Decorating the Christmas Tree!

Usually I am one of the first people I know to get my Christmas tree up, but this year for some reason I have really been slacking! I'm not sure if its having two of my kids birthdays in December or starting up my new business or what but I've really been slacking! So we finally got our tree up and got it decorated. Here are some pictures of the kids decorating it. And although Joey wasn't much help with decorating the tree, he did try to eat a few ornaments while I wasn't looking. Sorry Joey, I'm not that slow!!!!

Andrew's birthday party!

Well this past Saturday we had Andrew's birthday party at the Museum of Transportation down in south County. It is a lot of fun there. You get the creation station room to yourself for the party and the kids get to play with all the fun stuff. Plus before hand we get to tour all the trains, which Andrew loves. We've had his birthday party there for the past two years and have had great experiences with them.
Anyway here are some of the pictures from the big day! The first two are of a few of the trains we visited before the party. And here is the proud birthday boy! He was so excited about having his birthday party. He tried to be a man and hide it, but I could see the excitement. Then of course he would turn away and act like it was no big deal. Silly boy! It made me feel proud that he was so happy!
So here he is with his hat on getting ready to eat his snack.Andrew with his friends.

Here is a picture of Adriana and her very first friend, Ainslee. They've been friends since Adriana was 5 months old!Andrew has been talking about his birthday party since Adriana had hers back in September. He kept saying he was going to have a truck birthday and a truck cake. Well a couple of weeks before his birthday we were looking through a birthday magazine and I asked him what kind of birthday he was going to have. All of a sudden it changed to a Go Diego Go birthday. So we got a Diego birthday cake instead of his truck cake.Here is Andrew getting ready to blow out his candles. As he was blowing he had only got one on his first try. He stopped and started looking around at all of us like he didn't know what to do. We all started telling him to blow out the rest, so he quickly did. Then he started laughing and said "Oh, I forgot....hahaha". He is my little crack up!Andrew received so many great toys from all his friends! He got home that night and had no idea where to even begin playing with all his cool stuff!My little chef in the making, Adriana!

And yes, baby Joey was there!

I'm glad you had such a great birthday party, Andrew! Happy birthday to my wittle boy!!!!!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Andrew!!!!

Happy 3rd Birthday, big boy!!!! I can't believe you are three already, I have no idea where the time has gone. It seems like we were just celebrating your first birthday yesterday, and now you are already 3! You have grown into a very handsome young boy and I'm so proud of you! There is not a day that goes by that you don't make me laugh so hard. You always know how to make your momma smile, especially when she needs it the most. I love you so much Andrew!
Here is some pictures of your birthdays over the years.
Your very first birthday where you happily devoured your cake! And you made sure we all knew that you were turning 1!
Here is your second birthday. Not quite as messy as your first, but still a great birthday!And of course your third birthday. Wow, how you have grown up! You are the sweetest little boy ever and I couldn't love you anymore than I already do!!!!

Thanksgiving in Branson

Every year for Thanksgiving my parents rent a large house in Branson and my sister and brothers plus our families all stay in together. Its always so much fun spending the weekend together and catching up, especially since my youngest brother and his wife live in Oklahoma and we don't get to see them very often. And of course while we are in Branson we always spend a couple of days going to Silver Dollar City, a family favorite. So get prepared for all the pictures, as you know I like to take a lot of them!
So here is all the cousins together right before we had lunch with Santa. In order from oldest to youngest is Kaitlyn, Jacob, Adriana, Andrew, and baby Joey. Here is Aunt Kimmie and baby Joey while we are at the Santa lunch.

Here is Kaitlyn and baby Joey with the Coca cola bear and a friendly elf.Here is Adriana and Andrew petting the baby goats. We also got to hear all about the differences between goats and sheep which I will be happy to enlighten you all with the story sometime.Adriana and Andrew standing in front of the story of the candy canes, another very interesting story that I will share with you some other time (especially since I can't really remember it right now anyway!)Adriana and Jacob taking time out to stop and decorate some sugar cookies.....just what they need, more sugar!And of course Andrew will never turn down a chance to gobble up some sugar.Yes, Jacob turned 9 over the weekend and yes he still likes to cuddle up with the wittle bears....ahhh wittle Jakie Bob! (I'll really be in trouble if he reads this!!!!)See baby Joey was still with us! Daddy and baby Joey getting in some snuggly time.All my favorite guys!!!! Chris, Joey, Andrew, and my dad-PawPaw.

