#1 wrote a letter to Santa. This kid totally believes in Santa! It is quite cute, I must say. Besides the spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors, I'm actually happy that he wrote this all by himself! Here's his letter (nothing edited) -

Dear, santa for cristmas I want a Nerf gun, wrie, Xbox, will, D.S, pop, cordes, candy canes, money, T.V., shelfes, binders, paper, files, folders and that is tust what I want. what kind of food that the raindeer like. can I have a awsome sonwgolde too peateas santa I never had one before. I might put cookies and milk for you. when can I pet the Red naise Rain deer someday. do you like kedies when there nice. do ya like flying with the raindeer. can you come to my house last pelease. You never seen it befor. the cristmas tree is by the front deer. But look in the bakie of you to see the ciristmas tree. Marry cirstmas Santa!

So that's why he was still up after I started working. I heard hubby yelling at him and I prayed that it better not be a repeat of the other night. Thankfully, it wasn't.

Santa has one problem... Santa's helper is only willing to get one thing on the list - candy canes. Santa's helper actually has something else in mind to get for him - books, clothes and some other toys.

The sad part about this Christmas is that nothing's ready. The tree is up, but it's bare. No lights nor ornaments yet. Shopping hasn't even started and how many more days before Christmas? Christmas cards aren't even done yet. I just can't get myself to do any this year. For kids' sakes, I need to get myself to at least decorate the tree and get presents underneath it. It would be mighty mean to disappoint them on Christmas day.

What a week! Parent-teacher conference, IEP meeting and Thanksgiving. Should I even mention the shopping on Saturday? It was really my parents' shopping - grocery and Christmas. The kids were with their sister, so just adults and the baby. I was surprised that the traffic wasn't too bad at all. Target was OK, the usual weekend crowd. Mom decided to go ahead and get the kids presents done. I don't like toy shopping because it's always a war on wills. I don't like the toys the kids pick and they don't like the toys I suggested. It's always see who can stand firmer on their grounds. My guideline for boy toys - no guns, no swords, no gi joes, no gazillion number of pieces, no sounds, no video games. Yep. That actually rules out A LOT of toys. Lego, Tinkertoys, K'nex, Lincoln Logs are all love and loathe toys. I love them because they don't have sounds and promotes imagination. I hate them because of the gazillion number of pieces. For the girls, the one big no-no is Barbie/Bratz/Disney Princesses. She is not yet gravitating towards these characters, and I'm not going to introduce them to her. If she gets into them later, I guess I'll deal with it then. My 'no pink' rule applies to toys also. And guess what? Most girl toys are PINK! ugh...

On Monday, we had 2 meetings at school. The first one was parent-teacher conference. It was more of a student led conference where the child will show the parent what they have done so far in school. The teacher stopped by for a little bit to talk with the parent during the 'show and tell'. We must be the most awkward pair. #1 wouldn't say a thing and just handed me the paper to read. And I tried my darndest to figure out what all those papers are. Finally the teacher had to come over and had a little talk with him before he opened up and started explaining all those papers... Right after this awkward conference was the IEP meeting. I was curious as to what their findings were. According to the school psychologist's report, #1 is a visual learner. He scored above average on math reasoning skills (75th percentile) but below average on reading comprehension, pseudoword decoding and writing. Only a 7% of school children have such a big difference in math and reading. His teacher recapped on what she's been doing to help him in class. A lot of these interventions/accomodations produced mixed results. Most of their findings were what I expected, except for the one from occupational therapist. She found that 5 of the baby reflexes (Moro, Landau, ATNR, LTR, Gallant) had not fully integrated yet. These reflexes should be fully integrated by 3 years of age. But #1 is still demonstrating them. For example, when laying on the stomach, #1 cannot raise his upper body without raising his legs. With these results, the school staff agreed that Specific Learning Disability is his primary disability, and ADHD is secondary. He will be in spec ed for reading and writing. He will meet with the occupational therapist once a week to work on integrating those reflexes. The school is also looking into finding someone to help him during those (verbal) instruction intensive classes (social studies, science). He continues to have 2 desks in the classroom, one lower and one higher. The higher desk will allow him to stand and do his work if he chooses to.

I'm happy that the school recognizes that #1 needs extra help in certain areas. Now I just need to get his medication right, and I think he'll have a good school year this year.

It seems like Saturday night hours go by the fastest. Not sure if it's because I'm more rested or there are more calls coming in. So while I'm still rested, I might as well blog instead of waiting til I'm half asleep and can't even hold any thoughts together.

It's been such a busy week. #1 had his first appointment Monday with the psychiatrist and also an EKG done. The rest of the week is normal busyness and I really don't remember what I did. Just a lot of running between 2 houses. Trying to catch up on sleep during the day has taken away those precious time that I need to clean the house. It takes forever to get one load of laundry washed, dried and folded. Most of the clothes are super wrinkly by the time I get to them. (This is gross but..) I don't remember when was the last time I vacuumed or dusted.. Ok... vacuum - maybe a week... Dust? ummmmm...

