December Cell Phone Pictures

It may be March, but it is never to late to get caught up! Thankfully life has been so busy that I have only taken a tiny fraction of the pictures I normally do. My goal for March, get caught up on the blog.You are welcome.

 Its been so long I don't even know what Annie and I were doing. I am assuming we were running errands and stopped for a treat at O'For Heaven's Cake. Always a delicious trip

 Nicholas playing with the birthday bear

 Samuel gave up naps awhile ago but he struggles not to fall asleep during the late afternoon

 I frequently find Annie selfies on my phone.....

 It was freezing cold and shoveling had to be done. Brandon had a late call and it was on me. The kids were all bundled up and playing outside so Nicholas and I bundled up and got to shoveling. I was sweating so much but he was so cozy he fell asleep. 

 No words....

 Nicholas at his 1 year Dr. appointment.

 Another Samuel nap

 We made weekly trips to the library in December. The kids always race to get their books and cozy up to this chair to read for awhile. This time, Annie won

 Terror twins bundled up and waiting to leave

 Brandon was REALLY excited to be eating Chinese food on Christmas eve. 

 Annie sporting her new cat print gymnastics shorts I made her

 Brandon shoveling...he is a special man

 Annie modeling a cozy dress I made her.

The boys hanging out in the best library chair. They were impossible to take a normal picture of

Winter Break

December was a crazy month with Christmas festivities, Nicholas turning 1, lots and lots of snow and attempting to get to the mid way point of homeschool. When we finally finished our midterms, we threw our hands in the air and spent some time as a family relaxing and playing!

First up, a homeschool field trip to Santa's Village.

Santa's Village has decorated Christmas trees, crafts, and on the weekends sleigh rides, Santa visits and INSANE crowds. We choose to do a private field trip which was totally the way to go! We checked out the trees, did crafts, took pictures, hung out with our friends and had a little treat. It was a quick couple of hours but simple and fun!

 I tried wearing Nicholas for the time we were there but he was having NONE of it. I would put him down and every time, without fail he would run out into the entry to this life size old school Santa statue. It looks way more like Saint Nicholas then Santa...just saying. This kid has a very special connection with dear old St. Nick. 

Decorating for Christmas

We normally decorate for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. Since Christmas Season(According to the Catholic Church) doesn't actually start until Christmas Eve, we decided to put back Christmas decorating until the 2nd Sunday of Advent. The only problem with this plan is Brandon and I got way to excited and couldn't seem to wait so we compromised and ended up decorating the first week of December. We decorated over a couple of days to give us time to collect our sanity in between rooms. First up,our poor Christmas tree, which is so tragic its comical. The tree itself has seen better days and the majority of the branches no longer function properly. The matching ornaments I bought in 2001 have mostly shattered and been replaced with homemade ornaments from the kids or sports themed ones from Brandon's childhood. The bottom half of the tree is all beanie baby bears that are safe for Nicholas to pull of which he does daily leaving a half decorated comical looking tree. Either way, the kids had fun hanging the ornaments and it was good quality family time spent together.

We take turns hanging the angle every year. It was Samuel's turn but for some reason when Brandon lifted him up to do the honors, he freaked out. He kinda threw the angle at the tree and scampered away. Benjamin stepped in to top the tree.

Our perfectly imperfect tree!