Here we are...the Mendoza's! We went and took a group picture to give to Sonia (my mother-in-law) for her birthday/Christmas. Pretty amazing that we are all looking and mostly smiling with 5 kids (note they are all BOYS!!!). Anyway, kudos to the photographer.
We had a dinner for Pat's dad for his bday. Here is a picture of him and the grandkids (all BOYS) and Pat and his sisters.
What can I say? Lukas put the Christmas decorations to good use (and Pat dressed him that day and is wearing Max's shirt by accident). Max is just as cute as can be in his red hoodie. Gotta love my boys!
Our neighbors dog just had puppies and we've been talking about getting a dog for quite some time now. It so tempting to get one. We got to play with one of the puppies for a little bit and I can see we're not quite ready. Max man handles it and Lukas is afraid to hold it too long. It's a Westie. Pat is really sensitive to dog hair and so we have to get a dog that doesn't shed. This is one of them. Awwww, she's so cute! But NO, we're not getting a dog. Yet. But when we do, Lukas has the perfect name picked out. You'll just have to wait to find out...
I went and spent a couple of days at my parent's place. It's like a mountain retreat. The view is just gorgeous and you can see Provo. My parents just got a hot tub and we got to enjoy it! It was snowing outside and we were nice and warm in the hot tub! (Excuse the white legs). The snow was so bad we had a hard time driving home. I was swerving all over the place. I think next time I'll just stay longer.
Lukas started preschool this year, as you may already know. It's a neighborhood thing...a lot of people call it JOY school (I don't know much about that) but there are 7 kids and each mom takes a turn being the teacher. So every seven weeks I have preschool at my house and we rotate houses. It's worked out pretty good and Lukas loves it. However it is quite stressful having seven 3-4 year olds running around PLUS Max, but I survived our turn. We made play-doh and reviewed all the letters we've learned so far. The kids are funny. One kid sort of wanders off and does his own thing, one likes to talk, but takes F O R E V E R to get his point across, none of them can sit still and one peed their pants. It keeps me on my toes. The first time I tried to be so elaborate and do all these cool things, but this time I learned to just be flexible and go with the flow. It turned out fine. And now I can rest for seven weeks. Whew! And Lukas will be in Sunbeams in January. I'm totally freaking out b/c he has such a hard time sitting still and following directions. Today at church they had to come get Pat (I was home with Max who has a cold) and they said Lukas didn't want to participate in Singing Time. I think I am going to struggle with him. I feel bad for his teacher. What should I do? And he is STILL not potty trained. Although he tells people that he is and that he wears underwear. The poor kid is living in denial. I think I've tried everything (prizes, the potty watch, bribery, money, candy, toys) and he is just not into it. He'll do it once and then he thinks that's it. Any moms out there that have tips or advice, I'm all ears.
