Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

The kids LOVE decorating gingerbread houses.  I think they really just love eating the extra candy! :) 

 Santa sent a note with Tricky, our elf, to let the kids know that the one day of the whole year they could touch their elf was Christmas Eve.  They enjoyed every minute of that day and I think Emerson got up earlier on Christmas Eve than she did Christmas Day!  She even got a little teary eyed when we had to say goodbye to Tricky for the year.  He has become a fun part of our Christmas tradition!

Cookies and milk for Santa.
Emerson made something in Kindergarten and was told to give it to someone special, so Tricky got an ornament with her hand print on it!

 When we went to Bass Pro Shops, Emerson asked Santa for an American Girl Doll, which we thought was strange since she hadn't said much about wanting one lately.  Come to find out, she had "accidentally" made a hole in her present and saw the doll's face before Christmas morning.  Sneaky girl! :)  She loves her doll, which is the Target version, and takes her everywhere!

 Landon got a Wubble Bubble ball from Santa.  You can blow it up to be 3 ft.  We got him a 2 wheel scooter, which he got to ride because it's been pretty warm this week.

 Emerson got a matching girl/doll outfit and the "Frozen" soundtrack from Santa.

 We went over to the Hahn's for Christmas dinner.  We opened gifts and had yummy beef stroganoff.  Then we got to go back on Saturday for Christmas brunch.  The kiddos went in their Christmas pjs.

Family time is the best!  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Friend Christmas, Christmas Sunday, Bass Pro Shops

We had our annual Friend Christmas with the Davis' and Frye's.  Unfortunately, Landon had a fever that day so he and Matt had to stay home.  We decorated cookies for Santa, ate at Hacienda, and went to look at lights in Warsaw.  We all had such a nice time together.

 Christmas Sunday:

 We still wanted to take the kids to see Santa (2 days before Christmas) and since Matt and I both have 2 weeks off for Christmas Break, we decided to drive to Bass Pro Shops (about 1 1/2 hours away) to see Santa's Wonderland and do some last minute shopping.  We had such a nice time together and are so blessed to be able to spend time having fun together!

 We have been working with Landon to get him to look at the camera.  So here's the picture of him with Santa. :)

2 Little Angels and 1 Shepherd

This year at church, the kids were in the program called "The Fear Not Factor".  It was about a group of angels who were going to bring the good news of Jesus' birth.  Emerson and Landon had a good time learning the songs and dances and Landon actually kept his halo on this year!

                                      

Landon by his buddy, Sebastian

Emerson and Tessa

Landon also got to be a shepherd for the second half of the play.

Sometimes these are the nice family pictures you get! ;)

They really were happy to perform and tell others about the good news of Jesus!

We are so proud of them and all of their hard work!

Christmas Tree and Matt's Birthday

We went to Eby Pines again this year to pick out a tree.  We wanted to go the weekend after Thanksgiving so we could have our tree up for awhile.  So we went out right away on Saturday morning.  The good news is they had a great selection available, bad news is that Santa wasn't there yet and the horse drawn carriage wasn't either.  But we still had a great time and found a really nice tree.

This is the one!

The next day, we got the tree decorated.  Emerson and Landon both helped, although Landon got distracted by the football games on tv!

Landon liked putting the ornaments REALLY close together!

We had the tree up for a few days when one night while we were watching tv, it fell over onto the piano!  It scared us, dented the piano, and broke our ornament from our honeymoon. :(  Thankfully no one was hurt and I hope we have it in securely now.  It looks like the trunk is a bit crooked!

Then, later that week was Matt's 37th birthday!  The kids made him cards, we got him some new clothes and took him out to dinner.  We are so blessed to have such a great male role model as the leader of our family!

November Happenings

Yes, I know it's been awhile.  I've had some issues with my laptop (which has all my pictures on it) so I haven't had a chance to keep up.  I'll try to do a brief recap of November and then more individual posts about December since there's so much going on. :)

The Davis' got a chance to go see a Christmas movie so they needed a babysitter for Graham and Easton.  Emerson was overjoyed to see these two.  She wanted very badly to read them a bed time story....they weren't too interested! :)  But we had a great time watching them.

 Mid-November, Emerson was signed up to do a one day Cheer Camp with the NW Cheerleaders.  She learned a short cheer to Katy Perry's song "Roar" and she got to cheer at halftime of one of the JV basketball games.  She loved it!

This year, Jess, Jessica, and I took a Friday off work to go Christmas shopping together.  We also went to see Mocking Jay Part 1 (the third movie in the Hunger Games series) and went out for supper at Bar Louie's.  It was a great day and I think we'll have to make it a yearly tradition!

Melanie hosted a painting party for Mothers and children.  I knew Emerson would love it since she loves all things crafty.  We had a ball together!

 We split Thanksgiving this year (which we don't normally do) because neither side is having a big Christmas this year with extended family.  It was nice to see everybody, even if it was for a short time.
The day after Thanksgiving, we celebrated our first Christmas.  Mom, Dad, Steven, and Kristina are going to be in Australia and New Zealand over Christmas so this was the best time for us to get together.  We did have snow, so that helped it seem a little like Christmas! :)  We had Cook's pizza, opened gifts, and played Battle of the Sexes.

Halloween 2014

The kids had a blast this year for Halloween, as always!  What kid doesn't like to collect as much candy as possible?  Landon wanted to be Captain America and Emerson decided she wanted to be Black Widow (from the Avengers).  I was almost positive she would choose to be Elsa from Frozen. :)

Gotta have an action shot of our 2 superheroes!

Surprise Chicago Trip

"Pack your bags, we're going to Chicago!"  My birthday weekend, Matt and the kids surprised me with a trip to Chicago.  He had Fall Break that weekend and had come to eat lunch with the kiddos (and bring me flowers) :) and told the kids to keep it a secret.  Amazingly, neither child ruined the surprise!

 We went to Fashion Outlets of Chicago and did some shopping.  This is a new outlet mall with some really nice (but still expensive to cheap, old me) stores.  The kids were super impressed with the parking garage that had red, green, and blue lights above each space to tell which spots were available, taken, or handicapped.  The kids enjoyed the Disney Factory store and Matt and I got a few new clothes.

 Landon (who is the world's slowest eater) actually almost finished a piece of pizza bigger than his head!

 After shopping, we checked into our hotel and then went to Toby Keith's I Love This Bar & Grill..  It was a really neat restaurant with yummy food and live music.

Some guy was carving these HUGE pumpkins and Landon wanted a picture!

Emerson forgot to pack her pajamas so she slept in Daddy's t-shirt.

 The next morning, we got up and ate a FANTASTIC breakfast at the hotel.  It was $20 extra, but well worth it for 4 of us to eat.  And, of course, we had to check out the huge indoor/outdoor pool.  It had a glass roof where you could see the airplanes from O'Hare airport take off.  You could also swim underneath a rubber bar and go outside into the heated outdoor part.  I never would've thought we'd be swimming outside in Chicago in October!

 On the way home we HAD to stop by Cabela's. :)  The kids and Matt love that store.  We also saw Mrs. Jones (our art teacher) there.  It's always weird to see people you know hours away from your home. :)

 

 We had an awesome weekend together.  Matt was so thoughtful to plan out a surprise weekend for us.  We can't wait to go back!