Saturday, February 5, 2011 – I must have taken so many pictures in the month of December that I tried to give my camera a break come January. Not to mention, from the week before Christmas until the middle of January, one or more of our family members were sick. Brooke and Stone had ear infections/strep, I had pneumonia and spent four hours in the ER clinic on New Years day, Brooke got pneumonia shortly after that and then Hunter, who had escaped all the sickness finally got strep and missed two days of school, including the day of his class picture. Needless to say, I’m ready for 2011 to be over. Just kidding. I’m just very thankful that sitting here today, my family is healthy and my kids are happy!

This is Hunter’s first year of cub scouting. So far, he seems to be enjoying it. It takes a lot of commitment (on our part as his parents) and on his part to fulfill the duties outlined in his handbook. I don’t remember girl scouts ever requiring so much, but then again I was the kid not the parent.

The Pinewood Derby has changed from the way I remembered it when my brothers did scouts a million years ago. The ramp isn’t as high and everything is digital. They have lights that flash at the finish line and everything is hooked up to a computer to ensure the race is scored fairly. There was a screen that showed who won each race, their speed and then at the bottom whose cars were racing next. The shot of the screen below I took when they announced Hunter’s awards for his car. It has his name, his den number and that he won “coolest creature” and “most unique” (PROUD Mommy moment I must tell you!). That little boy could not have been prouder as he walked up to the stage to accept his awards. BIG SMILES from ear to ear.

I apologize that some of the pictures came out kind of blurry. I blame the camera. My husband blames the person working the camera. In my defense, it was really hard to shoot those cars (and the boys) with everything and everyone moving so fast.

   

  

  

Brooke and Stone were so proud of Hunter too and wanted their picture taken with their big brother.

 

And of course, Mommy was VERY, VERY proud…

Hunter ended up winning four awards in all. The other two were scout favorite and judges favorite. Mike’s car also won best paint job and coolest creature in the adult category. It was a great day!!

Here are a few cute pictures of the family I wanted to include…

  

  

 

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Saturday, February 5, 2011 – December is always such a busy month. It seems like things take off after Thanksgiving and don’t stop until New Years day. There’s so much preparation that goes into Christmas. It feels like there’s never enough time to shop, we get all the decorations up in the house and the yard and before we know it, it’s all over. Despite things moving so fast, I think it was a great Christmas!

We cut down our own, live Christmas tree every year. So we typically don’t put it up too early so it doesn’t have time to die on us. We head over to High Star Christmas tree farm with Butch and Wendy’s family to ride the train, maybe see Santa, take lots of pictures of the cousins, and of course, cut down our tree. This year it was cold so it felt a lot like Christmas.

   

This was baby Kelsy’s first trip to the farm.

   

Brooke picked out the winning tree this year. It really lasted until well after Christmas, still smelled and looked good and DIDN’T DIE ON US!

   

  

The sun was setting so it was in a weird place when I was trying to take pictures after we cut the tree down.

   

So one of my projects to get done this year was to start putting the kids handprints on the Christmas tree skirt so that in the future I will have a skirt FULL of their little handprints that grow as they grow. Finally accomplished that. The kids enjoyed getting paint on their hands and I enjoyed checking it off my to-do list. I wrote their names and ages below each handprint and wrote the year above them all and will continue to do this every year until the skirt full. SO EXCITING!!

   

 

Hunter’s first grade class had their “holiday” party. It only runs 1/2 an hour and not much goes on. But I tried to take a few pictures. And if anyone tells Hunter’s teacher I posted a picture of her here, she will surely have me killed. Even though I think she looks great (she’s almost 9 months pregnant)!

   

I didn’t make it to Brooke and Stone’s Christmas party due to my school schedule, but Mike went and got to enjoy time with the kids. Brooke gave us this sweet note and made this awesome ornament that proceeded to get broken that afternoon. Luckily I got pictures of it before the catastrophe and I’ve posted them below.

   

Christmas always means a LOT of pictures. I always take too many. And there’s no way I’m going to post them all. But we did have a special guest in our house this year. Grandma Cuso (Mike’s mom) made the trip up from Florida to see the family and stayed with us for a week. So I tried to take a lot of pictures of her with the grandkids. Also, my brother and his family (that we only see at Christmas time) came down the day after Christmas. So I have a few pictures of him with the kids too.

   

   

   

   

   

  

Here are a few random pictures from the month of December and a few more from the Christmas holidays…

I’ve known these women probably the longest of anyone in my life. We went to elementary school together and recently hooked up for dinner, thanks to Facebook. From left to right Sharon, Melanie and Cindy.

