We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. Our Christmas was peaceful and pleasant.

Sunday morning before Christmas.



Christmas Eve was spent at D's parents with his sibling and all the cousins. The kids acted out the Christmas story while Uncle Michael read the account from Luke.



We then went home and did the tradition of opening one gift which is always Christmas pj's.



Christmas morning was different as it was our first time to stay home and not have anyone else around. It was quiet, but so nice to have a whole day just us with nothing else to do but enjoy each other. For breakfast we had an egg casserole and stuffed french toast (which is becoming a Christmas breakfast tradition).

Thank's Grandma and Grandpa!

Thank you Uncle John and Aunt Kristina!

J's "big gift" from us was an archery set (suction cup of course). He loved it and even let sister give it a try. She caught one right away, which of course made daddy very proud. (He's wearing a Happy Birthday Jesus crown that he got from church)

E's "big gift" was a dollhouse that we "commissioned" from D's grandfather. D and I painted it, which was fun for me to play interior decorator ;) I don't know what the goofy smile is all about down below.

Thank you Grandma Linda! We bought our first books and still have $$ left to go back for more!

SO, now that Christmas is past we are in baby prep mode. D has assembled the crib and as you can see he had plenty of help. It's been wonderful to see the Lord provide. On New Year's Eve we went to visit friends and they gave us a car seat, bouncy seat and bath tub. All of which I needed! Now we can technically have the baby though there are a few things I'd still like to get done.

Just wanted to show off my hubby helping out by doing a little cleaning. What a guy, huh?

These are a couple other pics of the kids that we took the day we took our Christmas card shot.

My man.

A Huge Catch Up

It's been forever since I have been able to post, so I decided to just stick a ton of pics on from Thanksgiving until now. I am working from present day and back.

E has been requesting braids and I finally gave in yesterday. Such a challenge w/ her curls, but this morning they worked out decent after I soaked her hair.


Saturday she requested that I tie on her bunny tail. Later on I went downstairs to find her in full bunny attire w/ skirt sitting next to J who said that she was his pet.


Two sundays ago was the Christmas play at church. E was an angel and J was a wiseman. He rode in on a camel's back and everything. Sadly the only pic I got of him came out dark. Luckily we recorded the event as well.





We got our tree at the same place we went to 2 yrs ago, where my manly husband chopped it down himself.



The kids were quite helpful in decorating. They were pretty good about not sticking all the ornaments in the same place.



Thank you grandma for the Nativity play set!


Look grandpa, I have my train set up!




So now we are going back to fall days. One Sat. D raked a huge pile of leaves for the kids to play in. J was not thrilled w/ the idea and later he told me that he thought it was going to be boring. As you can see they loved it. He hurled himself into the pile w/ full force (but that's how he does everything).








Thanksgiving was surprisingly warm and Uncle David was sweet enough to fire up a go cart and give rides.



So my kids actually requested the pilgrim hats for Tday. I tried to persuade them to be indians as I thought that would be easier to make, but they insisted. E wanted to be a "mommy pilgrim" and J a boy pilgrim.



E playing dollhouse w/ cousin Rowen. They are so cute together.

4 years...wow

I woke up the morning of the 14th about 10 min before E was born. It's so crazy to think that it has been 4 yrs!! Even crazier to me that we are doing this all over again starting some time in January. SO here are some pics of the event.

E and big brother on her actual bday.


She wanted a clock and I couldn't find Little Mermaid but Tinkerbell appeared to be satisfactory.



Opening J's gift and his self made card.


Pretty plate from Grandma Linda.



Little Mermaid underwear!! I think this might have been her favorite thing that evening as she wanted to put them on right away. Then when I wanted to get a pic she had to unzip her pj's so we could also capture the ones she was wearing. Did not post that one for obvious reasons.

DAY OF PARTY

The cake..


and cupcakes (yes I made the seashells).



Table of goodies


The little mermaid herself. I did make this costume and I did draw the picture. Neither are perfect but I am proud just the same!



The other mermaids and a visiting Cinderella.



The danced to the song "Under the Sea" and played in the "bubbles". Other activites were making a seashell braclets and stick the starfish on the Little Mermaid picture.



Blow!



yummy red vlevet...(messy too)


the mermaid's treasure