Christian Andrew Burke

Well Christian turns 7 today. I met Christian and Daniel 4 years ago almost to the day and I can't believe how he has grown. He is smart, funny, kind, athletic, hilarious, sweet, and the best big brother. It has been fun to watch him grow into his own personality. The thing I think I love the most about him is how he is so friendly and once you have met him you are his new best friend. Daniel is the same way and it is so impressive to me how they can find the good in everyone. I thank my Heavenly Father daily that I have been given the opportunity to be apart of this great family for eternity. I am so lucky that from the beginning he completely excepted me and I hope that we will never have any big issues with the fact that I am not his Mother. Here are some photos through the years. Happy Birthday Christian I love you!

GO PATRIOTS

We are hoping that the PATS make history on Saturday and have the perfect season 16 - 0.

Christmas

This Christmas was the best Christmas I have ever had, I don't know if it was because of Ryan or the fact that we didn't go anywhere on Christmas day but we had a terrific time. Ryan did great and loved ripping the paper and my family all came over on Christmas Eve so on Christmas day it was just us. I love this Holiday because we get to do things with family, eat good food and give gifts. Last week we made a Gingerbread house and Christian had so much fun.

This is Ryan ripping the paper and of course trying to eat it

Here is Christian and Ryan in their new PJ's

Daniel's Mom made us a blanket that has the Red Sox's on one side and the Angels on the other side, don't we both look lovely it is 6:30 in the morning and we had been up since about 4 because of the terrible wind blowing things down outside. Daniel's mom also made the boys Patriots jackets that are so cute and Christian loved that they matched.

This is Christian playing with his toys like 5 minutes after we finished opening them. He loved all his gifts and he was so cute with Ryan and wanted me to take their picture together after every gift. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

Parties, Parties and More Parties

I love this time of year when we get together with Friends and Family. Today we had breakfast with Santa at church and then we had Christian's Birthday Party. His birthday is not until the 28th but we always try and celebrate it early in the month since Christmas and New Years are crazy. He had such a good time and we had a wonderful turn out. Ryan loved being outside and watching all the kids, until about halfway through the party when he realized that he hadn't taken a very good nap and he was tired. Christian absolutely loved all the gifts he was given and loved playing at the park with all his friends. It was a great day!

Playing around

I love it when Dan plays with Ryan because he gets him to do things that he will not do for me. Like tonight Ryan sat in his Bumbo for about twenty minutes and played the piano. Ryan has not sat in his chair for about two months for me, he just cries because he wants me to hold him. So it was fun to see him playing tonight. I can't believe how fast he has grown he will be 8 months old in a week and I just love to see his personality and stubborness come out. Also Christian decided that he thought it looked fun to have a broken leg so he put on my Dad's boot and walked around for about an hour pretending to have a broken leg. It was cute, I just hope he doesn't need to ever really have one.

I can't believe how similar their expressions are! They are both very pleased with themselves.

Sorry the Video is so dark, I guess we didn't have on enough lights.

Needed Alone Time

Ok so Ryan is about to be 8 months old and I rarely go out with out him. This weekend was a huge exception!!!! Friday night I got to go shopping alone. It was really great to be able to just walk around and not worry about children. I went to Mervyn's which ended up being way to crowded but it was still alot of fun. Then on Saturday night Dan and I went to an Adult only Christmas party and had blast. It was only the second night we have had without Ryan. Now we have had a lot of offers from family to watch him so we could go to dinner and stuff but since we both work we never really felt like we needed it. Well after being together with out the kids I see why people do it so often. We did spend way to much time there but it was great. We were the first to arrive at 6:30 and one of the last to leave around 11:30 (thanks mom for making it possible). Part of the reason we were there so long is because it was at the Garces' home and Dan has been having Nick withdrawals because we haven't been able to have them over while my Dad is staying with us and Nick has been working on Sunday's so Dan has missed him.(He is going to kill me for posting this) Anyways we had a great time and it was so nice to be without the kids. I think from now on I will take my family up on their offers to go without the kids. Also on Saturday Christian had his last football game and had a pizza party. Dan and I each got a gift card from the coach for being the team mom and the assistant coach which was really unexpected and so nice. It was a fun season but I am glad it is over. Next year Christian wants to play tackle football so we will see how that goes. Also yesterday the Pats won again so it was a great day at my house. Here are some photos from Christian's last football game and party. We got Ryan a new hat since it was so cold on Saturday and I just love him in it.

Patriots Fans

Ok so this post is for my husband! Family Night tonight was spent of course watching the Patriots and Dan was in his usual Patriots attire and he had Christian wear his outfit to school to bring good luck. It was a very close game and most of the second half I didn't want to be near Dan thank goodness they won or it would be a tough week. This is what I found after I had finished cleaning up dinner at the beginning of the game.

Aren't they the cutest Patriots Fans ever?

Ryan learned to clap on Thanksgiving so of course Dan got him to cheer tonight.

I love these boys!

Girls

So this week my Sister in law gave birth to a beautiful little girl, Madison June Garthe. Ryan has been sick so Christian and I went to see her and Christian wanted to take her home. He loved her so much and has now decided that it would be ok for us to have a girl. Before this he wanted us to have 6 boys so it was so fun. She is so cute. I am so glad that both baby and Mommy are feeling great! Love ya Jess!