I love this picture of Chris and Adriana! And no her hair didn't just grown six inches over night, it was a light up hair extension she had bought down there.I think this picture was just a little out of place because I think it was taken back at the house. I just thought it was a fun picture of the kids laughing and having fun!

Here is Adriana and Jacob riding one one of the rides. This one you have to use the rope to pull yourself up to the top then you slide back down. Andrew and I rode it together also. He was just verily tall enough and he had the whole crowd cheering him on hoping he would make the height minimum. So of course he thought he was riding on a major ride! But since I still had the camera, there was no picture of him up there :(

Each night they have a big tree lighting ceremony when they light up the big tree. Here is Chris and Andrew watching the show.

And here is a picture of the big tree all lite up.

They had a really cute Frosty the snowman show. At the beginning of the show they invited all the kids up front to watch the show on the stage. Andrew even went up there to watch, of course he had to sit by Jacob though. It even had pretend snow falling during the show. I think this was my kids favorite activity of the night, because you know frosty is real....right!!!!!

Here is all the kids at the end of the show. I couldn't get any good pictures of the kids up there because they were in the middle and there was just no good spot to try to get a picture.

Andrew taking advantage of the opportunity to make another sugar cookie, thats what happens when you go somewhere with grandma and grandpa!!!!

Each night they put on this awesome light up parade. Adriana was off with my parents and Jacob so I only had the boys with me to watch it. Andrew was just in awe over the parade.

This guy is one of Chris' favorite guys. He is close to seven feet tall and he has been working at Silver Dollar City for as long as I can remember. He always dresses up as the toy soldier for the parade.

And whats a parade in the winter without Santa!!!!

And Andrew's favorite float, the train!

The candy cane house.

And my favorite float, the nativity scene with an angel over looking it! The true meaning of Christmas!!!!!

I won't bore you will all the float pictures I took. But along the way, Andrew did make friends with several unique guests. I only got a few pictures of them because I was too busy watching the parade and not paying attention to who is coming over to my sons. Oh well, here is a couple of pictures.

This one is the ginger bread man giving Andrew five.

And a snowman posing for a picture with Andrew.

And I will end my long slide show of pictures with one final picture of the big Christmas tree, because I love that tree so much!!!!

So that is it until next Thanksgiving!!!!!

Visit with Santa #3

I know, I know.......common enough pictures with Santa, right? Well this one was taken while we were down in Branson for Thanksgiving and we had lunch with Santa at one of the restaurants in Silver Dollar City so we had to do it!!!! It was actually a lot of fun, we got to have great food from a buffet then Santa came to visit. They also had the Coca Cola polar bear there and several people dressed up as elves and ragedy ann dolls. The kids loved it!
So once again, here is some more pictures of the kids with Santa. Adriana is looking a little scared in this picture and Joey is just mesmorized by Santa.I thought this was so sweet with Joey and Santa, and yes momma was trying to cut the other two out of the picture....what a bad momma!!!! But it was so cute of Joey and Santa!

So this time we tried to get a picture of Joey and Santa doing it again, but of course it doesn't happen again. So here is just a picture of Joey and Santa, but hey still no tears from anyone!!!!!

Thanksgiving at MeMaw and PePaw's

We spent the first part of our Thanksgiving day at Chris' parents house with his brothers and families. We had a great time catching up with the whole family and eating some delicious food, I probably gained 10 lbs there alone :) The kids had a great time seeing their cousins and playing. Although it can get a little crazy with 6 kids ages 5 and under running around! Baby Angeline and Aunt Maria were unable to make it this year because of being a little under the weather so we really missed visiting with them! Here is a picture of all the cousins, minus Angeline of course.
In order from left to right there is Gabe, Adriana, Joey, Ryan, Andrew, and Mikey.
BTW-Joey does have clothes on, its a beige Thanksgiving outfit, so no I really don't let my kid run around naked in freezing cold temperatures!