Christmas Fun

We had a great Christmas. First it started with Christmas Eve. This is our big dinner day. We all gather and make dinner and then open family presents.

Here is Kylan getting ready for dinner


This year we were in charge of dessert and rolls. Here are the cute reindeer cupcakes that we made. We also made cheesecake for dessert. It was really good. Everything was really good. We all ate too much.

Later that night we opened our family presents.
Here is Gavin tearing into one of his presents


Here is Kandie saying thanks to Beck for her present that he gave her. These two are only 6 months apart in age and they are so cute together. They love to play together all of the time.


The adult presents came in these cute Christmas boxes. Here is mine.

The kids got a group present from Grandma and Grandpa. Here they are trying to open it all together.

My MIL makes these cute stockings for everyone. This picture is blurry but the stockings are really cute.

Each stocking has a story behind it. They are made on the child's first Christmas.
Here are my kid's stockings.




Here is the new one this year. No we didn't have a new little one. My SIL Melanie had another little boy this year. Here is his cute stocking.

After all the Christmas Eve fun we got ready for bed and left Santa a treat. The kids thought that he would enjoy one of our reindeer cupcakes.

Santa must have thought that everyone was good this year because we got some good presents.

Beck loves Diego

Kylan finally got a DS. He has been wanting one of these for over a year.

The day after Christmas we had so much snow and we wanted to go sledding. Luckily Nick and Shauntae invited us over to sled on their hill in their backyard. I have decided that this hill is the best for sledding with little kids. It is big enough to have fun yet small enough that the kids can walk up it themselves.

This last weekend we enjoyed the things that we got and the time off that we had together.

We hope that everyone had a good holiday.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Snow, Snow and more Snow

We have had quite a few days of snow here. I know that it is not as much as some places in the U.S. but it is our first snow storm that has been more that just a dusting of snow. I have already shoveled three times and it needs to be shoveled again. (Stephen and the kids have also shoveled a couple of times) The kids have loved it though and try to spend as much time as I will let them outside. Of course this means that I make hot chocolate after them come in to help them warm back up.

Yesterday the kids were outside shoveling and playing and when I looked out at them, this is what I saw...

They decided to make a snowman.

It was so cute because they did it all on their own. They were really creative with the face also. We didn't have the usual coal for the eyes and mouth and a carrot for the nose. I sent a couple of things out for them but they came looking for other things and I really like what they came up with. Can you tell what they are?

Here is a view of the entire snowman.

In case you couldn't guess, the face is two tootsie roll pops for the eyes, a candy cane stick for the nose and mini colored marshmallows for the mouth.

After a night outside our snowman isn't looking so wonderful. He is still cute but it looks like he has been punched in the face.

The candy cane stick melted in the snow.

My Dad is OLD!

I am just kidding with the title to this post. My Dad's birthday was this month and he hit a milestone. He turned 60. If you know my dad you might be surprised because I don't think that he looks as old as he is.
I had seen a cute idea in a magazine a couple of years ago and thought that it was really cute. I saved the idea until this birthday because it worked out so well. What we did was made a shirt for my dad saying "My Grandpa is this old" and then had the kids put their hand prints on it until we got 60 fingers.
Here is a picture of us making it.


My kids loved getting messy


Here is a picture of the finished shirt


Here is a picture of my dad after he opened his present.


Happy Birthday Dad!

Fun day at Hunter's school

Hunter had a Holiday program the other day. He was so excited that we got to come to school and see the songs that he had been working on. They sang all sorts of holiday songs including Christmas songs and Hanukkah songs. He did a really good job singing and the hand motions were really cute.

Here he is waiting for it to start.


After the program we got to go to his classroom and he showed us around.
I previously posted about Hunter's gingerbread house and here it is finished.

Here is a close up. The chimney kind of broke and fell a little but I love the snowman that he made.

Here is Hunter with his teacher.

Santa Visit

Every year we visit Santa at the mall. My kids tell him what they would like and sometimes they surprise us by asking for things that we didn't know they wanted.
This year I wasn't sure how Beck and Gavin would act. Beck had no problem and went up with his older brothers. Gavin was a little hesitant but as long as Kylan was holding him, he didn't cry. He wasn't sure what to make of Santa.



You can see Gavin trying to figure Santa out.


We actually went and saw Santa twice this year at the mall. The first time we were just seeing if he was there yet and there wasn't a line so we said hi. This was the second time and we had to stand in line for a little while. My kids noticed that it wasn't the same person both times. We think the first one probably must have been a helper. Santa must have been busy that first day.

Cute, Heartwarming Christmas Video of Silent Night

I really liked this video and version of this song. Hope you enjoy it.
This is Sixpence None The Richer featuring Dan Haseltine from Jars of Clay

4 Jedi

A couple of Saturdays ago one of the local toy stores were having a Toys for Tots fundraiser. They had some of the Star Wars characters there. So of course we went to go check it out. My kids love Star Wars. It was pretty cool. If you donated to Toys for Tots you got to have a picture taken with a few of the characters. I was worried that Beck and especially Gavin would be scared of the characters in masks but they loved it. We just hung out and let the kids look at the characters and talk to them. It was a win, win for all. We donated money to help someone and my kids had fun seeing some of their favorite characters.