With Molly off of school, we decided to have her playgroup over for a Christmas get together. These kids have been friends since they were babies (Molly and I joined this playgroup when she was 15 months old), and everytime they get together again – even if it has been months since they have seen eachother – its like no time has passed. I hope so much they are friends for life because these are some great kids. It will be neat someday when they are older and their high schools play each other at various sports. I always wonder if any of them will date? Probably not since they are like siblings at this point Anyways – we had a really fun day, but as I have noticed as the kids are all getting older, there was a CLEAR divide between the boys and the girls!

The middle four girls here are within a few months of each other in age even though they are inches apart in height

The one unifier we seem to have at our disposal now is technology. The only time the boys and girls seem to interact is to play Wii or a computer game.

The girls taking a turn decorating Christmas cookies!

I think you missed a spot Lizzy.

Molly thought she was pretty clever for making mini peanut butter cups into cupcakes with a little frosting and sprinkles. I agreed. They were also delcious!

You probably think us moms are exaggerating when we say "these kids! they try and walk all over us!". Well now you know.

Jammies? CHECK. Snuggily blanket to share? CHECK. Snack? CHECK! Okay - lets go out looking at Christmas lights!

Lilly’s preschool had the three year old classes put on a holiday show for the parents this year. It was so cute I can not even stand it. Obviously though, I had a LOT of concern over how this would go. All the 3′s classes would be together in a room with about 300 parents standing across from them staring, waving, laughing, etc… an overwhelming experience for any kid – let a lone one with social anxiety and sensory aversions. I was very nervous about how Lilly would do.

But as I am learning to expect with Lilly lately, she far exceeded my expectations. There were definitely moments that I could tell she was on the brink of losing it, but her teacher had her strategically placed right in front of her and was on it before I could even say “uh oh here we go…”. Once when the little boy next to Lilly knocked into her as he was dancing and Lilly got really upset, she gave Lilly a job to do when she started breaking down (collecting bells from the other kids). And a few times I saw her just walk up to Lilly and quietly have her look at her in the eyes and whisper something to her to calm her. Again I have to say it does not take much to manage Lilly when things start going badly for her – but having someone who understands what to do and when, makes ALL the difference in Lilly’s success in these situations. I was so amazed that Lilly was able to stay up there the entire time and then leave happily with her class when it was over. Even though Matt and I were still there in the gym. I thought for sure she would have wanted to come to us instead of go back to her classroom. There was a little girl who cried the whole time, and while I felt so bad for her parents, I would be lying if I said it was not pretty awesome to let someone ELSE be that family for a change!!

This amazing performance was the first in a string of really awesome reactions to situations that have been stressful in the past for Lilly. We have really had a major breakthrough with her over the last 8 weeks or so and I am just overjoyed about it. Family who had not seen her for awhile and saw her over the holidays think Matt and I are crazy for worrying about her or for saying she has Autism. And seriously – that is just fine with us. Think we are crazy all you want – we are GLOWING to have people thinking that. Its a true testament to how far we have come, and how right we were to do all the things we have done to help her.

Lilly and her class walking in - that is her teacher there right in front of her. Her teacher is such a gift to us!

Clapping and singing along She was pretty serious about it all - but she got it done and she was proud of herself afterwards!

hopping up and down to the reindeer hokey pokey

A package arrived on this day from Grandma Mac, and inside we found DEVIL DOGS!!!! Devil dogs are essentially whoopie pies, but my mom has been making them at the holidays since I was a baby and I absolutely love them!!! And even though I have the recipe now and have made them myself, the kids and I pretty much got ape for a bite of the ORIGINAL version from the hands and heart of Grandma Mac herself And by ape I mean it gets a little “Ultimate Fighting Champion” in here as we try to get our hands on as many as possible before they are all gone. Poor Matt – he was not home when this package arrived so too bad for him! LOL!

(just kidding – I saved him one. Seriously could I BE any nicer!??)

I was not kidding that we sat down right on the floor of the living room, tore that package open, and devoured those devil dogs!! Look at these faces - just writhing in enjoyment!

Gosh Grandma Mac is pretty. And smart. And awesome. Maybe she could send us some more….?

WOW! We were REALLY feeling the love from our out of state relatives this year as the days got closer to Christmas! Everyday the doorbell would ring and Lilly and I would rush to open it and find just TONS of packages awaiting us! It was very exciting

This was just ONE day's worth! The doorbell rang and we opened it to find THIS! Lilly was jumping out of her skin she was so excited!

