Andrew's preschool Christmas party!

On Friday Andrew had his school Christmas party. Andrew has been so excited about his party and was counting down the days until it was time. The mom's put on another great party, as usual!
Here is Andrew after making his Christmas light hat....

Andrew making his goody bag.....

Showing me his goody bag.....

Mommy making him stop and pose for a picture (can't help it when I actually get him dressed up nice!)

Then it was game time. They played many great games that I have never done before and the kids all seemed to LOVE them!
This one was a game where you had to pass three presents to each other and run across the room......


without dropping the presents, whooooooops Andrew!

Santa would be so proud of all the Rudolphs!

But momma is most proud of this cute little Rudolph!

Snack time! This is one happy little preschool class!

Andrew posing with a few of his friends!

They even had a little table set up for the siblings! Joey was very happy about that!

Andrew and his teacher Mrs. DeVries!

Andrew and his teacher Mrs. Thomas!

I think all the kids had a great time at the party and it was sad to see the year half over already!

Andrew's Christmas program!

On Wednesday Andrew's preschool had their annual Christmas program. Unfortunately I forgot my bigger lens so I didn't get too many close up pictures but here is a few pictures of my little boy singing on stage. He did really, really well and was so cute singing his little heart out. But we did have a tough warm up at the beginning and I wasn't sure if he was going to actually make it on stage. Then it took two songs in before he warmed up enough to sing with the rest of the class but when he did, he did awesome! I'm so proud of my little guy and realize that life on stage might not be for him :)

Gingerbread houses!

On Thursday the kids got a snow day so luckily I still had some gingerbread houses laying around that we haven't done yet. The kids were really excited and it made for a fun snowday project.
The kids worked really hard on each of their houses!



This is each of their finished houses. I can tell that none of them ate any of the candy while making it, especially not Joey!



And like most things in our house, they didn't last long. The kids were so proud of their houses they gobbled them right up!

So it ended up being a pretty fun snow day and the project lasted the kids a good two hours making while watching Christmas movies!

The kids helping other kids!

While helping the family in the previous post, I had my kids get as involved as we could with helping the family. One of the main questions the kids had was why are we giving them presents and not Santa. I explained to them that when you are poor all you think about is your needs. So the kids ask Santa for socks and underwear because that is a need and they don't have enough money to just buy them. They don't get to ask Santa for toys. I think that really hit home for my kids.

So I took the list of things the kids wanted and let them help pick out a toy for each child. Then I also got them some socks, underwear, and slippers for each of the boys.

We also got many more gift being brought over so I let the kids help wrap what we bought the boys along with the extra gifts everyone was bringing over.

The kids really enjoyed wrapping the gifts, and even though their wrapping was far from perfect I think the boys they are being given too won't mind.

I'm so glad we are able to do this and show the kids how fortunate we are, especially this time of year! I hope to make this an annual family event and find more families in need to help out!

Boys will be boys!

Being a mom of two boys definitly keeps me on my feet and with my boys being ALL BOY it really never ends!
So here is my 3 year old on his little motorcycle getting ready to head down the stairs......so being the great mom I am, I grab my camera to get a picture before telling him to stop :)

These boys are seriously going to start turning my hair gray! I'm just hoping they both can make it to 10 years old!

Adriana's bag!

Most of you know that I was born lacking any kind of crafty or creative bone in my body! Well when trying to think of Christmas gifts for everyone to give my kids I did great until I came to Adriana! I was at a lose for her because she doesn't really play with many toys. So I came up with an idea for my mother in law to get her a horse bag where she can keep all her horseback riding things. When I started goggling personalized bags, they were really expensive! So I decided to give it a try to make it by myself. So I bought an inexpensive bag, got an iron on horse patch, and my sister had some glittery letters to use as her name. So after putting all that together on the bag, here is what I created for less that $20!

We added an inexpensive pair of riding gloves to it and it makes a great present that I know Adriana will love and be able to get lots of use out of! I was very proud of it and had to share since this was probably the most creative thing I have ever done by myself! Oh and sorry about the picture not being the best, I didn't think about taking a picture until we were on our way to my MIL's house to drop it off.

