Happy New Year 2011

We went over to the Wilkerson's home for a small get together to ring in the New Year. They had a theme with a dress request. VEGAS! Geoff and I went as High Rollers...Frugal High Rollers actually!

Every party need a cake, wouldn't you say a dice cake is fitting for a vegas bash! 

 Learning how to play craps

 Midnight - Happy 2011

Of course there must be some dancing!

Pink Pig Again

I mentioned it is a family tradition to ride the Pink Pig we share that tradition with another family, The Judds. Most years we ride together and this year we were able to again!

I just love Ruthie and Camille in their Tutus!

Camille was super excited

Aiden's Eats a specality food shop

Aiden created his own food store from some of Camille's Christmas presents. He sells the most delicious treats you could imagine! He made a menu with prices, got his money safe and brought down his real money to play with. The service was slow with only one chef and 3 patrons but the drinks and desserts were scrumptious. We practiced our addition, subtraction and counting change.

Text photo to Dad

With Christmas and birthdays so close we had a house full of family one weekend then Baba and Gary stayed for a week until Christmas. Now, Christmas is over, our house is empty of guests AND daddy went back to work. They missed him so we decided to send him a message that said "We love and miss You!"

Then of course we had to be a bit silly.

White Chirstmas

Christmas day it began to snow, what a great gift it was!

 I'm not sure how Geoff and Aiden managed to make this huge snowman with such little snow.

Baba, Grandpa Gary and the littles

The Beginning of a blog in the middle

When I started this blog it was inspired by our white Christmas. There were just too many things I didn't want to forget, and since I've fallen behind, very behind on photo albums. I decided to start at the beginning of December then move forward. Our December is such a busy month that I feel like we do six months worth of activities in four weeks. Plus I wanted to document the boys birthdays. So here I am back to where I started with a beautiful White Christmas. Which is ironic because we are on day #5 of school being canceled due to snow (Jan 14th).

Happy Birthday Jesus

Each year we Celebrate the most special birthday - Jesus'! This year we made a small cake.

 

Then we had a little party and sang Happy Birthday!

 They really enjoyed blowing out the candle. We must have re-lit it 5 times!

Merry Christmas

Aiden came bounding into our room Christmas morning saying Santa had barricaded all 3 entrances so he wasn't able to peek before waking us up. We are on our way down to check it out.

 

The littles getting ready to bust through

And there is the entrance

Gavin getting excited about his McQueen set

Camille is trying out her culinary skills

Anyone ready for a nap?

Dinner time

It sure is nice to not feel the need to get dressed for dinner, we are all still in our PJ's

Aiden wrote out our place cards

Here are my Christmas cuties

and my Christmas Crazies

Ah the personalities shining right through

Christmas Eve cookies, milk and reindeer food

We made a nice plate of cookies and milk for Santa, Gavin was just admiring the assortment.

Aiden wrote him a letter and included verses from Luke, after all that is the real reason for celebration!

We then went outside to put out our reindeer food.

Watching Polar Express and drinking Hot Cocoa

It was so enjoyable to not have an agenda, just to sit back snuggle up with the littles, sip on hot cocoa and watch a movie.

It must have been an intense part of Polar Express.

Gingerbread Village

Baba (my mom) brought a Gingerbread village for us to make, everyone made a building. We had 2 houses, a general store, a restaurant and a church. I was surprised how much Camille got into making her store.

Christmas Eve Morning Breakfast

Another tradition we started a few years ago, was going to eat breakfast at the Waffle House on Christmas eve morning. It is a must to go while we are still in our jammies!

The first time we went Santa on a Harley was there, each year my littles hope they will see him again. This year he left a note behind before he had to leave and get on with his busy day. Maybe next year...

Kisses of happiness. Check out that picturesque tree lot through the window behind them.

Santa Helpers - The Eve of Christmas Eve

The elves visit our house during December so we thought it would be fun to spread the cheer and surprise others like the elves surprise us. Off to the dollar store we went again and each of my three littles picked out two gifts for another child. We wrapped the gifts up and put on bows and tags.

While tagging some of the gifts and I wrote from Santa's helpers, Aiden would have nothing to do with that he said it was a lie because Santa didn't ask us to help out. I obliged and we said from a new friend, though Aiden did agree it would probably make Santa happy. A few days later we went out to dinner at the Olive Garden and brought along our goodies. 

Gavin brought along a video camera he had gotten as a birthday present.

Our server helped us with our secret mission, the boys decided who would receive the gifts then we described them to our server who delivered them for us. The first one delivered was a gum ball machine and gumballs. The table was in plain view for us and the joy on Aiden's face from giving a secret gift was wonderful!!

Guess who stopped in...Santa!

Santa called Aiden over and whispered something to him, when we got back to the table Aiden told us Santa thanked him for helping him bring joy to other boys and girls! I think we will do this again next year, it was so much fun for all.