Here is Lilly standing next to some of the packages - that big one drove the kids CRAZY and it was so fun to torture them with it - we actually left it in there so the box would be huge like that. It was an electronic keyboard for all three kids from Grandpa and Grandma Mac

Here is the haul from another day's mail! Thank you everybody!!

It has been a really mild winter here in Chicagoland. And by that I mean that temps have been pretty constantly in the 30′s and 40′s. When we lived in California – that was the lowest it ever got and we complained about it and stayed inside. Here, we put on flip flops and go to the park if it hits 40!

I don’t want to sound ungrateful for these higher temps. I have mentioned a few thousand times on here how much I HATE it when it goes sub-zero outside. But I DO like a good chilly day in the 20′s and I DO like snow so maybe I can whine just for a second and say that I would love a good fat snow storm followed by some sunny 25 degree days so we can all play in it. Instead we FINALLY got our first snowfall on December 17th and it was merely an inch. The kids went haywire anyways when they saw it and we had a fun morning outside enjoying it before it was gone by the next day.

"how do I play with all my toys with these mittens on!??" It was hilarious to watch him trying to pick them up! LOL!

"WOAHHHHHHHHH! The snow makes the slide so fast momma!"

Poor Kev! He wants to be able to do this swing SO badly but he is just too little for it and I don't think the snow clothes will help matters!

Ahhhh poor guy! He just did not get at first that you play differently in the snow than you do in the sun and he kept trying to use all his regular toys. Here he was SO FRUSTRATED that he had to work so hard to get it to roll even a little bit!

AWWWW! Look at that - big sister to the rescue She does love her "Kevi" as she calls him!

After Molly the sleepy head finally woke up and saw what was outside she jumped right into her snow clothes and came out to join us. She is getting to an age now where she plays out in the snow for long periods of time with her friends and so I have to buy her better quality snow things and they are really expensive. So this year I bought them all really big and as you can see, I will probably get two winters out of them LOL. Or four or five! that coat is HUGE!

SNOW ANGELS! Seriously the kids were SO excited even though there was not enough snow to even make a snow angel. One of our neighbors actually used their wheelbarrow to collect snow from all over their yard so they could build a small snowman! Not that we are complaining about the higher temps this year, but we all really would like a good snowstorm!

No snow, sleet or ice shall keep the Clemm kids from their favorite tree!

I am sure it will shock you to know that I am sitting here quite behind on my blog posts per usual and writing this on January 8th and there has STILL not been anymore snow, save for an errant flurry or two. Looks like “the expert’s” doomsday predictions for this winter were wrong!

Hopefully I did not just jinx us all.

Its so seldom they all look at the camera at the same time (and yes, we will consider this looking at the camera for Lilly), I just had to post it

This was my nephew Connor's Christmas present from us. I bought the roll JUST for him. He is 10 and absolutely HATES Justin Bieber. I live for stuff like this.

This year when it was time to do the holiday cookie baking, I was very fortunate to have a little helper in the kitchen with me. Or two, depending on if you count p-boo

P-boo and Lilly getting ready to break some eggs! Lilly will not actually break eggs - she just likes to hold them and hand them to me because she is scared of the egg exploding. Her words - not mine LOL.

Love that little smudge of flour on her forehead - proof she was truly in there and helping!

Getting them ready to go in the oven! Lilly was really excited about rolling hte dough into balls. She took it so seriously and concentrated so hard and took about 3 minutes to make each tiny ball.

Well, this ought to just about satiate the Martynus family (or just Shannon really LOL), so now on to making the other batches for the REST of our friends

I love this event! Every year Navy Pier in Chicago puts on a huge indoor holiday themed event called WinterWonderfest that is essentially a carnival that is indoors. They have rides, food, people walking around in costume, an ice skating rink, etc.. and its a ton of fun! In the past I have gone in the middle of the week with Molly’s playgroup, but this year I chose to go on a weekend because its just too hard to corral the three different ages we have by myself at this event and I really wanted Matt to come with us. Luckily we were also joined by our friends the Allens, who had planned to go on the same day as us. Yeah Here are some of my favorite pics from the day:

Matt and the kids on the giant rocking horse. I hate this horse actually - but its tradition. For some reason all the kids love it!

Happy kids on a bench

Poor Matt - in line with Kevin who does NOT like waiting patiently in line! Then they made Matt go with him, even though he was totally fine to go by himself LOL.

Why do I feel like this just might a little foreshadowing with these two? Its always the quiet ones you need to watch....

SIGH. Seriously Matt and Doug - the world economy will NOT collapse if you take two hours away from your work email...