortable, and having nothing else we could do (nobody puts a cast on Saturday night), we decided we go ahead and go.  Completely unprompted Eve said to Buck, "I really want you guys to stay here with me, but I also really want you to be able to go to your concert."  We did go, and Eve had a fine evening with Grandma.  I love her heart.

Sweet Ellie

Sweet Ellie (which I've discovered is the cousin of "Bless her heart").  She takes things so literally, and takes everything up a notch.  When her teacher says something, it needs to be done, it needs to be done now, and it needs to be done all out, or the world might fall apart.  Having met her teacher, who seems extremely laid back, calm, and quiet, I think most of the urgency comes from sweet Ellie.  So Friday after school I come in and find Ellie with a giant bag of toilet paper rolls.  Mind you, we haven't been saving them.  "Mrs. Chinery says we need to bring in lots of toilet paper rolls Monday (Halloween).  We're going to make a spider craft and if we don't have enough for everybody, then we won't be able to do it!" (all said in one breath).  So, I asked how she found all of those toilet paper rolls...21 total.  She searched through every bathroom trash can (gross).  A little while later I went to the bathroom.  I then discovered that she had removed the roll from the inside of several full toilet paper rolls.  We've laughed about that all weekend, only not in front of Ellie.  She's still taking this assignment very seriously.

January

January was super fun!  No snow (which I'm totally cool with), a fun trip (which warrants its own post), and, well, you'll see.  But first, for some reason I have some funny random pictures of what Jake decided to wear...

 ...or not wear.  I suppose it was around this time (he potty trained FINALLY as a Christmas present to me.  I joked about it, but it actually worked out that way) that he started dressing himself.  Not only does he put his clothes on by himself, but he chooses what he'll wear.  Things have changed once we moved our room downstairs.  He doesn't come in to snuggle with me in the mornings.  Instead he wakes up, searches through his drawers for what he wants to wear, and comes down completely dressed.  It's a neat trick!  He just randomly came downstairs completely dressed one day, and has done it every since.  Well, I guess not always completely dressed.  For some reason it's a lot harder to convince him to put his clothes back on than to put them on in the first place.  He strips from the waist down to go to the bathroom, then often takes quite a while to decide to put himself back together.  I actually ran across a picture I took of him wearing a coat and helping Buck cook with his (Jake's) bare bottom.  It's as cute as can be, but probably not appropriate for the internet.  I like this choice of attire, though.

 And this is also quite nice.  I have to say the girls actually had no part in this...surprisingly.

While we're on the subject of crazy Jake, this is how I found his apple one day.  He doesn't eat the peel.  I don't know how he managed to get his face in there and clear the flesh out so well without taking the apple slices out of the slicer, but I was impressed and amused.

John's hair keeps getting longer.  It was in his face and he couldn't see to play his game, so I made a nice ponytail for him.

Buck had a different idea of how to solve the problem.  For the record, John is laughing, not screaming.  I'm pretty sure Will is a little concerned, though.

SO, our big excitement, other than the trip, was the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME!!!!!!!  Clemson won the national championship in 1981, but hasn't come close again since.  This season was so so so exciting!  Going into the National Championship undefeated was pretty amazing!  It was on a school night (what's up with that?!) but we told the kids they could stay up anyway.

 Everyone pitched in with the preparations.

 That's some serious pigs in a blanket rolling going on there!

 The game didn't start until bedtime.  The countdown was excruciating!  We had way too much energy, thus piggy back laps around the house.

 We decorated for the tailgate

We had quite a spread for the tailgate (including Clemson cookies that the kids decorated)

The anticipation was almost more than we could handle!  John and Eve made it through the whole game...and we lost :(  I have to say, it was one of the best football games I've ever seen.  Standing on the couch is not permitted in our house, but we had to make an exception because I was just too nervous near the end.  What a season for our Tigers!!!! 

December (Long Story Long)

December at Buckingham Palace was crazy to say the least.  I just about lost my marbles, and lost my patience just a few times.  December was when construction was no longer just outside the window.  It was inside and insane.  Our Christmas season was very different, but like Mom told me, "It's not YOUR birthday" meaning it's not all about me and what I envision Christmas should look like.  Oh how I needed that reminder...DAILY!  So, we start with some regular day to day pictures.

