Christmas in Pictures (Final Installment)

*Opening with Grandpa and Grandma Clement

*Princess Flashlight
*Flashlight that you had crank- pretty neat!
*Box o jewlery
*Pawpaw and the boys
*Sumo wrestlers- actually really fun!
*Army men, for my future army man
*Tutorial
*Grandma and her grandkids
*Case for the DS- the boys loved them!!

Christmas in Pictures (Part 2- out of wack)

*Opening the tiny pieces for her castle
*Caleb helped Zeiva open her gift from Santa (He was a little worried that she didn't get very much, but we convinced him that her bed and tug were also part of her Christmas!
*Craziness
*New princess dolls
*Caleb's new DS game
*Books, Books and more books
*The one thing that he wanted from Santa- a DS
*and a game to go with it!
*While watching one of Daddy's new movies, Riley apparently got a little cold (might have helped if she actually wore warm clothing, but no- we had to dress like a princess :)
*Testing the new game out- he had it beat by the end of the day!
*Doesn't Zeiva look SO happy that Riley is sharing her new princess crown?? :)
*Zeiva prefers to have her toys on her bed at all times- and loves to play with them!
*Christmas PJ's that they opened Christmas Eve
*Princess Riley (yes, it is spaghetti straps in 30 degree weather!)
*Daddy helping Riley put her new Castle together- she was SUPER excited and loves it!

Christmas in Pictures (Part one)

*Yummy Gingerbread men- decorated by my 3 elves
*Hard at work
*Look at that technique
*Opening presents with Grandma and Papa Anderson
*My 3 precious elves
*Having fun!
*Admiring the final result
*Grandma and Papa checking out all the goodies in their basket

*Ian with Papa- checking out his Christmas PJ's

From Our Family to Yours:


Merry CHRISTmas!!

We are all alone!

I won't be seeing my children much this Christmas! Right now they are at my parents and will come home Christmas Eve when we celebrate with my family, then will head to my in-laws after we celebrate with them on Christmas Day evening. We won't see them till New Years weekend. I am m issing them, but at the same time I plan on getting a bunch done. I have tons of stuff to sort and clear out before heading back to work. I only have 7 weeks now till the baby comes (yes- he is still the baby as we have no name!).
I am slightly annoyed at my internal alarm clock. I can sleep in, and I mean really sleep in as there are no kids. What time do I wake up this morning???? 4 stinkin 30!! What time I normally wake up. I tried to force myself to go back to bed which resulted in tossing and turning for another 2 hours. Sigh....oh well, baking has started and I have huge plans for today. We will see how it all turns out. :)

Start of my favorite Season

My favorite season has arrived! Christmas is my favorite Holiday and Winter has to be my favorite season. The cold weather, the ice/snow (if it comes this way) the time spent with family, near and far. I love seeing the joy on my children's faces as Christmas eve rolls around. I love seeing all the decorations and having a fire going. I love spending the evenings watching Christmas movies (no matter how cheesy). I love telling the Christmas story and talking about why we celebrate this time of year. I also enjoy telling people Merry Christmas. We pulled out the decorations a few weekends ago and had a blast getting it all up. Since we were out of town for Thanksgiving we were not able to decorate that weekend, but we did a little each night till we got it done. I decorated the top of the tree with our breakables and sentimental ornaments and then each kid got a pile to put on the bottom of the tree. they had so much fun and so did I.
We have one week till we get out for Christmas and we are SUPER excited. The kids will be visiting both sets of grandparents over the break, so I will have a ton of time to get everything somewhat ready for the baby. I can also get all the cleaning done that I have been waiting to do. And I get to spend some one on one time with my hubs and I am so grateful for that.

My oldest is 7!

My first born child turned 7 this year! I am amazed at how quickly this time has flown by- I still remember the day we brought him home from the hospital in such vivid memories. It is so hard to think that I have a 7 year old! We celebrated Caleb by having a Star Wars Party. We had a bunch of games planned that we did and the kids had a huge blast. As the padawans entered training facility, they were given the traditional robe and sash, along with their light saber. They then went trough agility training (walking through the lava while destroying the thermal detonators that were coming at them), force training (hitting a droid with the bomb) and light saber training (learning to balance the skills of the light saber). The kids had fun and Caleb loved his cake of dueling light sabers. He is an amazing young man who is such a joy!

A Princess Tea Party

This year Riley decided to have a Princess Party. We invited all the little girls from school and we had different stations set up around the house. We had a nail painting station, a crown station and then they were up in the bedrooms playing dress up. All the young ladies were dressed in their princess finest and had a blast! We had cupcakes along with finger foods that you might expect for princesses to eat (come on- pigs in a blanket fit the bill!) I think all the presents she got were either fairy or princess related. :) She was in heaven. It is insane to me that our little princess is 4. She is growing so fast and it seems to be flying by! We are so blessed to have Riley in our family- it wouldn't be complete with out her. And I know that in the years to come, she will be treasured by all of us as the only little girl in the family.

Fall...a tad late :)

Way back in the fall, the kids were helping us rake the leaves in the back. It truly was a futile effort as this was the first leaf drop of the season. I had gone inside for a little bit and the next thing I know Caleb is running in telling to get my camera. I come out and my 3 lovelys were in the leaves posing for me to take the pictures. After I snapped a few we got down and played in the leaves. They so love to do that!