What February has brought us thus far

Phone Photo Roundup

• Fun times catering with my sis N law 
• Fun food 
• Helped in Van's class on Valentine's day
• Valentine treats from Grandma and Grandpa
• Hair cut. It was getting quite poofy.
• Talks with my girl
• Serious pancake eating at the monthly firehouse breakfast. If they knew how much he ate they might have charged us.
• Tubby buddies.

Got together with some of our favorite people for a Valentine party. Kids decorated their bags, and exchanged Valentine's, played games, ate lunch, and ran around like crazy in the basement.

#3 is now #5

Celebrated this little man's big 5 tonight!

Excited? Why yes. Why do you ask?

A Thomas request was made and fulfilled. Kept my cake decorating goals simple this year. And for those of you that are Island of Sodor aficionados, you are correct. That is Edward not Thomas and it was fixed before the birthday boy would notice. Which he wouldn't. But my other kids did. 

Gifts! He kept talking about how he was going to have cereal in his new bowl tomorrow. Thanks grandma!

Play time with sister.

Trying out Mom Mom's new and very LOUD whack a mole game.

Bad family photos. It's how we roll.

Vanden, someday you will grow up and read this. So let me tell you that you are truly a joy in my life! Funny man with a tender heart. You want to grow big like Jesse. You often ask "Where's my Eden?" when you want your sister. You love the kitties and playing outside. You love pretending to box and have a great imagination. You have a solid opinion and are not wishy washy.  You are affectionate to us all and can be sweet to your siblings especially giving Beck lots of love lately. Your latest thing to say when you are mad is that you don't like your house and you are going to build your own house and it will be black. I think this is your way of saying that you look forward to growing up and not being told what to do. It will come soon enough! Your vocabulary and articulation have really improved over the last year and we can see it on your face when you are processing what you you want to say.  We can't imagine our lives without you. Happy Birthday to my sweet, sweet boy. 

2012 in Review

 

Christmas 2012

Christmas Eve with Dennis side of the family included meal, Happy Birthday Jesus cake, gifts and laughs and a splash of kid chaos. A bit milder this year, in my humble opinion. Then home for Christmas PJ's!

Christmas morning at home included stockings, breakfast, gifts, and all day in our PJ's. Lovely and relaxing, and my parents presence was the cherry on top.  If you like cherries. Which I don't. So for me they were the chocolate syrup on top.

 

The big gifts this year were dirt bikes. Or death traps. I'll let you call it.  Dennis and I grew up a bit differently on this one, but I trust my man. He's a safe one and not really the wreck-less type.  They'll have a good teacher. And Van the man got a big boy bike. (free! shhh, don't tell)

Beck's activity of choice that morning was bowling. He'd set them up over and over and over again in a line and did not want your help thank you very much. Mom Mom's gift was a hit.

A white Christmas was special ordered for our visiting desert dwellers.  It lasted long enough for them to  a bit of sledding.

And melted early enough for them to ride their bikes. I was impressed with their skills!

My mom and her friend.

December = many good things. 

Advent & Emotions

It's midnight, I'm wearing snuggie. I just finished putting some overnight baked oatmeal recipe in the crockpot. One of those where the recipe says one thing so I do another. That's how I roll.  Den and I started out watching You've Got Mail together, but we ended with him snoring and me crying. Crying, people. Crying during the end of a movie that I've seen more than once. Granted, it's been a long time, but still. So emotional lately. But I think it's a good thing for me just to let the tears come at will or else later on there will be a dam break and nobody wants that. We've continued our advent calendar. The kids seem to look forward to it. We haven't lit a candle once. That's okay. We usually end up doing the verse at dinner and peeking at the activity during the day.  One night it was Van's turn to open it.  He unfolded the activity and said "I have a dog." Laughter erupted, it was a good moment. I love that he attempts to read, or at least be creative in his guesses.

Day 2 - Hug a friend (preferably not in attack mode)

Day 3 - Help someone out (I promise I'm not making these up to get out of work, but I'll take it just the same!)

Day 4 - Eat a Candy Cane

Day 5 - Dance to a silly Christmas song (Muppets 12 days of Christmas, beaker is hilarious)

Day 6 - Read a Christmas book (Notice Van's red face from his total meltdown because it was time to turn off wii for a book. He got over it.)

Day 7 - Make an ornament (Make sure mommy looks up directions and doesn't rely on her memories from Sunday school.)

Verse that overlapped for the past couple days:  Luke 2:1-3 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register.

It was fun to see the kids faces as they understood what it would mean for them to have to go to their birth towns (for sake of example) for a census.  Light bulb moment was witnessed!

Advent Day 1

I thought I'd try to make my own advent calendar this year. I've been wanting to for a few years now, but my ideas were always to big and thus never happened. I'm thankful that I found an easy way that met what I wanted. Cut envelopes in half, tape Christmas ornaments with the names of God (found on Pinterest, but not pinned so I don't have the source), insert Bible verse advent cards found here (via pinterest) and a simple activity. Voila! I'm trying to keep my expectations simple as well.  I just want our family to take at least one moment together each day to remember what this time of year is really about. The beginning of Jesus' journey here on this earth.

Day 1 - Decorate the tree

Luke 1:26-27

 Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the descendants of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.

Tis the Season..

for popcorn stringing, candlelight gazing, nativity playing, It's a Wonderful Life watching, advent and

taking way too long to find a tree.  Though it was a beautiful day for it!

And my first born shot his first deer today. Clean shot, way to go Jesse!