time at the park

a couple of days before christmas, we took a day trip to see brian's grandparents, aunts, and uncles. it is always a wonderful time with them! brian's grandparents live down the street from a little park, and after we've been there a few hours, it's nice to let the kids get some energy out (and let his grandparents have a moment of peace and quiet!). this picture cracks me up... brian is giving me the look that says, "put away the camera and help me with these kids!"


crossing the road... i wanted to yell, "make way for ducklings!"


my kiddos had fun hanging, swinging, climbing, running, jumping, and riding...




brian loves his uncles. here, he and uncle joe find a few quiet minutes to visit.


this picture is for kristie's dad. :)


swingin' cousins!


christmas craziness with the family to come....

christmas morning

christmas morning! christmas morning! there are very few days that top the excitement of this day. our kids, thankfully, did not get up at the crack of dawn. we did make ethan and caroline stay in their room for a few minutes while we woke up and got amelia up. she probably would've slept another hour, but we didn't want her to miss anything. little miss sleepy-head had the privilege of letting her excited brother and sister out of their room. (she really wishes she could open that door all by herself... she can almost do it!)


ohhh, i love these girls and i love their christmas nightgowns! amelia would not stop eating her apple to take a picture, but at least this is proof that they ate something other than christmas treats during december!


the kids couldn't wait to dig into their stockings!


and then it was time for the gift-giving... the kids had fun watching each other open the gifts they'd bought.


ethan was surprised that caroline did give him legos! (remember her tricking face?!)


and amelia was thrilled to have a little swing for her baby dolls. this poor doll always either ended up on the floor or face down in the swing.... but amelia didn't seem to mind.


caroline's big surprise was dress-up clothes for her beloved jenny doll that my grandma gave her the week before. ethan picked out some outfits for jenny, and we snuck some princess dresses home from disney. caroline loves her trunk for all of jenny's things. and amelia has figured out that it makes a great stool.


oh look! i managed to come out from behind the camera! i couldn't wait to give amelia this remake of the old plastic record player i had as a little girl. anybody else out there remember this toy?


after we opened our gifts, we headed to the kitchen to sing happy birthday to Jesus and to celebrate THE greatest gift! thank you, God, for the gift of your Son!


even after we blew out the candles, amelia kept singing "happy birthday"... and you know what? she really hasn't stopped!


we enjoyed our quiet christmas morning! more family gathering pictures to come.

crazy

no, i haven't finished writing about christmas. yes, i know january is 1/3 over. but things have been a bit....


crazy.

as if coming down off the sugar high that is called christmas isn't enough craziness (after coming down off the disney high, mind you), the stomach bug hit a portion of our family (praising God it was only a portion) on christmas day and the next few days that followed. and now i spend entirely too much time looking on real estate websites we are working like crazy to get our house ready to sell. we're not going anywhere... just praying that we will be able to move to a neighborhood and home that better meets the needs of our family. but this post isn't about that. it's about all the reasons why i still have sweet christmas pictures waiting to be edited. and oh look! here's three of the crazy reasons right here!


amelia's birthday is next weekend, so my goal is to be all caught on the blog by then. this is a very necessary goal... writing out of order drives me absolutely crazy. but then again, isn't that the title of this post!?

hoping crazy is not the theme of 2011!

getting ready for christmas

the weeks leading up to christmas flew by waaaaaayyyyy too quickly. i had high hopes of churning out christmas crafts, teaching the kids some new christmas carols, and reading christmas stories all month long.... well, we did do a little of this and a little of that, but not to the crazy-christmas level that i'd hoped! but speaking of crazy christmas... here's a shot of my living room in the midst of wrapping presents one night! i have so much fun wrapping gifts... and it was an added bonus to watch singing in the rain for the first time while wrapping away. :) i did want to share a couple of new things we added to our christmas stash.... and to my horror, they are completely absent from my photographic documentation of christmas 2010. i can't believe it. so thank you, google images. what would i ever do without you!?


ethan first saw this playmobil nativity set last year at his cousin's house, and i just knew he'd love all the little pieces this year. the day that it arrived, ethan played with these guys every single minute of the rest of the day. it was a hit! the wise men have gold, frankincense, and myrrh that can go in little gold boxes... and the boxes can hang from the camel's saddle. we had to laugh that the angel comes with a magic wand. umm.... not exactly how the Incarnation happened. :) my biggest laugh came when the very first thing caroline did was put the angel's halo on mary. and then came the emphatic reminder that we do not worship mary!!! i completely recommend this set for reenacting out the christmas story. little hands will be so happy! but if you're at my house, the wise men have to go visit Jesus and mary at a lego house, not the cardboard stable that comes with the set. :)


last year after christmas, i found a great stencil book on sale. i thought that ethan would really enjoy it this year, but actually... he and caroline both loved it. so much so that i'd wished i'd bought two!


well friends....this is when procrastination pays off! i'd already begun writing this post when i found the stencil book yesterday! at some point, i put the stencil book on top of the fridge when i was cleaning off the table, and we totally forgot about it until last night when i cleaned off the top of the fridge. (are anyone else's kids like that?? totally gung ho about something, but then it's outta sight, outta mind? you'd think they'd remember it if they really liked it!) i was initially frustrated that the book did not get packed away with the rest of our christmas stuff... until caroline asked if she could do some stencils last night. of course!!! then mommy can get a picture of you with the book for her blog! so just pretend this was taken a month ago.


our jesse tree was a special part of our advent season again this year. i admit that we had to play catch-up a couple of times due to starting late after we got home from disney and just the busyness of life, but the kids didn't mind getting to hang 8 ornaments in one day! i love, love, love this tradition we started last year. i love that every day (well, every day in theory), we are taking a look at God's promises to His people. every day, we are reminded of God's plan to bring about the coming Messiah. every day, we are praising God for the gift of His Son, Jesus. i can't imagine christmas without our jesse tree.


