Happy Birthday Jesus!!!

As expected, you had an awesome Christmas. Only one problem...I barely took any pictures...I guess I was having too much fun. Anyway, here are the few pictures I did take.

First a little play by play....

Let's start with Christmas Eve. Craig and I both had the day off...so we spent the day running errands and cleaning/getting ready for Christmas. The boys played...we worked. Craig's sister and brother-in-law, along with Craig's mom, came over for dinner. (I tried a new weight watchers recipe sweet potatoes, tomatoes, chicken and green chilli...they were my guinea pigs!) Then we headed into church for Christmas Eve service at 7pm. The boys sang. They did a great job...you'll have to trust me because we left the camera in the car. ooops. Mitchell sat with us for the whole service and he did great too. He sat on my lap and played with the program the whole time.

After church we came back to our house and ate dessert. Lynn made a yummy pie. It tasted like pumpkin...but was really squash (i think). The boys each ate piece..that's high praise for a pie made out of a vegetable!

Christmas Eve the boys got to bed late...then Craig and I got to work. We had some "santa-ing" to do! By midnight we were headed to bed...and by 6 a-m Sawyer was wide awake. Craig took him downstairs to the rec room and we waited until the others woke up. By 8...we were all up and ready for fun. I capture the morning on video....too bad I don't know how to upload it and we took no digital pics. Oh well. A few cute moments...they loved the easel and started playing with that right away...didn't even care about the other presents. Connor opened his CD and said 'I didn't ask for this!'...he later realized what it was and was thrilled. Sawyer wasn't quite sure what to make of it all....Jackson kept asking if this was Christmas...and Mitchell just sat and took it all in.

Fast forward to brunch when Craig's family came over. The boys were overwhelmed. Our families were so generous!

Here's Connor ripping into his first present. I'm not sure what it was or who it was from...I kind of lost track!

Sawyer LOVES this new BIG truck. It's a truck inside a truck with blocks inside...and it makes cool noises. I think if he just got that he'd be a happy camper!

Craig's family headed home in the late afternoon...then my mom and dad and Kelly came over.

Here they are with the crew!

We wrapped up the day with the most important part....

we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus! We ended up not getting a cake as planned...and instead we ate whoopie pies! Everyone got their own..and everyone got a candle. (the boys loved that!) They sang great...after all, they had been practicing for the big moment all day. (We reminded them throughout the day that the reason we were getting all these presents was because Jesus is so kind, he shares his birthday presents with us!)

I think these kids like there whoopie pies!

The best moment of the day came when my parents and Kelly were leaving...Jackson went to the door and said....have a good Jesus birthday! He was so sweet..and so proud of himself for remember the true reason of the season.

The next morning, Lisa, Steve, Lindsey and Seth came over for our gift exchange. The boys were thrilled to get more Thomas trains....so cool....

Sawyer and I opened the gift for he and Mitchell (in between chatting with Lisa). They got a Little People nativity...it is so cute. I should have taken a picture...but again, having too much fun to think about it.

All in all a wonderful, blessed, exhausting Christmas!

Weekend Wrap Up

Well, snow was predicted to fall all day Saturday in our neck of the woods...so we decided to get out on Friday night. We took the kids to the Choo Choo Barn in Strasburg. They had a special...bring in canned goods, get in for free. Well, we thought it was a great idea...so did about 1500 other people! We stood in line for 40 minutes....and that just got us in the front door! Yikes. It was another 40 minutes until we got inside. I'd like to say that the boys were all patient....but....
Really...Connor, jackson and Mitchell did awesome. Sawyer...well....let's just say everyone in the line knew that Sawyer wanted to keep moving. Anyway, we had a great time. There is so much to see!! We will definitely go back...when the line is shorter....

Then...as predicted....those News 8 meterologists are soooo good....it snowed!
Craig left the house early to take care of things at the Host...when he got home, he took the boys outside...then I headed to work.

Here's Sawyer braving the snow and wind.
Jackson was next out. (Connor is not pictured as he ran back inside after having a wardrobe malfunction!)

This is heading out the lane...looking at the houses across the street. I had to put it in four wheel drive and take off down the lane!

This is the intersection of Route 30 and Bowman Road. NO ONE was out shopping the outlet strip! That's a big deal since it was the last weekend before Christmas...
It took me about an hour or so to do a trip that usually takes about 20 minutes. Once I got to work, we went on the air a lot!! We ended up getting about a foot of snow..though some places near us had two feet! Holy Cow! Looks like we'll have a white Christmas!

My Visit to Kindergarten

I had a great time on Friday!!!! I visited Connor's Kindergarten class to help make gingerbread houses. Connor and I had been looking forward to this day for weeks! It was so exciting....

There were a lot of moms and dads and grandmas in Mrs. Jones' class. The kids made antler hats to wear while we made our gingerbread houses. So cute.

Before they got started, Mrs. Jones explained exactly what we were doing and how to do it. The kids adore her...its neat to see the impact she has on them.

Here's Connor listening in. I love his buddy on the other side of the table...he's so intent!

The blank canvas....hmmmm, what should we do??? Let's start with some frosting....

We shared a table with Annika, Aleigha and Jaden.

Hershey kisses...lots of hershey kisses....

It was so fun to see Connor create! Honestly, I did very little except squeeze the icing bag.

This is Jaden's finished product. Gorgeous.

Connor didn't want to put on his antlers at first...I finally convinced him to put them on and he insisted I take a picture. Too much.

All done!

Cookie!

