WE GOT A Wii!!!

Sometimes in life you just have to give in. I don't do it often. In fact, I HATE giving in. However, this one time, I felt that with the happiness of four people on the line, I best suck it up and give in. I will add that it did take some time for me to actually do it. :)

After lots of justifying and coaxing, I agreed that we would give the kids a Wii for Christmas this year. In anticipation of the Christmas madness, we purchased ours in August. I have to say that it took great control on Allan's part to not open it and at least "try it out". He did refrain and we wrapped it early and placed it neatly under the tree for Christmas morning. On Christmas Eve, we let the kids open one gift from relatives far away. While the kids were playing with their new toys, Allan and I were enjoying some munchies in the kitchen. All of the sudden, we heard a shriek come from the family room. It was a sound we've never heard before and one that told us we had better investigate - fast! Emma and Will were so excited they could barely verbalize what had happened. It soon became clear to us what did just happen. Jack thought it was time to open ALL of the presents under the tree and it just so happened that the next gift that he chose was the Wii. The damage being done, we let him finish his job of opening and we spent the rest of the night setting everything up for the next morning.

The above pictures were taken shortly after it had sunk in that we actually had given them a Wii for Christmas. They were clearly stunned, excited, thrilled.......like I said, sometimes giving in is just the right thing to do.

Christmas 2007

Can you tell she loves her little brother?
Our three little angels (ha!)

Sprinkling reindeer food on the lawn Christmas Eve

This year, we had a very quiet, but extremely fun Christmas. We certainly missed seeing all of our extended family, but to be quite honest, this had to be one of the best Christmases ever. Nothing can compare to the joy and excitement on your own child's face during the Christmas season. There was an added dimension of energy in our house that started on December 1 when we pulled the Advent calendars out! And it really didn't stop until they went back to school in January.

In preparation of Christmas, we decorated the house, we baked 8 different kinds of cookies and candies, we welcomed "Jimmy" the Christmas elf into our home, thanks to the Tyrrell family, Will made bird houses for all of the neighbors, we visited "Bethlehem" where we learned all about life there at the time that Jesus was born, we went to a Moravian Love Feast at Emma's school where she sang lots of beautiful songs, Will sang in the church choir on Christmas Eve, we shopped, we wrapped and ended it all with a huge celebration on Christmas morning.

Quite simply, nothing can compare to the innocence, belief, joy and excitement that children bring to Christmas.

A chef in the making
Jack on his new mode of transportation
Gotta love ELECTRONIC Battleship!
The bird houses that Will made (with Dad's help)

Finding the Perfect Tree

Emma standing where our tree once stood
Mom and Jack pretend to be the tree

Jack wants the Charlie Brown tree

In keeping with tradition, we headed to the mountains of NC to find our perfect Christmas tree. The only weekend available for doing this was the first weekend of December. Luckily, it was a gorgeous sunny day and we didn't have to bundle up.

This year, we decided to go with a smaller tree as it just wasn't fun having to chisel away at the trunk until it was finally small enough to fit in the tree stand. We were also hoping to keep the tree stand intact this year. Water leaking on a hardwood floor is never pretty!

The smaller trees required just a wagon ride up the mountain where we found LOTS of beautiful trees to choose from. Everyone had their own idea of the perfect tree, but in the end, it was Emma's that won out. This did not please Will and resulted in some rather ugly pictures which we won't post.

Someone came and cut down the tree for us and carried it down to the bottom of the mountain. While waiting for the tree, we sipped hot chocolate, watched part of a Christmas movie and rode horses. All in all, it was a great day and a great tradition!

Here we are with our perfect, decorated tree!

More Fun

Chocolate helps make our little girl a little redneck!
Nothing better than Monster cookies!
The spy gang
If you look closely, you will find Baby Boppy (a small piece of his blanket) in his hand and ballet slippers on his feet
All cool spies carry a finger light!

Seems to be the trend these days that I find everything in the world to do but update this blog. It isn't that I don't want to do it, but rather that I just find other fun things to do instead! To prove it, I just had to post a few photos of the kids playing dress up and pretending. After loading them up on some homemade Monster cookies, they always find lots of goofy things to do. The pictures above are dressing up and playing spy. Some other big hits lately have been attacking an unsuspecting family member with multiple varations of Nerf bullets, building a new version of Thomas' train track, Barbies, sliding down the steps in a sleeping bag, riding their new bikes (Will has FINALLY decided that riding a bike is fun since he learned to make skid marks on the driveway!), playing Wii games and reading Goosebumps books.

That being said, I am guessing that anyone reading this could figure out why I haven't been sitting in front of the computer as much! :) I will, however, try to catch up on the blogging while both Jack and I are under the weather.

Kids are Fun!

Since I am obscenely behind on posting, I thought I would do a generic blog on the kids. The pictures below were all taken during November and pretty much highlight some of the fun that we had. Basically, with three kids, there is never a dull moment in our house and there is always fun to be had. Most of the time, I am there to capture it all with the camera. I am beginning to think that I will need a computer solely designated to our pictures and videos! There are just so many! That's a good thing though.

So, back to our fun. We did a lot of goofing around (as always) and spent some time "creating". We tore out the old bread machine and the kids were in amazement at how it worked. The finished products were devoured immediately. YUM-O! We also made pretzels which is always a huge hit in our home. The kids get to play with the dough as much as they want and then turn it into whatever their little hearts desire. The best part though is eating them! They are incredibly yummy and rival the ones at the mall. The recipe can be found at http://www.copykat.com/component/option,com_rapidrecipe/page,viewrecipe/Itemid,28/recipe_id,706/.

During our trip to Charleston, the kids left Bruno's house with giant pine cones. We decided to turn them into bird feeders and coated them with peanut butter and birdseed. Needless to say, the peanut butter ended up on more than just the pine cones! Our feathered friends thoroughly enjoyed them and they have been licked clean! We need to get busy and add more goodies to them soon.

Birthday #7

The first (and last) birthday cake I ever bought.
Will has a big role in the acts.
Happy Birthday to Will, cha cha cha!
Everyone donning their balloon hats from the magician
The birthday boy gets the biggest and the best hat!

Well, we bit the bullet. We went ahead and had a birthday party for the big guy. Not that we are against birthday parties! They are fun.....when they are at other friends' houses, when you can leave at any moment and when you don't have the stress of getting everything ready. Nonetheless, we felt it was time for Will to have a birthday party.
We opted to keep it simple. Invite a few of his best buddies from school and call it good. Anyone who knows Will, knows what a struggle that was to slim down the list of friends to the mere number of 10! Nonetheless, it was accomplished and the invitations (created by Mom) were sent out.
Although Will had a Harry Potter birthday cake for his second birthday, the child is still in love with him and begged to have a Harry Potter theme. I didn't fuss too much because it made my job of planning the fun very easy. Hire a magician! I have to say, IT WAS AWESOME! The guy was great and kept everyone laughing at all times. There was never a dull moment the entire hour that he was in our home.
All in all, the party was a huge success. My only complaints were the energy level and lack of manners. All I can say is, now I know why no one else does this at their home! I think I will leave it at that.
Will had a great 7th birthday party and we all had fun.