So today, the only day I can sleep late, I had to get up early because we're getting new tires for the minivan. So I got up early for my morning routine, get myself all smell and look clean and noticed #2 with puffy eyes. Obvious allergic reaction to something! As always, no one 'fess up anything in this house. I have no clue as to what caused the puffy eyes. I'm pretty sure that's from the Halloween candies that he took from our room. But I can't find out what he ate! He has a history of allergies to eggs and nuts. He outgrew eggs. He doesn't eat anything with nuts in it, so I never have to worry about that. Good thing I kept Benadryl in the house. I gave him some and puffiness went down. *phew*

Yep, new tires for my car. Those four wheels had taken quite a beaten with the way I drive and those potholes for 7 long years. Actually they're so bad that there are slits on the tires and the front 2 are slowly leaking air. I know it is only a matter of time before the front 2 give out on me. My parents, couldn't stand the condition of the tires, have offered to give us new tires for Christmas. So off we go today to Costco and armed with a sale they have now, we are able to get a set at a very good price. But it took them 5 hours to get it done! They said that they don't have the car key. I had to tell them that I told them when we dropped off the car that the keys are in the car and handed them the fob. Once they realized that, they drove the van in and the tires were switched and mounted immediately. I can't believe they just didn't do anything but waited for me to come back and asked for the key! What a difference driving with tires that are properly inflated...

I can't believe she's 6 months old. Even though she really didn't grow much the past 2 months, everything else is fine. I was worried a bit after her checkup. My other 3 grow at each checkup, so having her stats telling me that she gained not even a pound and only 1/2 inch longer than last checkup just didn't sit well with me.

We went for her 6 months portrait session on Wednesday. Missy here was so fascinated with her dress that she couldn't keep her mouth away from it. If she wasn't grabbing her dress or playing with the ribbons, then she's trying to put the dress in her mouth. I think we spent a good part of the session trying to get the dress to lay flat. Of course mommy dearest had to say something. You didn't bring any socks or stocking for her? You should just keep her in her clothes instead of changing her and mess with the dress... You know? Whatever. I'll dress her up whenever I want to. Besides this dress is right size wrong season. What am I supposed to do with the dress? Mind as well dress her up in it for pictures! And darn it. I love that dress.

After the pictures, we went and tried out this Indian restaurant. I love Indian food. So having one here locally makes me very happy. It's all buffet style, which works out well for the restaurant because it seemed like the same lady works the front and the back of the restaurant. She's the cook, the wait staff, the cashier, the runner. In short, if she can clone herself, the service might be better... and she forgot my lassi :( The buffet selection was alright. Only 2 of the selections contains meat - chicken or lamb curry. I don't know what the deal is with the meat. She only brought out a little bowlful of lamb to replenish the buffet line the whole time we're there. I'm talking about maybe 5-6 pieces of meat and that's it! This means if you're the 3rd in line for the curry, you'll have to do some serious fishing in the tray to find some shreds of meat. Their naan, however, is so good that we had 2 baskets of that. That said, it really is a pity and I'll skip my mom's comments on the restuarant.

Been out all afternoon and now I'm tired and sleepy. Must stay awake for another 90 minutes.... My parents came yesterday. And I already feel like I've been on the go since yesterday with no breaks. I went to bed early last night and slept for almost 11 hours. I should feel refresh, rejuvenated, right? Nooo.. still feels tired. The boys started their day at 6:30am did not help with getting some last minute sleep in.

A lot of important things I need to think about and take care of these days. But instead of taking care of those issues, I'm thinking about whether I should move #4 off my bed and into her own. Yeah.. with her still likes to nurse once at night, I'm keeping her in bed with me and hubby still sleeping in the family room. We haven't slept in the same bed for 6 months. Secretly I'm enjoying it because he sleeps with the TV on and I can't stand it. Back to the bed situation... So I want to move her to her own bed. This means, I'll have to get #3 out of the toddler bed and into a big kid bed. The only unoccupied big bed we have is a full size bed. Should I just let her use the bed for now until we can get her a twin size? This should not be a difficult decision, should it? How come I can't make up my mind about it?

A construction worker, a military man, a lobster and a pea in a pod this year. I didn't think I would be able to get them in any costumes at all. Thanks to a friend, the boys got their costumes. And the girls wore the HMDs from their older siblings. We went to our old neighborhood and trick or treat over there this year with the friend and her kids. Their big sis and boyfriend came along too! The kids had loads of fun. Even though it was a chilly night, the kids got a boatload of candies and didn't mind the chilly temps at all. We adults and the baby were a different story, we were freezing and tired after 2 hours. So that ended their candy trail. If not, they could go for the whole 4 hours of trick or treat. We went back to her house to defrost and the kids played for a little while. Then it's time to head home. #2 had a little too much candies and he was still bouncing off the walls late into the night. When he finally crashed, he crashed hard.

4 kids, and I'm still amazed everyday how different they look! These were taken when they were about 5-6 months old. Looking back at their baby pictures, I can't believe how cute or how not cute they are (or were). This is one of the perks being a mother, I can say that my kids are ugly and not hurt anyone's feeling. My dear mother actually said that #3 was an ugly baby. Ahem... gotta agree with that.. she looks like an alien back then. Most of her pictures look like I applied the fishbowl special effect. Yeah... not exactly purty. At around 5-6 months, #2 started having eczema. Red spots started to show around his eyes. They seemed puffy all the time and the cheeks starting to show the eczema redness. He would be on medication for the next 18 months to control it.

I used to think that #1 was my cutest. But I think this title now goes to Li'l Miss. She is such a goofy baby. Laughing for no reason, making all kinds of noises and trying her darndest to crawl. I thought she would be an early walker, but right now, she still needs a little of support sitting up. Really, no hurry baby, take your time. I am not looking forward to the day when I have 8 little hands constantly into something.

And Grace, they're wearing PINK!!!!!