 Nothing special about this one.  I just like it.  She rocked the Leia braid buns that day.

 Clemson played in the ACC championship, so of course, we had to celebrate with a tailgate.  Unfortunately our TV was in our room since the downstairs was blocked off for construction (only half, really, there was a plastic sheet running from the front door to the back, floor to ceiling...not exactly fun or easy).  Fortunately we were replacing the carpet in a few days.  We moved the party upstairs.  It was a late night game, so it ended up being really fun.  John was the only one of the kids who made it to see CLEMSON WIN!!!!!!!

 The next day we rested :)

 There is a Hispanic childcare worker at the Y that teaches the kids Spanish.  She is fabulous.  Jake won a prize for remembering so well.  He LOVES it!

 We went for a walk one day to stay out of the workers' way.  We were so fortunate to have unbelievably nice weather while they were finishing inside, so we spent a lot of time outside.  Jake decided to take the poop bag and use it as Superman's cape.  He was NOT happy when Bo pooped and he lost his cape.

 Here is the finished outside.  The inside was finished Christmas Eve!  Now that I look at old pictures of the outside it looks so awkward and unbalanced to me.  We are beyond happy!

 Finally everyone got to decorate for Christmas...and in their new rooms!  This was a nice treat because we still couldn't get to the downstairs to decorate.  At least with this it finally started to feel a bit like Christmas.

 We also got to decorate gingerbread houses.  Always a big hit!

 John and Eve were very meticulous.  Ellie was somewhat meticulous.

 Will was hungry.

 Jake dumped and at lots of sugar.

 I'm guessing on these, but I'm pretty sure this is John's

 Eve's

 Ellie's

 Jake's

 Sometimes you just have to embrace the chaos and get messy.  Messes can be cleaned and they are so worth the fun.

 There's a story here.  Two or three nights before Christmas I finally bit the bullet and stayed up super late wrapping everything.  I was so tired when I was done, Buck graciously put everything under our bed.  We don't put presents under the tree regularly because we don't want them constantly unwrapped.  We had just moved into our new room.  At this point the tree wasn't even really accessible to put gifts under.  I made a big mistake.  I took a shower (upstairs because the downstairs bathroom wasn't quite done).  I came downstairs and my bedroom door was locked.  I said, "Jake, what's going on in there?"  "Nobody should see me!" he kept repeating.  I finally got him to unlock the door and found this.  It continued around the corner.  I don't think he even saw anything, he was so excited to just unwrap things.  It was all I could do not to laugh, and to firmly tell him that now he wouldn't have any surprises.  He was devastated, poor thing.  We'll know better next time!

 Later that day he got caught eating the gingerbread houses.  Needless to say, it was a long December.

Finally Christmas Eve we were able to decorate.  OH!  I forgot!  We got a tree the weekend after Thanksgiving.  Knowing we'd have to move it for drywall and paint, we just put lights on it.  Good thing, because when they pulled the plastic off and moved it away from the wall to paint, spiders scattered everywhere.  I was told both dozens and hundreds.  Either way, the tree was immediately carried just out the door and in front of the front porch.  We left it there.  Of course we did the classy thing and plugged the lights in each night.  At any rate, the cold came, and we didn't see any more spiders, so we brought the tree in on Christmas Eve to decorate.  (A day or two after Christmas I was up in the morning and noticed spiders everywhere, so the tree was promptly undecorated and moved outside.  Nothing a little vacuuming could take care of, though)

 The stockings were hung by the chimney with care.

 The elves decorated the tree

 We recreated what is arguably the cheesiest Buckingham senior picture ever.

 We made Christmas cookies

 We had a great Christmas Eve buffet

 Cheers!

Yes, it was a crazy December.  Yes, I about lost it a few times.  In the end we had a wonderful addition to our house that we are very grateful for, and a Savior that humbled himself from a position over all to come down to us as a baby, and that's pretty special.  Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.