   

   

   

  

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Saturday, February 5, 2011 – November is always a busy month as it really kicks off the holidays. This year was especially busy due to the birth of my niece Kelsy. She was born November 15th, 7 pounds, 7.5 oz. and 21”. My sister-in-law Wendy had an uncomplicated delivery by c-section and only had a short side effect to the anesthesia. We were able to visit them the next day and I finally got to hold Kelsy. For a long time. So long that Stone came up to me and said, “Mommy, put the baby down!” Boy will he have a rude awakening come April!!

   

The preschool had their annual Thanksgiving feast. Parents go up to the school and share in a light feast with the kids to celebrate Thanksgiving. Lots of parents volunteer to help out and make this day a success for the staff as they get to enjoy a pot luck lunch. The kids all make hats and place mats to help them visualize what they are thankful for. Stone’s was very typical for a Mancuso – he’s thankful for food. Funniest one was “my backpack”.

   

   

Sampson had their annual Storybook Character Parade for the Kindergarten and first graders. Last year Hunter was Max from Where the Wild Things Are. Hunter’s costume was easy this year since we’d just had Halloween, it was a given that he was going to be Harry Potter. Basically all the kids walk through the school dressed as their favorite storybook character (teachers too!) carrying the actual storybook. We video tape it but it truly isn’t very exciting to watch. It will still be neat in 20 years to have the memory though. Lots of kids dressed up as Harry Potter this year. See Alex C., Hunter’s buddy below as Harry also.

   

Last but not least, November was also Stone’s third birthday. We had the party here at the house complete with a Sponge Bob bounce house. Not a big turnout due to the upcoming holidays and other things going on. But all the kids had a great time and Stone was glad to see his friends and family!

   

   

   

   

And here are just a few miscellaneous shots of the kids…

   

 

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February 3, 2011 – We had a few notable events from back in October. I know I’m a little behind on my blogging but I wanted to get a few pictures up from the fall.

   

   

   

  

Hunter’s cub scout den took a trip downtown for one of their “go see it”s. They visited the Heritage Society Museum and took a tour of some old homes and buildings in downtown Houston.

   

   

   

   

  

Brooke’s tap and ballet class got dressed up for Halloween…
  

I took Brooke and Stone to the pumpkin patch to take a few pictures…

   

   

The kids made cute shirts at school for their Fall Fun Day…

   

And of course they all dressed as their favorites for Halloween. Hunter was Harry Potter, Brooke was Princess Aerial and Stone was Buzz Lightyear.

Hunter’s costume won second place at a Halloween party we went to – $30 Walmart gift card!!

The kids attend many birthday parties as you can well imagine. Brooke must have gone to four Little Diva parties in a matter of two months. The girls get dressed up, get to put make-up on, get their hair done and dance around to music. This particular party Brooke didn’t want to wear their princess dress…and as soon as she gets home, she wants me to take her hair down. It is VERY cute on a temporary basis, but it does make me glad pageants are not a way of life for us.

   

  

And last but not least, the kids go trick or treating around our cul-de-sac every year…

  

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21 November, 2010 – One of my BFF’s is working out of California these days. We’ve been trying to get together for a while but between her work and my school and family schedules, it’s hard to carve out time. We found a short weekend back in August just before school started for me to fly to LA to spend some one on one time with her. I’ve never been to California so it was a very exciting time for me. New sights, girl time, and oh yeah – NO KIDS!! It was wonderful. Except for the fact that I was newly pregnant and still having small bouts of nausea, I’d say the trip was a success. We had just a few days to cover some major landmarks in Los Angeles, so I did my best to write down and take pictures of all we saw.

Airplane rides are always so calming for me. I took these pictures out my window on the way there because it reminded me of Brooke and how she’s always ‘seeing’ things in puffy clouds. The view from the TOP of the clouds is always so amazing. So I took these for her so she could share in what I saw.

  

 

The first night there, this is where Steph and I had dinner. It was a pretty chilly evening but we sat outside on the patio and caught up and people watched.

 

 

Friday morning we got up and started a VERY full day. The tour began at Sony Pictures – this is the reason Steph is in California right now, her company is doing work with Sony. The Sony sound stages were huge and absolutely amazing.

  

   

  

  

   

 

The weather that day was beautiful, cool and clear blue skies! We headed out to Hollywood Blvd. in the cool convertible Steph had rented and I took some random pictures as we drove through LA.

  

   

   

  

 

When we drove up to get a good clear shot of the Hollywood sign, I learned a little history about it. Basically it started as a suburban housing development in 1923 called Hollywoodland, and once all the land was sold, the sign was going to be taken down. But because it had become such a landmark, the citizens fought to keep it. It since has been replaced and the letters have been repaired and the sign itself is protected as “private property” to the city of Los Angeles. I also seem to remember reading something on the landmark about it being lit up at some point in time too. But I think it got too expensive to maintain so now it’s just the unlit wood sign that says Hollywood.