Decorating

I think my favorite part of the Holiday season is decorating. We have had so much fun this week starting to set things up for Christmas. The only down side to this is that Christian is getting so excited and he doesn't understand that it is still a month away.

This is the picture of the boys and their cousins meeting Santa. I wasn't very happy that they didn't have the kids scoot closer but oh well.

Crazy Week

So it has been one of those weeks, I have had so much going on I am exhausted. First off I had my First Enrichment Night and it went really well. I was most worried about the Dinner and I thought it turned out perfectly. We had plenty of food and everyone seemed to like it. Also my committee was incredible and once things started coming together I wasn't nervous which was nice. Second my Father fell and broke his leg in three places, so they had to insert two pins and a metal plate into his leg and he will not be able to walk for 6 to 8 weeks. Since he will have to be in a wheel chair and my mother's house is not accessible for him the doctor wanted to put him in a Nursing Facility. Well of course I couldn't let that happen, I mean come on he is my Father so we have transformed my downstairs so that he could stay with us. We set up a room in our dining room and now our table is in our living room. It has been a hard couple of days for all of us to adjust but hopefully the six weeks will go quickly and at least he will be here for the Holidays. Then this weekend we went up to Victoria Gardens to see Santa because they were having a parade and lighting their Christmas tree and everything. Well we didn't get to see the parade but they kids loved seeing Santa and then they had it snow which Christian thought was the greatest thing. Lastly we had some Christmas photos taken of the kids and that went really well. We set up a little Christmas tree and took them in our living room. Well the photos are below sorry the one of Santa turned out blurry, I will try and scan in the one that they took and add it later. Since it is the week of Thanksgiving I want to say that I am thankful for people who do their callings above and beyond what is expected. I am thankful for a house that my Father can stay at and fell comfortable and most of all I am thankful for a Husband who was willing to let my Father come and stay with us for as long as needed. I love him so much and I am grateful that he understood that Family does come first

Reading Adventures

So Christian has to read for twenty minutes every night for Homework. This was really fun for him for about the first month, but now that we are into November I have been having to fight him everyday to get him to read. He is not as excited about being able to read as he was a month ago especially when he could be playing with his Lego's or video games. So last week I decided that we need a change, I told him we were going on a reading adventure. So we got Ryan in the stroller and I told him to get his bike and I brought his book and we set off down the street. Well what I did was I stopped three times on our way to the park. I stopped at the corner where there is a patch of grass and I had him read for five minutes and then we stopped at a small wall and read for five minutes and then again on another patch of grass, so that once we got to the park he only needed to read for five more minutes and then he could play. Well he absolutely loved this and we did it twice last week. The second time I let him try and find some places to read. It was great because he stopped at our neighbors house who has a porch swing and he wanted to sit on it, so we did and my neighbor came out and I told her what we were doing and she just laughed and said he could use her swing anytime to read. Also it was fun because Ryan loves being outside, I get a chance to do a little walking and Christian is getting his homework done.

So yesterday he says "Jennie I can't wait for tomorrow because we get to go reading." I was so excited that it had worked and now he was excited to read again. I hope this will last for a while, but I know that if the weather gets colder I am going to have to come up with something else.

Making a fool of myself

Ok so I don't really cook and I have to make dinner for 80 people for Enrichment Night. I can read a recipe but other than that I am not a chef and I don't know the lingo. So today I showed how incompetent I am in the kitchen, not once but twice. I was shopping at Smart and Final for the Enrichment Night dinner and I called my sister to ask her what the difference is between Fettuccine and Alfredo because the store only had Alfredo sauce and since I was making Fettuccine I was wondering if I could use the Alfredo. So my wonderful sister informed me that Fettuccine is the pasta and Alfredo is the sauce and then she laughed at me. Then later at the same store I was talking with Laura about apples and I said "I should get the green granny smith apples right?". Which then my husband informed me that they don't have red granny smith (thanks Laura for not making me feel stupid) and then he laughed at me for about 10 minutes. He said that my hair color was showing thru. At least I can laugh at myself right!

Halloween Fun

We had so much fun this week, carving pumpkins and going trick or treating. It was cool in the evenings so Dan even made Hot Chocolate one night. Christian was the most excited I have ever seen him. He just kept saying "I can't believe it is Halloween" and "I am so happy to be with you". He is such a sweet boy!

Halloween Party

On Thursday night Ryan and I went to Grandma's Work and got to have a Halloween party. We had so much fun. Ryan loved watching all the kids and by the end he was out! Thanks Mom for inviting us!

Fun Times

My little baby is getting so big he is 6 months old today! We had so much fun this weekend we went through two hunted mazes that Christian loved and we went down to Tom's Farms and had so much fun with the cousins. Christian got his face painted and of course he chose to be a soldier.


Christian was picked to be Student of the Week at school and normally his mom takes care of getting this ready but she asked me to do it and I think I went a little over board. I let him pick his pictures for school and he had so many that it filled a whole poster board. Oh well can you tell I am a proud Step Mom!