Movie Night

The boys got the movie Inside Out for Christmas. So we invited the Blatter's over for a movie night. We made popcorn, and I tried to get rid of lots of our Christmas candy. Ella was a big help. She came and sat in my lap for a while during the movie, and I let her eat all she wanted. :) The movie was really cute and we had a fun night visiting and playing.

Christmas Morning

Will woke up bright and early Christmas morning. Patrick and I painfully pulled ourselves from bed. We had only had about 3 hours of sleep. One of these days we are going to stop waiting till the last minute. We told Will he could look through his stocking and what Santa had brought, but that he had to wait for everyone else to wake up first. Jack woke up next followed by Sam. Love getting to witness a child's excitement. Mom and Brett came over and visited with us for a little while that afternoon. It was a nice, easy-going, beautiful Christmas day.

Sam's new ride

Snuggling on Cooper's new bed

 POKEMON!! This kid is obssessed. I would have never imagined we would get such a great reaction from this book. 

 Our little scientist loves all things STEM. Magnetic building blocks for him.

 After first unwrapping the box, he said, " A BOX!!" 

 He got even more excited when he realized there was a Transformer Rescue Bot in there. He took the rest of the day opening his presents. He was so excited with just this one. It was cute after he had opened it, he found the rescue bots he already owns and played with them. I heard him saying, "We're best friends." Adorable.

Outer Space Book

Electric Scooters

Sam finally finished opening his presents around 5:30. We would ask him if he wanted to open another one and he would say, no. His big brothers couldn't take not knowing what was in those presents anymore and finally convinced him to open them up.

Tornados? In December?

We have had some crazy warm weather this December, but tornado warnings a few days before Christmas is just ludicrous. We had some strong storm fronts that moved through tonight and we grabbed the kids out of their beds and shoved them in the closet. Remarkably they slept, but we did hear the occasional elbow, leg, or head hit the wall. Kinda cracked us up. And thankfully it just rained really hard and that was it.

Gingerbread Houses with Jack

One of my favorite Kindergarten traditions is making Gingerbread Houses. I was able to do this with Will when he was in kindergarten and was so happy that I'd be able to do it with Jack too. He had his own ideas of how to decorate it, and went along with a few of my suggestions. One of my favorite additions he made was to build a fire pit out of fruit loops just outside the house.

I love getting to spend one on one time with my boys, and it happens way less than what I'd like. He convinced me (shock shock) to check him out and let him come home early after we were done. Love this little firecracker.

Christmas Greetings

School Christmas Parties

Both of the boys had their school parties on the same day at almost the same time. Patrick came with me to see Jack sing and he stayed for the party while I drove to Will's school.  His class did a reader's theatre of the Gingerbread Man. Will was Narrator #2, and had a little party.

Jack did such a good job singing the songs, and watching his music teacher. I was so proud of him for being so brave. He had told me that morning that he was nervous, and didn't want to do it. I'm so happy he found his courage!

Will knew exactly when to stand and read his part. I was so proud of all the kids in his class. I could tell each of them had practiced their part. I loved seeing the confidence ooze from Will as he did his part. This was a great way to start off our Christmas break!

Christmas Morning

Will woke us up around the usual 6:30 a.m. time. He was very excited to go see if Santa had eaten the cookies and milk, and to see if he'd left anything for him. Santa doesn't wrap the presents he leaves at our house so Will was pretty excited and content to look through his stocking and play with the 2 toys that were left for him, and the two for Jack.

Jack hadn't been feeling that well so we just let him sleep while we got ready for church. Will exercised some pretty incredible patience for a 4 year old since we didn't want to open up the presents from us until Jack was awake. Jack finally woke up a little before 10 with a fever and pretty runny nose. Great. He was definitely not feeling the Christmas spirit even though Will was trying his hardest to get Jack excited about it finally being Christmas.

He cheered up a tad to open his presents, but soon relented to just being pouty and really hard to get along with despite all our efforts. He just felt pretty rotten most of the day, poor guy, but the rest of us enjoyed being together. Due to the fever, we weren't able to make it to church, so we spent the day working on puzzles, watching some Christmas movies, and just playing.

Will's been wanting one of these for a long time. He was so excited. It was so much fun to watch him unwrap this.

Jack's trusty steed, "Cracker Barrel."

Christmas Morning

Our morning started not so bright, but early enough. Thankfully, Will slept till 6:30 so that I could get some last minute laundry, gift wrapping, and organizing done before we needed to leave.

When Will awakened, we were greeted with a lovely green snotty nose and face. Just so festive that child... He humored us though, and we had fun watching him open his gifts and ours.

A favorite of Will's. Don't Worry. I made him brush his teeth first.

Opening Ceseley's Dog Train book/CD. He LOVES it almost as much as I do. It comes highly recommended by us (We dance around in the kitchen to the music every morning).Thanks, Ceseley!


Taking a quick reading break.

Taking a quick cuteness break