  

 

Next was Rodeo Drive baby…

  

  

 

Some night pictures…

  

 

Saturday was the trip to the California beaches. Again, what a day it was. The weather was absolutely beautiful! Venice beach was a very interesting place to sight see…to say the least. And we did a LOT of walk. A LOT.

  

   

  

   

  

  

  

 

Let me just say how cold the water was….SO COLD!! So this is proof I actually got “in” the Pacific Ocean! The birds did not seem to mind the cold at all.

  

  

 

Our hot convertible we drove around in all day with the top down looking mighty cool, I might add! We took a tour of the stars homes (kind of on our own) and this was one of the houses we found. Betty White lives here. We drove BY the driveway that led up to the Playboy Mansion, but they had so much security and it was up on a hill. So we really couldn’t see it. We drove by where OJ Simpson’s mansion used to be (it’s been torn down since the murders and someone else built on that lot). There were so many other houses we wanted to see but because of how they are built and because they are famous and important people, it’s next to impossible to get to them, much less take a picture of the actual home. I guess we were lucky to get this close to Betty’s house.

  

 

Next we went down to the Sunset strip and had lunch on Sunset Plaza. Afterwards, we drove over to Forest Lawn Cemetery to try and find Michael Jackson’s grave. We drove around for a little while and never saw it. This is because he’s buried in a mausoleum that’s not open to the public.  That information would have been nice to know BEFORE we went to the cemetery. (We Googled it when we got back to the hotel that night.)

  

  

   

 

Stephanie asked me to take this picture for her. So here it is girl!

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21 November, 2010 – I am so behind in my blogging that I’m going to combine the events from September. Seems we always have so much going on these days once the baby gets here, it’s going to be hard to keep up with life in general.

Brooke turned five this year! We had a BIG princess Aerial party at the house with all her friends. I think I counted about 18 kids at the party! It was a success to say the least. We rented a princess moonwalk and had an Aerial pinata for the kids to beat up on! It was probably one of the better parties we’ve had here at the house.

   

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

We also transitioned Stone from the crib to his big boy bed this month. Stone isn’t ready for the big full size bunk bed, so Mike transformed Hunter’s old Sponge Bob toddler bed to a full fledged Toy Story bed equipped with a picture of Stone with his favorite characters. I am so proud of how easily this worked out – I thought it would be a lot harder to get Stone out of the crib. But so far, he’s done really well and to this day is still in the bed. We’ve since bought Toy Story 3 sheets for the bed and Stone LOVES sleeping with his favorite hero Buzz!

  

  

 

September also marked the end of diapers for us (for a while at least). Stone pretty much potty trained himself in a very short amount of time. Mike bought him a package of big boy underwear one day at Target and after a few weeks, I was able to send Stone to school and put him to bed in his underwear. I’m so amazed at how fast that went. But needless to say, it’s nice not having to change diapers!

  

 

I think the biggest event of September was the ultrasound of our fourth (and final) baby. We found out we were pregnant back in July, but didn’t see my OB until September. Here are a few of the initial ultrasounds:

  

 

One of the joys of having so many kids is all of their friends who pass through and are currently a part of our lives. There aren’t always “events” when we take their pictures, but I’m going to start including them in my blog so we have a record of who their friends have been throughout childhood. This is Brooke and Sara, one of her friends we met through playgroup. And then Brooke and Audrey, who lives across the street from us. Brooke was literally born days apart from both Sara and Audrey.

  

 

And then of course I HAVE to include that September was also Stone’s first ride in daddy’s corvette:

  

  

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Saturday, September 4, 2010 – This past Saturday night was the long anticipated (by me anyway) Creed show. Mike and I went with our friends Stacey and Davin. It was such a great night. We had our sitters come early so we could have an adult dinner first. We hit Culvers in the Woodlands and had a chance to sit, relax, eat and talk. The show started at 7:30 and Theft was the opening band. They were pretty good, but they are like baby brand new.

 

The next band was Red. They sounded good but looked like a bunch of freaks. They are more mainstream than Theft and obviously more popular with the crowd. I enjoyed their performance, I just think they are kind of strange (looking).

  

Next up was Creed (WOOHOO!). We took the opportunity to snap a few pictures of ourselves before the band came on.

