The boys room!

With both boys being afraid to sleep by themselves, they happily decided to share a room together. So we moved Joey's bed up to Andrew's room and they were so excited. I know their room isn't decorated very much yet but as soon as we get some extra money maybe Andrew's bed will get off the floor and we can't paint there room. But for now this is the boys room and they LOVE it!

Christmas books!

So as I listed in a previous post, I wrapped up all the Christmas books and put them under the tree. Well previously I had 12 days worth of books for the kids to open, but my sister brought over several bags of books from her house. She had many Christmas books that we did not have so I wrapped them up as well and now we have way too many books to open so we started a little early. Here is the kids lined up to open their books!

Advent begins!

I know Advent started last week but I forgot to make this post. So with this being the second week in Advent I thought I would post it now. So here is our new Advent candle!

St. Nick came!

Last night St. Nick came to our house and picked up the kids Christmas lists and left them some gifts!
After St. Nick came!

Adriana's blanket and ornament....


Andrew's blanket and ornament....


Joey's blanket and ornament......


And mommy and daddy's ornament.....

They also got a decorated cookie and some candy canes in their stockings. They were so excited this morning and loved their blankets and ornaments!

Neighborhood Christmas party!

Saturday night was our annual neighborhood Christmas party. Each year our neighborhood has a Christmas party at our clubhouse which consists of a visit from Santa (who also gives each child a small gift) followed by cookies and milk downstairs. They also provide each child with a picture of them with Santa. It is one of our favorite activities our neighborhood does. This year Adriana got two card game set, Andrew got a remote control car, and Joey got a monster truck.
I was going to let each child visit Santa on their own since I already had several pictures of the three of them together. So here is Adriana with Santa.

When it was time for the boys to go up, they insisted on going together so here is a picture of the boys.

The boys telling Santa what they want.

Adriana eating her cookies with milk downstairs.

And even though St. Nick day is technically on Dec. 5th, we usually make it after the neighborhood party because it makes great timing to tell the kids Santa will come by to pick up their Christmas lists when he leaves the clubhouse. So we will have a follow up post about their great St. Nick gifts!

Christmas 2010 photos!

Here are a few pictures of the kids I got in front of the Christmas tree. We do these photos every year and most of the time they are on my Christmas cards, but I already ordered my Christmas cards so unfortunatetly these pictures didn't make it.
My 3 beautiful kids!

And a jealous dog who had to join in with the pictures!

And yes, if you look close enough in the bottom picture you will see Joey coloring with a marker on the floor. I was too busy trying to get the dog to stay still that I didn't notice that until after the picture was taken.......good thing it wasn't permanent!

Cutting more firewood!

If you've ever come to our house then you know I usually always have a fire going in the fireplace. Well with all these fires constantly going in our fireplace, I have already gone through 2 truck loads of firewood since Oct.......yes 2 truck loads! I know, I know that is a lot! So we made another trip out to the farm to grab another truck load, which hopefully lasts a until January even though we will probably be making another trip in the next couple of weeks.
Of course we always put the kids to work when we come up there.

Even the youngest has to do his part!

But we always leave a little time for exploring!

We shall see how long this truck load lasts us! Thank goodness we get wood for free!!!

Christmas shopping and candy cane hunt!

This morning we headed out to Andrew's preschool where they do a breakfast with Santa and emporium shopping. Although we had to skip the breakfast with Santa we did get to do the emporium shopping. The kids look forward to this every year and we let them buy their grandparents gifts as well as gifts for their 7 cousins. And at only $1 a gift, momma likes it too!
The past two years they also had a reindeer come visit as well. Adriana and Joey were very excited about it but Andrew didn't want much to do with it. Here is Adriana holding onto him.

Adriana and Joey in the sleigh.

After leaving Andrew's school, we headed out to Faust Park for a candy cane hunt. This was our first year going and wasn't sure how it would be, but it was a lot of fun! They sell 350 tickets and have over 11,000 candy canes including some with prizes on them.
The kids getting ready for the hunt.

Let the hunt begin!

Joey having some fun!

The kids each scored a prize plus free tickets to ride the carousel. They had a great time and I think we found a new annual Christmas time activity!

Andrew's birthday at school!

On Andrew's birthday I was lucky enough to be parent helper for the day. This also made for one excited little boy. We dropped Joey off at grandma/grandpa's house and headed to the store to pick out a delicious treat! He picked some very messy cupcakes as his special birthday snack (not sure the teachers liked this very much). Then off to school we went. Whenever you have a parent come in for parent helper, it makes you the special helper for the day! So with this you get to do many special things.......
You get to hold the American Flag during the Pledge of Allegiance....

For his birthday he got a special birthday ribbon to put on his name tag to let everyone know it was his birthday!

He got to help with the calender.....

He got to be the meteorologist and tell what the weather was like for that day....

He also had show and share that day and choose to bring in my old moose hockey ornament that I had given him.....

Then it was off to get busy with work. Here he is decorating his gingerbread man....

Then it was his snack time and he was very excited about the yummy cupcakes and the little birthday hat that was on his.......

The last thing with special helper is you get to ring the bell when it is time to go...........Andrew choose to do it with his tiny birthday hat that was on his cupcake, he is sooooo silly!

I think he really had a great time spending his birthday at his school! Still having a hard time believing my little boy is 5 already!!!!! sniff, sniff!!!!

Happy 5th birthday Andrew!

Yesterday was Andrew's 5th birthday. It is really hard to believe my little boy is 5 already, where has the time gone? He is growing up so fast and has become our big helper. I know if I need anything done, he will be the first to volunteer with no complaints. He is always sharing with his little brother and has even decided to share his room with him! He is still very energetic and loves ALL sports. His latest craze is hockey that he has been practicing skating for and will begin playing after Christmas. He is still so loving and crawls up on my lap often to snuggle with his momma. This year in school has been such a huge improvement and his has learned so much. I'm so proud of my little boy and can't wait to see what this next year will bring!
We spent his birthday making a birthday cake then he had a half day at school which I was parent helper for and he was able to bring birthday cupcakes in for a special treat.
He picked pizza for his special birthday dinner then came our yummy cake we made together!
Singing happy birthday to the birthday boy (I know this picture is a little blurry and didn't realize it until I downloaded the pictures).

Blowing out birthday candles.

Getting lots of birthday kisses from his favorite big sister and little brother!


Happy 5th birthday to my sweet little boy! Mommy and daddy loves you soooo much!!!!!