We've had a sweet week at our house. On Monday Grandma came over and we baked until we were silly. Connor told Grandma he thought she could open her own bakery because she's such a good baker!

Here they are hard at work. Connor loved using the rolling pin...though he did get bored after a few minutes.

What they really wanted to do was decorate the cookies. They couldn't wait until Grandma made her frosting (she calls it a dump recipe...you dump a little of this and a little that in a bowl and viola!)

Note that we did the cut outs and the decorating while Sawyer and Mitchell napped! I'm no dummy.

It was only after Craig got home that we introduced Sawyer into the wonderful world of sugar! By the way, the end results are delicious!!!

9 MONTHS!!!!

Can you believe it? This little guy is 9 months old. He gets cuter every day. We went to early church today...and this little guy fell asleep twice, only to get woken up moments later. When we came home we ate lunch...we got a few things done...and this guy got a little cranky. Then I realzied I had to take his 9 month picture! So here it goes...


Excuse the blurry picture...my camera was giving me fits!
You can see the tired in his eyes...

Poor baby...


here's a little smile! So let's see...what are you up to...

• you continue to get more teeth..sorry, i've lost count at the moment
• you smile almost all the time..and are sooo pleasant to be with
• you enjoy sitting up and playing with your toys..your favorites usually end up in your mouth
• you take to good naps...one in the morning for about 1 1/2 hours...and one in the afternoon for about 2 hours.
• you are sleeping through the night!!!! YEAH!!! - it just happened this week so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it continues. (you slept until 7 am one day!)
• you love to eat...especially cheerios, diced pears, puffs...i gave you toast for the first time this week
• you are very social and love to look at people and whatever is going on
• your brothers love to entertain you and are constantly all over you
• your entire family digs you
• you are truly a blessed and wonderful gift from God
• your mommy is still trying to lose the baby weight that came with you....but you are sooo worth it

Don't want to forget about this guy. He is such a cutie patootie. He was posing for me while he ate his snack this afternoon. (this boy does not miss out on many snacks!) Anyway, the last couple of days we noticed that he's been letting us know when he has to go to the bathroom...he'll say "pee" then point to his diaper. Sometimes he lays down and waits for us to get a new diaper...other times he leads us to the bathroom. He hasn't gone in the potty yet...but we're hopeful this could be the start of something big. (The other night he led Craig to the bathroom and then wanted to go in the bath tub?!?!) Go figure. We can't imagine having only one child in diapers...we haven't had that since Connor was 15 months old!!!!!

How sweet it is

We were thrilled to take part in a super fun...super sweet holiday tradition at our church. The annual Gingerbread House Decorating get together is a blast. We did it last year and had soooo much fun. The boys talked about it for months. So this year, we got three house to decorate...and let the boys go to town. (Get ready for picture overload...we didn't want to miss a morsel!!!!)

We enjoyed the fun with just a few of our closest friends. HA! There were about 150 people there! Wow. We all ate pizza before we started to decorate. That explains all the empty pizza boxes sitting around. (I guess we eat first to lessen the temptation to munch on all the goodies!)

This year Sawyer got his own house to decorate. I got nominated to help him out. Not too bad, but this boy tried to lick the roof of his house as soon as we got it to the table. Plus, I think he ate as much as he decorated!! He did get the hang of it pretty quickly. He loved getting the m and m's stuck to the top of his house!

Connor took this very seriously. He filled his bowl with all sorts of goodies and went to town. He was set on using every ounce of icing they gave us!

Jackson had a blast. Last year he decorated his house...then started picking all the candy off and eating it. Before we left here were a few sweets left...but this year he decorated every inch! He had this sweet smile on his face the entire time.

I love the tongue. He always sticks out his tongue when he's concentrating. He loved all the different colors...

Here's Connor...again, very intent on using all the icing. He was taking after his father here and doing a little exterior landscaping.



More cuteness...notice Sawyer with his hand in his mouth. His theory was one for me, one for the house, one for me, one for the house....

At the end, jackson squirted a ton of icing on the top of his house (His finger is poised right where his stream of icing stops.) It looked cute..like a big swirl of snow on the roof peak. Well...I looked away, only to glance back and see him bent over and licking the icing with his tongue! I immediately told him to stop...Craig looked a me, laughed and said...let him go, its his house. So...Jackson went to it...and licked the huge swirl of icing right off the top of his house.

Here's Sawyer's finished product. Not too bad..and there's still candy left on the house!

It was flurrying as we left church...very picturesque! (first snow of the season) We all headed home and I put their decorated houses on a high shelf in the kitchen. They look great!

When we got home the boys headed outside to play in the snow. (Can you say sugar high!!!)

In the swim

So we wrapped up swimming lessons this weekend. The boys enjoyed it...for the most part...though Jackson only agreed to go back if he didn't have to "get sunk" anymore. (He went under twice during one of the lessons.) They both did pretty well.

This week was safety week...so they had wear their clothes in the water.

Here they are walking around the shallow end. But before they were done...

they had to swim out to the deeper part with their life vests on. I know this is an awful picture..but you can see the angst on poor Jackson's face. Ugh. He DID NOT like that.

Here he is a little calmer. I think once I gave him the thumbs up he relaxed a little bit!
I think we'll sign them up for more lessons...but maybe not this next session. We're going to have our hands full when Connor starts playing Upward basketball in January. The kindergarteners play first...8:00 am!

The boys thought it was pretty cool to wear their clothes in the pool..but it was a real bear to get them peeled off and dressed for our next stop...church choir!