December - Photos of Kids

Here are some photos of the kids from this past month.

Angela:

Helping decorate the Christmas tree.

Guitar from Santa Clause.

Boxing on the Wii.Connor:

Playing in the snow.
After decorating his cut out cookie.

Christmas orange anyone?

Emeric:

Chilling on the couch.Showing off a new outfit.Christmas was just too much for him.Happy New Year!

Emeric at 3 Months

Time is flying by so quickly, Emeric is three months old now. He won't get another wight/length check until his four month appointment in January. He is currently wearing 3-6 month and 6 month outfits.
It has been so much fun playing with him and watching him learn to smile.Last night we moved him out of our bedroom and into his crib in his own room. I almost brought him back in but I knew it was good for him since he was almost too big for the bassenette.

Million Pound Challenge

I have been thinking about New Years Resolutions. For the year of 2009 I decided to read my Bible from cover to cover. I am a little behind in my reading therefore stay tuned to see if I get it completed. With New Years at the end of this week I have been wondering what I could do for 2010. I do not like to do weight loss/get in shape resolutions because they seem to be something that does not work out. Maybe it is because they are not detailed enough and they leave lots of wiggle room. Well I just signed up for something that I think will work really well, the Million Pound Challenge. They advertised it as a weight loss program but after a bit of research I found out it is also an exercise program. It is also set up to help the needy. This is how it works: for every pound you lose or for every hour you exercise the sponsoring group will donate 10 pounds of food to the Second Harvest food bank. This challenge runs from the beginning of January to the end of May. Today I signed up for the weekly exercising and I am so excited for it. I am making it pretty easy on myself. I teach water aerobics 2 hours per week and then I will add in 1 other hour of exercise. Not only will I have a set goal working out 3 hours per week, which will help my fitness, I will also be helping out others in need - I love it.  Here is the link for those interested: www.princetonclub.net/mpc/.

Christmas Day

WOW - we wait for months upon months for this day to come and then it is gone in the blink of an eye. Angela had to go and wake up Connor so that they could come downstairs and see what Santa had brought them. Angela received a guitar, Connor got a duck hunter toy and Emeric got an inchworm toy. They were all very happy. We had a good time opening stockings and playing with the big Santa gifts. After that we enjoyed a yummy breakfast casserole and some fruit. The kids really wanted to open presents, but mean mom said we had to clean up breakfast and get dressed first. We did a really good job cluttering up the living room with all sorts of wrapping paper. We all got some wonderful gifts. It was really funny to hear Brian say before he opened a present, "I hope they are socks" and sure enough they were. Angela was opening hers so fast that I had to keep reminding her to read the gift tags. Connor didn't quite get that he needed to open them all and he just wanted to play with the toy that was right in front of him. And Emeric, well he will be into it a lot more next year. We really missed everyone that was not here with us. I made some good use out of my Christmas Card Tree to remind us off all the family and friends that were far away. We spent the afternoon playing with all of our fun new things, the highlight of my day was setting up the starting of my (Willow Tree) Nativity Set. We also got to have some fun playing on my brother's Wii. This year we opted out of a traditional turkey/ham dinner and enjoyed seafood alfredo instead. It was a very yummy treat full of fish, crab, shrimp and scallops. By time we all fell into bed that night we were very exhausted, but we did have a wonderful Christmas.

Christmas Eve

In years previous Christmas Eve has been a whorl wind day and before you know it, it is evening time and we're having dinner and opening our Christmas Eve presents. This year was not going to be that way. What should we do to pass the time, go to the Wisconsin Dells and visit a water park. We spent a little over five hours playing a having a lot of fun. Here are a few pictures of our day.

Once we got home, the evening did turn into the normal whorl wind. We had dinner, showered up the kids and opened a few presents. Here are the kids in their very nice, very fun Christmas jammies.

We can't wait until tomorrow morning!