Family heritage project!

Each year at Adriana's school, each family has to do a family heritage project. It counts as 100% of their religion grade so it is very important to do. As with most Catholic projects, this is to be a family project. You can do anything from learning about Bible stories, to different saints, research prayers or make up your own, or help out others in need. There is so many different things to do. Last year we learned about the Bible story Jonah and the Whale and made our project about that. This year I wanted to do something more to help my children learn. I really wanted to do a family project with helping out others in need. First we were going to help our neighborhood with a new activity they started this year called neighbors helping neighbors. It is an opportunity to help others in the neighborhood who might be having a hard time. After talking to the family in charge of it, I found out that they were overwhelmed with people offering to help but not too many families needing the help. So I found out from my sister about a family who was in need of help and is too embarressed to ask for it. After talking to my sister, my family decided to adopt the family and help them out for Christmas. But us not having very much money ourselves, I suddenly felt overwhelmed and was worried about being able to help them out. So I decided to go to my wonderful playgroup friends and see if anyone would be willing to help out. I was almost in tears with how everyone responded and wanted to help this family out! This is the most amazing group of women I know and I'm so overjoyed with how much they were willing to give to this family! So far the group has gifted almost a truckload of things and this doesn't even include what is still to come!
Here is a picture of what was collected so far!

I know this family is going to be so happy and their three little kids will have a wonderful Christmas! I'm hoping its enough to get them back onto their feet and they will be able to put some money back into their savings account! So to all my very special playgroup friends.....I really do thank you from the bottom of my heart! We would have never been able to do this without each one of you!!!!!!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

We got our first big snowfall of the season on Joey's birthday and the kids woke up excited telling Joey that God gave him snow for his birthday, they are just too cute! So after getting up bright and early at 6am, they were out the door in the snow by 7:15am! It was so nice this year because the snow came on a weekend so I had Chris there to help me tet them all dressed and that my older two were pretty much able to get all their clothes on by themselves! Usually I have sweat dripping off me after getting the three ready to head out to the cold but it was great this time!
So the kids got to ride down our small hill on their sled! Yes, that is our dog loving the snow as much as the kids and it was hard to get any pictures without her in them as you will see!

Joey making his snow Angel.....

Andrew making his snow Angel.....

And Adriana making her snow Angel with a few kisses from Sunny!

Our snow dog.....she kinda blends in doesn't she!

Sunny has a thing with needing to deglove the kids when they are playing in the snow. Andrew put up a good fight for his glove!

But in the end he lost and Sunny got his glove :(

Of course it is never a day of playing in the snow without coming into the house for a big mug of hot chocolate!

And all the clothes drying afterward by the warm fire! This isn't a very good picture because silly me forgot my good camera at a friends house :(

The kids had a great time playing in the snow and hopefully we will have many more snow days to enjoy snow this winter!

The boys birthday party!

This year I finally managed to talk the boys into having a birthday party together. Having one Dec. baby birthday is hard enough but having two is a nightmare! Luckily they are both super kids and agreed to share their party at Chuck E Cheese. It worked out perfect and no one had to go to two extra parties in the month of Dec.
So here are a few of the pictures from the big birthday!
Andrew getting his crown from Chuck E Cheese.....Joey was too afraid of Chuck E to go up there.

But he braved it up to get his medal! He was very proud of that medal and still wearing it the next day!

Andrew getting his medal put on!

Andrew in the birthday blaster......once again, Joey was too afraid to go in there so they just gave him a few free tickets.

The boys being sang Happy Birthday!

Joey didn't want to blow out his candles so he let Andrew do it!

Andrew's Transformers cake....

Joey's Spiderman cake......

Uncle Adam (Chris' youngest brother) and Aunt Emily! We don't get to see them very often so I grabbed a picture while I could. They are now expecting their first baby at the end of March! I'm very excited for them and can't wait to meet my newest little nephew!

Now some free time to play some games!





We had a great time and I was very impressed with the service we received. I've never been to a party there before so I wasn't expecting much, but they went above and beyond my expectations! Would definitely recommend them for a party!