our hallmark happy tappers have been a hit with the kids every since they were given to us a couple of years ago... and this year, amelia was especially fond of them. she carried these things all over the house, and she got really good at turning them on and off. we were really glad when she figured out how to turn them off. :)


when amelia wasn't happy tapping, she was busy bringing presents to me....


for awhile, she did not even notice the pile of gifts under the tree. until.... i put bows on all of them. bows. should've saved the bows till christmas eve... funny that the bows are what attracted her when she doesn't even keep a bow in her hair.


every morning, the kids woke up asking to "move baby Jesus" to the next number on our countdown. now that i think about it, i think you're supposed to start with 24 and work down to 1, but i had it hung the other way... so i took this on christmas eve. oh well. maybe next year, i'll read this post and remember to hang it the right way!


the kids decorated their first gingerbread house this year at their friend lola's birthday party. that's kind of pathetic that we've never done that before... but i don't like gingerbread, so i've never been dying to decorate the houses with the kids. that reasoning makes absolutely no sense at all because my kids didn't even eat these houses. they sat there and got nice and stale on my counter throughout december. so next year, i hope we can make some time in december to decorate some gingerbread houses. here's a great tip for easy construction! (and she uses graham crackers! why didn't i think of that?)


one day, caroline and i set out to make a necklace that she could wear with her red sweater on christmas day.


ethan wanted to string beads too, so i got him busy with some pipe cleaners and beads. before too long, ethan had churned out 3 candy cane ornaments! he was so happy with his little project. and especially because he could flip them upside down and exclaim "j is for Jesus!" yes, son, it is!


aaaand caroline put 5 beads on that string and called it quits. (sigh.) but she really needed a christmas necklace. (my declaration, not hers.) so guess who finished that necklace?! mmmhmmm, and i get to borrow it anytime i want to!


two happy big kids at the table= one mischievous toddler doing something she's not supposed to. shouldn't i have learned that by now? i left the bead making to find amelia with caroline's little pink bible in hand. no damage had been done yet, but look at that face... you know she was just about to be up to somethin'.


here's a little shot of the cousins singing with the children's choir one sunday during advent. they sang "we three kings" and "angels we have heard on high".


the kids had fun picking out gifts for each other this year. and they had even more fun wrapping them in secret! :) caroline did not want ethan to know that she'd bought him some legos, so we had to do a little disguising of the box... here's her "tricking" face.


and ethan could not wait to give his sisters the gifts he chose for them. he did a great job wrapping their gifts!


we had several "christmases" with different parts of our family, so stay tuned of our 12 days of christmas! hopefully all squeezed into one post. :)

our little christmas tree

it's kind of funny to write about our christmas tree now that it's been almost a week since we packed everything away... but i can't not write about all of our christmas happenings! after we got home from disney, we jumped right into christmas mode, and there was either time to enjoy christmas or blog about it. but not both. so i enjoyed christmas, and now you're gonna hear all about it.

we went to get our tree a few days after we got home from disney, and we did not expect that there would be such slim pickings on december 7! we traditionally get our tree the weekend after thanksgiving (and sometimes before!), so we were kind of disappointed this year to be left with pathetically skinny trees from which to choose our tree. now we'd said that we wanted a smaller tree than last year (that big lug fell over twice), and well.... we surely got a smaller one! i just laughed out loud when i clicked back to see just how big that tree was in our tiny living room.

so here we are at lowe's on a pretty cold evening. the kids were loving seeing their breath, so they'd like to show you. except their breath didn't show up on camera. so here's my two oldest kids with their mouths wide open. :)


these were the two best trees we could find. seriously. do i really have to pick one?


the kids were so excited to get our tree... they could have cared less that it was slim pickings! brian gave me permission to be totally cheap-o and ask for a discount. we got 20% off! it never hurts to ask!


brian had nooooooooo trouble fitting the tree through the door! i just laughed when he cruised right in. we usually have to go slow and squeeze through the door.


ethan jumps at every little chance to help daddy. yep! the tree fits in the corner! whew. that was a close one. ha!


something else we did differently this year was to trim most of the tree after the kids went to bed.... they love helping to decorate the tree, but it was their bedtime by the time we we were ready to get the lights and ornaments on. (and they were still in need of catching up on lost sleep from our disney week!) so they dreamed of sugarplums while we quickly strung the lights and hung the ornaments. our little tree didn't take too long to finish!

we left some of the kids' ornaments out for them to hang the next morning. and daddy put the train set up later that evening.


the kids then spent most of the morning going through the kids' christmas box... full of books, nativity sets, puzzles, games...


and a tacky musical christmas tree tie! ha!


i completely failed to get a picture of the kids with their ornaments this year. but i did snap some pictures of the ornaments before i packed them away. i totally broke my rule for this year's ornaments. i am usually pretty picky with my ornaments... our tree is full of old-fashioned, classic, rustic-looking ornaments. buuuuut then we went to disney. and there's a disney christmas store. and now we have a little disney on our tree. which i think is fitting since we were there 3 times in 2010! our family ornament is a very glittery mickey and minnie. aren't they cute?!


ethan picked out wall-e and eva. i love how they are tangled up in a strand of lights.


this cinderella bell commemorates caroline's first visit to cinderella's castle. i had planned on writing her name and 2010 on the bell... maybe i'll remember to buy a silver glitter pen by next december.


i thought these little mickey ears were so cute... and perfect for amelia's ornament this year. when i buy that glitter pen, i'll write on hers too.


so our little tree served us well this christmas. i did giggle every time i looked at its wonky shape.... but it stayed upright and was not home to thousands of bugs. sounds like a winner after all! :)