Santa

Culver's (one of the local fast food restaurants) sponsored "Breakfast with Santa" last weekend. With a donation of food for the food bank we got to enjoy a breakfast of hash browns, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes and milk or juice. It was a very yummy spread. The fun of the morning was not breakfast but Santa. We went to get the kids' photo with him and Connor made sure to tell him that it was Jesus' Birthday. Santa took a pause and then said, "You're right that is the reason for the season." As Brian puts it, nothing like a three year-old putting you in your place, but Santa was really good about it. This came on the tail of something similar earlier in the week. Since we have lived here the kids have gotten used to birthday boxes with presents. We got two boxes one day and when Angela got home from school Connor told her, "Birthday birthday" while pointing at them. She said, "No, it's not your birthday." To which he responded, "NO! Jesus' Birthday." Now don't get me wrong, he is not a complete saint. He has opened our Tree of Sharing gifts three time now and that is why there are no presents under our tree yet.

First Ever Swap FUN!

I recently participated in my first ever swap. It was a lot of fun. I got to get to know a woman from Louisiana and send her a fun little Christmas present. She in turn learned that I love snowmen and she sent me a wonderful package. The show piece of the package was a hand-made snowman ornament. The best part of swapping is getting something in the mail. I absolutely love "mail time". It is so much fun to see what the mail lady will bring me. It's kind of like in the play the Music Man, "O-ho the Wells Fargo Wagon is a-comin' down the street, Oh please let it be for me! O-ho the Wells Fargo Wagon is a-comin' down the street, I wish, I wish I knew what it could be!" Except I sing "O-ho the mail lady is a-comin' down the street....." So on Saturday when Angela went to get the mail she said, "There's a package here. Mom, were you expecting something?" Yes, Yes, Yes! So here is a picture of my goodies. Thanks Val from LA!

Christmas Cards

Okay, I am a little behind for my preference, but I finally got all the Christmas cards sealed and stamped this morning. They will be heading out into the mail this afternoon. I put the photos in at about 5:30 AM, so if you normally receive a photo from us and it's not in there, please forgive me.

I recently participated in a swap, which was a lot of fun. You sign up online through people's personal blogs. Then you get assigned a partner and you swap an item(s) that are with in the swaps criteria. Very fun like I said. I sent my box off to Louisiana and it got me thinking, where do I send all my mail. This is where all my Christmas cards went: Washington, Idaho, Wisconsin, Arizona, Utah, Virginia, Ohio, Minnesota, New York and Japan.

Where did your cards go to?

Emeric at 2 Months

I know they say as a parent you should not compare your children as they are each their own person. But, this past Monday I couldn't help it. Emeric had his 2 month appointment and all is well with him. Once they weighed and measured him I thought, "your dad is right, you are a chunk." He was 12 pounds 8 ounces and 23 1/2 inches long. This is where I started comparing. I wanted to see where he was in comparison to Connor. He didn't come close to those numbers until 4 months (12 pounds 6 ounces and 25.8 inches). It will be interesting to see how they both keep growing.

November - Photos of Kids

Here is the next installment of the monthly photos of kids.

Angela:

Showing off on the bar at her school's playground.

A very common photo for Angela, her reading a book.Enjoying a little time at the pool.Connor:

Clowning around in the bathtub.

He wanted to hold Emeric and get a picture taken.1-2-3 JUMP!Emeric:

Cool Dude getting ready to go pick up Angela from school (they did not last very long).

In his handsome Thanksgiving outfit.

Just before he fell asleep.

Thanksgiving Week

Brian's work shuts down for the week of Thanksgiving. Last year that was a big bummer as the kids and I were in WA during that time. This year it wasn't too bad as we got to spend a lot of family time together. He and I each came up with a list of things we wanted to get accomplished and it was a real blessing to see things getting crossed off the list. One really fun thing for Brian was to be able to walk Angela to and from school.