  

So here are my pics! We were right by the big screen so I got some good shots of the guys from that perspective. Scott grew his hair out for this show. I think I like the bald better, but I still think he’s hotter than sexy! Houston was the last stop on this tour for Creed, so they really played up the show for us! Scott talked a lot about how thankful and grateful he is for the fans and for giving them another opportunity! He seems very humbled by Creed’s breakup and you can tell he’s really a changed man trying to make his wrongs right! He told a story on stage about how a beer company (I forget which one) asked Creed if they could use their song “Higher” in one of their beer commercials. Scott told them there was no way they were going to use a song that was about heaven to sell beer! He got a huge roar from the crowd…

I managed to stand up through the entire show! I’m thankful I’m not BIG FAT and pregnant right now or I’m sure I wouldn’t have enjoyed the show half as much. It was also a very cool night and the breeze blowing really helped keep the heat away!

  

  

  

  

  

  

Here is as much of the set list as I can remember:

bullets

suddenly

torn

one

faceless man

my own prison

overcome

say I

what if?

what's this life for?

with arms wide open

a thousand faces

m sacrifice

And the encore was:

one last breath

higher

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Thursday September 9, 2010 – Stone and Brooke both started school again today. This is Brooke’s last year at Christ the Redeemer but Stone’s first year of preschool. They were both so excited about starting! Brooke’s teacher this year is Mrs. Melanie and her class has a lot of familiar faces and some new ones. Stone has all new friends and Ms. Tammy and Ms. Lisa (the same ones Brooke had) are his teachers for the bridge class.

 

This morning went off without a hitch and there were no tears, well except for the fit Brooke threw in the car on the way to school. But it had nothing to DO with school, thank goodness.

I took a few pictures of them all ready before we got in the car.

    

While we waited in the carline, the kids got out of their seats and were milling around. Stone is so laid back I’m so thankful that he was ready and excited about today! I love the last picture of Stone below! SO SWEET!!

   

So it was our turn and the teachers came and got them out of the car. Brooke knew what to do, she’s a pro already. Stone listened to the teacher, put his backpack on, and off he went to his new adventures in preschool. He waved to us and didn’t look back! SO PROUD of my little man! I know they are going to have a fantastic year!

   

Below is a piece of artwork from the first day of school from each of them! I’m sure you can guess by looking who did what!

 

Also Ms. Tammy sent me some digital pictures of Stone’s first day in the classroom. Here is my little man in action:

  

 

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Monday, August 23, 2010 – With much anticipation, Hunter started the 1st grade today! He’s getting to be such a big boy! Mike took him last Friday to meet his teacher and find his classroom. He has two teachers that they call “switch” teachers. Mrs. Alexander, his homeroom teacher will teach some of his subjects. And Mrs. Long, his “switch” teacher will teach him the other subjects.

Hunter is an old pro when it comes to the school. So I had him take me in this morning to see his classroom and meet his teachers. When we got down the hallway, he couldn’t remember which way to go. There was a TON of people and a lot of chaos. So in his defense, I can see why he got really turned around.

 

We walked into his classroom and he knew right where his desk was. He wasted no time and sat down to color. That was it. I kept taking pictures. He kept coloring. It was time for me to go. LOL! There were no other parents in the room, so I’m sure my presence stuck out like a sore thumb. :)

 

When he got home from school today, he told me all about his classroom, where his backpack goes, which friends from last year he saw in the halls…he said both of his teachers are really nice and that he liked them both. I was so glad to hear the day was a success for him!

Another milestone for this mommy. So proud of my first born. I’m sure it’s going to be a SUPER great year.

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Sunday August 8, 2010 – Yesterday we took one last before-school-starts trip to the beach (Galveston, for those of you who don’t know which beach) with our friends Mike and Kam and their kids Myles and Kaitlyn. We had beautiful weather and had a great time enjoying the sun and water! I always have a hard time taking pictures at the beach because I like to enjoy the water too. This trip I made special efforts to get out the camera and not pose the kids for every shot. I just wanted to enjoy whatever it was they were “doing”.

  

   

   

  

   

  

   

  

  

I never think (until after the fact) to get at least ONE picture of ALL the kids together. Myles and Kaitlyn have grown up so much since the last time we were together. (This is actually the first time we met Kaitlynn). At any rate, here are the pictures I attempted to take of my three just before we left. Hunter is 6, Stone is 2 and Brooke is about a month shy of 5.

  

I love that my kids love the water. And love the beach. They were constantly asking Mike and I to take them “out to the deep” water. Stone had a field day out in the waves as we’d bobble up and down with the crashing waves. He screamed with joy as the water would splash him in the face and we taught him how to just spit the salty water out. It’s one of those moments you wish you’d had a video camera with you to capture those times forever. I absolutely love the ages my kids are today and try to cherish each and every thing that is unique and special about this season.

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