December pictures

They love to get on the roof ;) They were helping me to put the lights up. 

These music boxes were ours as kids.  This is the first year I really let them touch them, and they loved to "charge them up".  ;)

Let's just leave this at the fact that one of mine has been having some behavior problems....

I got rear ended the week before Christmas.  It was mostly annoying...until I realized that insurance would fix it. And Nate had run into the truck with the van about a year and half ago and there was still a big dent.  I was hopeful that somehow I could use the insurance money to fix that dent too.  And I was! (Nothing illegal or fraud-like, friends!).  The estimator was going to remove and repair the small dent from her for $675, and a place near my house was able to remove and replace the entire bumper (which included Nate's dent!) for $680.  Sold and Merry Christmas to me! And the best part was that we got a rental included so we weren't even out a vehicle!

We didn't get to making cookies this year.  :(  (It was pretty busy for me with Christmas orders and really half day kindergarten isn't much time).  But we did make snowflakes, which we handed out with our Christmas cards to our neighbors this year!

Z enjoyed working on the easy first logic puzzles I got him.  Love!  :) 

Our Christmas break this year was SO great, and we had 2 full weeks off. The boys are finally old enough to really appreciate it.  We all slept in almost every morning.  We read and played with Legos and played on the Wii and watched movies and ate and played and Nate and I did a big puzzle and there wasn't a ton of fighting.  It really was relaxing and I didn't push us to do all sorts of activities since everyone was happy (big step for me!)  We did meet friends to go bowling one day though. 

This was New Years Day at about 915, when 2 of the kids were still in bed, and the other 2 were reading quietly in bed :) We just hung out and snuggled awhile!

KV Christmas

 We had a fabulous time in KV this year.  No one in our family was sick this year...although Andy and Emily were and couldn't make it.  We really missed hanging out with them.  The big boys (Nate, Mat, and Andy) all have a good time hanging out together, and it is such a good thing for my eyes to see...big brothers that are friends :)  Marbree's sister and her husband were in town, so we got to hang with them, which was fun as well. 

Anyway, we had a great time and the weather was decent enough that we could get outside, too.  That is always a blessing, as my boys tend to expand to fill whatever area we have and then some!

The boys played crazy in the basement (shut the door and we don't hear them) and stomped around in the back, playing some sort of tag.  We worked on puzzles and played several board games...both the grownups (Settlers of Catan) and the kids (Ticket to Ride, a new game that we love!.  We took all the boys to Night at the Museum 3, and they watched Bugs Bunny with Papa.  We got to play frisbee golf and got to try out the fun marshmallow shooters we got from Mat, Marbree and Peter (and they were so much fun!).  We opened gifts (games and more games, exactly what we need!).   The parents got to go out to a meal while we left the kids with the grandparents.  The boys got to do their money grab, which is such a fun tradition.  (Mike and Dorothy store up change over the year and let the boys grab a handful and it is all theirs.  Z got $20 (!) and the littles got about $10 each).  All the boys love it and they love to sort and count all their money at the end ;)

We are blessed to have family (on both sides) that we love and get to have fun with!

Christmas at home

 We had a slow morning at home on Christmas, and I love it :) We got the kids 4 "big" share gifts:  a kindle, a lego set, a new board game, and a set of snap circuits.  They also got a ton of books (I can't help it and they love them and there is a huge Scholastic warehouse sale in December and I get great deals on new books that are sort of damaged...they look like they've been in my house about 5 minutes), a new shirt, and their brother gifts.  Each year the boys draw a brother's name and they secretly buy for them.  They're normally some kind of random gift that the kids see and want THAT particular day (when we go scope out ideas for each other).  It's been kind of a fun tradition and they like it.  We got Nate a new kindle too, and he picked me out a pair of cute boots!  They were perfect (just a bit too small, but we got that taken care of.) 
We hung out at home and ate a late breakfast after stockings, then opened the rest of the gifts after breakfast.  Then we slowly packed up and headed up to KV for a few days to celebrate with that side of the family.