We had a really enjoyable Thanksgiving. I was not very excited for Thanksgiving to come as I knew I would really be missing the family/friends back home. But to my surprise it was a really great day. We celebrated with two other families that do not have any extended family in the area. There were the six adults plus six kids ranging from age 8 to 7 weeks. We spent about eight hours there and had our fill of a yummy dinner and lots of pie. I definitely couldn't have planned a better day.

My big project for the week was painting the accents in the kitchen. The previous owner must have painted all the other rooms first and then decided she did not want to take the time to paint accents as the whole room was one color. Now it looks much prettier and it matches everywhere else.

We finished off his week of by spending the afternoon at the pool yesterday. It was Emeric's first time in the pool. He really seemed to enjoy it. I have a sling that is made to wear in the water. He was snuggled in so nicely that the movement of the water put him to sleep. Angela is really getting good at swimming and she loves jumping off the diving board. Connor also loves the water and it won't be long until he is swimming by himself. (see next posting for some pool pictures)

Today was a difficult day for everyone as Brian had to go back to work. After having ten days off going back seems like such a chore and we all really miss him.

http://grosgrainfabulous.blogspot.com/2009/11/handmade-dress-patterns-guest-giveaway.html

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Angela is always talking about wanting to have fun, cute dresses to wear. I never liked spending all the money for a dress that was less than perfect in her eyes. This would be so much fun to pick out material with her and help design her the "perfect" dress(es)!

Connor Turns 3

What an amazing weekend to turn three! Saturday our high was 73 degrees F and today's high was 71 degrees F. Not bad for early November!
Connor's third birthday got off to a late start; we all slept in. I think it was 7:30 or 8:00 when Connor got up. He enjoyed a pancake breakfast with strawberries and whipped cream.

Brian and I bought him a bike and he spent quite a bit of time running around and playing out side, with and without the bike. He does not quite have the pedaling concept down, but he is getting pretty good at steering.

After a quick lunch we went to Cold Stone Creamery where he got to have a special birthday ice cream creation (mint ice cream with Reese’s peanut butter cups) all to himself. Then we went to a local park for a nature walk through the wood and an hour swinging on the swings and playing on the playground. Connor loves to be outside, so this made for a very fun day for him. When we got home we made a pizza that was covered with pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms and olives - YUM! He ate through it as fast as he could so that he could get to his birthday cake.

This year's cake is a dump truck. He was picking between a bulldozer, a backhoe and this dump truck. He enjoyed eating the pieces off of it, but did not really have time for the actual cake as there were presents to open.

He received three boxes in the mail from the different grandparents. Each time Brian helped him open one Brian would tell him who it was from. Then Connor would turn his face towards the window and yell, "Thank you....." (.... meaning whomever it was from). It was super cute.

He received some wonderful gifts including a football, some matchbox cars, two large tractors, a snow hat and gloves, a dump truck and a front loader, two puzzles, some clothes, the old cartoon Transformers movie and two Autobot Transformers (Optimus Prime and Bumblebee).

By the end of all of that it was really hard to calm him down and wrestle him into bed, but we got it done. He really had a good time Sunday playing with all of his new toys.

Happy Halloween

Halloween was touch and go this year. Angela started running a fever yesterday and we were uncertain if it would come down enough for her to go outdoors. Fortunately for her it did. She was a ghost and she told me she wanted her hair white and her face painted white with black eyes. As soon as we put it all on she decided she did not like it at all. We told her she looked great!

Connor loved being a leopard. He kept telling everyone we passed that he was a leopard. He also had a very good roar.

They both did really good walking around although it did take them some time to warm up to it. Angela seemed to not remember how you trick-or-treated and we had to keep reminding her that she needed to say "Trick-or-Treat". Once Connor realized that you got candy at each house he would say "Thank you" and as soon as he got to the sidewalk he would run to the next house saying, "This one, this one." Emeric was a cute banana, but he stayed all bundled in the stroller and slept the whole time.

A Ghost, A Leopard and A Banana - Oh My!