Merry Christmas!

We had a great Christmas, enjoying wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas Day worship services as well as time together as a family.  We upheld all of our traditions: worship on Christmas Eve followed by setting out cookies for Santa and saying good-bye to Joe, our Elf on the Shelf; early Christmas morning checking out our stockings from Santa and then heading over to church for worship; hors d'oeuvre lunch and then opening all of the presents; naps all around and finally, steaks for supper! 

Noah received 6 different Lego sets with over 3400 pieces and he somehow managed to put them all together in less than 24 hours!  Despite the building frenzy, he did find time to eat and sleep some in that 24 hours as well.  :)  To his credit, he hasn't mentioned the "b" word yet!  ("bored")  School is still a few days away though! 

Josiah loved opening presents, though he was very upset that we didn't stop to play with every toy once it was opened.  He didn't want to move on to the next gift - he wanted to PLAY with the one he had opened.  By the time everything was open, he had figured it out and wanted to help Michael & I open our gifts.

It was a good Christmas for Michael & I as well - Michael got a Carhartt coat & overalls AND a racing weekend to see the NASCAR race of his choice in 2012.  I finally got my porch swing and hope that with the "warm" winter weather we're having, Michael will soon put it together!  :)  We got lots of other nice gifts as well - as I said, we had a GREAT Christmas. 

Our best gift?  The gift of our Savior, who came to this sinful world as a baby in a manger, lived the perfect life that we cannot, died on the cross for all sin and rose again on the third day, just as he promised!  Praise God for blessing us with the gift we need: salvation!

Lots of fun pictures this week, so enjoy!

Christmas 2011

Oh what a week!

The craziness continues in our house as we finished off a very busy birthday week and moved into this last week before Christmas. Noah had his last 3 performances and I was lucky enough to attend all of them!  Touring Company does such a great job and it was fun watching Noah do all of his various parts - he was a bad-joke-telling-elf,

the captain of the wooden toy soldiers,

sang a part in the Silent Night quartet,

danced,

and of course, was part of the whole choir.

Josiah was happy to watch "Wowah" perform - he saw 4 of the 9 performances this December!

This week there are also lots of pictures of Josiah opening his birthday presents, playing with them and also, I remembered the camera for his little cupcake party at daycare on Thursday!  :)

Other activities we did this week included another trip to the library for "Jingle Bell Babies" that Josiah really enjoyed, frosting cookies (or in Josiah's case, licking the frosting knives...) and Noah has had lots of parties and fun activities at school.  Today they are all wearing their pj's and spending part of the day reading for a winter read-a-thon.  :) 

Tomorrow, Christmas break begins, as does the count-down for Michael and I until school starts back up again! ;)  Just kidding, of course!  (13 days until Jan. 3rd...)

And just a random picture that requires a story... Michael and I spent many many many years of our lives wearing glasses and wishing we didn't.  Spent a great deal of money to "fix" our eyes, in fact.  So I find it quite hilarious that Noah has popped the lenses out of a pair of 3-D glasses and wears them all the time... so much so, that Josiah wants to wear them too!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!  We wish you our Savior's love, peace and joy!

dec 11

Josiah is TWO!

I can honestly say that I can't believe today is Josiah's 2nd birthday. As the boys and I celebrated at Chuck E. Cheese's last night, I actually got a little teary-eyed as I realized that babyhood is long behind us.  Josiah is such a joy and blessing in our family and I truly thank God for him. There is a saying that most stay-at-home-moms can relate to: "The days are long but the years are short." These last few months, the days haven't even felt long - everything seems to be going by so quickly, it's hard to enjoy all the fun we're having! 

Due to meetings, worship services, performances and all of the other "stuff" we call life around here, Josiah's birthday is going to be spread out over a few days.  As I mentioned, the boys & I went to Chuck E. Cheese's last night, Josiah brought treats to his gym class this morning, we had cupcakes with lunch and hopefully sometime today we'll be able to squeeze in presents, otherwise, I guess there's always tomorrow.  Tomorrow he'll share more treats with the kids at the "daycare" he goes to on Thursdays while I'm at school and hopefully they'll let me take pictures! :)  Josiah has several little friends now, but none really close enough to invite to a party... as you can see, we're making gym & daycare his party this year.  lol!  Unfortunately, I forgot to bring the camera to gym today but Josiah was so sweet - I gave him the little goody boxes and he passed them out to each of the little girls in his class.  Such a bummer that I forgot my camera.  :(  That will be the story throughout Josiah's scrapbook, I think.  "We did x,y & z but Mom forgot to bring the camera..."

Enjoy the pictures I DID take!  :)

12-14-11

the flu hit

This has been a week of flu and lots of laundry.  Noah started us off at about 2:30am Thursday morning.  He not only missed school but also missed the first performance of the Touring Company's Christmas show.  He was extremely disappointed, especially since he has a speaking part, several dance "solos" and is part of a quartet.  Fortunately, by Friday morning he was feeling better and another day off school helped him to recover in full.  Saturday he was able to perform in the 2nd performance and did a great job.  There were LOTS of kids missing and Noah ended up adding another solo to his already busy list in the show due to another student being out with the flu.  Hopefully all the kids get it out of their system this week, as there are still SEVEN performances to go!  I did try to record the show on Saturday but someone sat right in front of me just as the show was starting and of course, Noah was at the microphone where the lady's head was.  :(  Good thing we do have several more performances to go to!  :)

Michael and I thought the rest of us had managed to avoid the flu but no luck.  Monday, Josiah spent the day randomly vomiting.  This did not slow him down however - he kept eating normally (unfortunately?) and playing.  I'm sure the fact that he was running in circles with Noah did not help!  Tuesday, I woke up early and knew it was my turn.  Fortunately, I had a very mild version and basically just laid on the couch all day, with the exception of a half hour at the library for a story time with Josiah.  Late last night, Michael completed the cycle. 

Despite the yuckies at our house, Josiah did have a fun week.  I introduced him to Play-Doh, which he seems to like and as I mentioned, took him to his first story time at the library.  He really liked that and didn't want to leave when it was over.  All my pictures for this week are of Josiah!

12-7-11