Christmas Morning 2009

Christmas Pj's

My sweet Momma sent us a box to be opened christmas eve that was filled with Christmas Pj's for the whole family. We thought it would be perfect to take a family picture in our pj's all ready for santa to come. It was a lot of work!! If you have seen my facebook post about this then you know ;) but we did finally get one good picture!!

Ready for church

Last Sunday morning Abby and I got up feeling sick, so I decided we would stay home and Daddy and the boys could go to church. What I didn't realize though, was that while I was busy making sure the boys were getting dressed for church Abby had decided that she would get herself ready. When Jason opened the door and told the boys to load up Abby thought she was going too. She was sooooo mad when she couldn't go and who could blame her after she had gotten dressed all by herself.

Later that evening she did get to go to church. Cold or not I wasn't going to miss the Christmas Pageant that the boys had been looking forward to all month. Gabriel did beautifully! I am not sure if Noah actually realized he was in a show while he was on the stage.he, haha, but he did pretty good considering. He stayed in his spot and he sang along to the parts he could remember. He absolutely loved singing "We wish you a Merry Christmas". I took video and it is posted in the web gallery if you would like to take a peak, just click on the link to the right of this page.

"Let's Go for a walk"

That is what I said to Jason when I saw the sun shining on Saturday morning. We gathered everything up... the dog, the leash, the jackets, the strollers, the boys, and the baby... and off we went. We got about a block from the house, past neighbors out with their kids and dogs, and realized it was REALLY COLD! Out of the line of houses the wind was blowing like crazy! Soooo... we all trooped back to the house and we tried again... the dog, the leash, the winter coats, hats, gloves, the stroller, the boys, and the baby... and off we went, AGAIN!! We felt a little silly walking past all our neighbors for the third time, but we had a great walk. When we got home we all warmed up with some Hot Cocoa!

Burp???

Getting in the Christmas Spirit

Last weekend we pulled out all our decorations and started spreading some Christmas cheer around this house. Jason had gone to the store one day and while he was gone I decided to put up our really dinky artificial tree. Trying to save money, but Jason knew I was really disappointed that we weren't going to get a real tree. So while I was putting up the artificial tree he was out being sneaky and buying us a real one. It was really funny because he walked in and saw my artificial one up and he just started laughing. We have an absolutely beautiful REAL tree up in our dining room right now. It smells wonderful!!

Family Movie Night

Lots of cuddling going on around here on fridays thanks to our new tradition. The kids grab their pillow chairs and blankets on friday night and we all pile up together with some popcorn for a movie. No interuptions, just family time! Daddy came up with this idea and boy is it a big hit!!

Abby Talking

I have been trying recently to get video of Abby talking. She is just starting to catch on to a lot of words and it is so precious I don't want to forget. So the other night I was trying to get her to talk to me for the camera.

p.s. she has rag curls in her hair. It was so stinkin' cute the next morning she had curly little pigtails.

Halloween 2009

Abby likes the M&M's
Everybody got to eat a little bit!! Even Noah ;) and then they traded the rest in for money.

I paid 10 dollars for their haul this year, 5 for each boy.

Posing with the storm troopers! They were letting him know that they were on the same side :)

Noah was assuring them that he was Anakin when Anakin was a good guy!


All of us together... sometimes it is just impossible to get everyone to look at the camera at the same time!! They were too busy thinking about all the candy they were going to get!

Carving Pumpkins

I had just decided it was too late for getting pumpkins on Thursday. We had just put it off and put it off. But Daddy surprised us all!! Friday afternoon he came home with 5 pumpkins (one for each of us) and put them on the front porch for the boys to find when they came home from school. So the night before halloween we carved up 3 of them and put our Mr. Potato head decorations in the other too. I am so glad he went ahead and got them. It just didn't feel like Halloween until we did our pumpkin carving!

Witches Brew!!

My clever little boy helped us start a new halloween tradition this year. The day before Halloween he came downstairs and told mommy that we needed to have a Halloween breakfast to get ready for halloween. I had no idea what he was talking about??? He said we can make a potion just like a witch.... "well okay, Gabe, how do we do that?" So he tells me that we can pretend that all our cereals are witches ingredients and then we just mix it together and have "potions" for breakfast. So that is just what we did!! I loved the idea so much we spent most of the morning talking about what other things we could put into our witches brew next year. I think we will have to make a special potion making shopping trip next halloween, so we can get all the ingredients. Here is a picture of our first mixture, this is Noah's potion. And a picture of Gabriel with his best SCARY WITCH face holding his "potion" boxes!!

Mr. Potato Head

Abigail and Noah....every once in a while I catch them playing together so nicely. And during this rare moment the other day I was actually quick enough to get some great pictures of it.

Happy Birthday Abigail

Science with Daddy

These pictures are from a couple of weekends ago. I had tried to upload a video of this project but it was a little too long. So here are the pics instead. Gabriel earned a Day with Daddy and while they were out Daddy bought him this invention kit. So the next day they broke it out and put together one of the inventions, an electromagnetic motor. I am telling you Daddy was in his element explaining all this science stuff to the boys. And the boys just love science, especially Gabriel, so they were hanging on his every word.

Our New Winter Hats

Boy yesterday was just one of those yucky days where nothing seems to go right. I had just gotten home and crashed on the couch just ready for bedtime to arrive, and Jason comes in the kitchen and says, "hey honey were you expecting something you have a package" I knew right away what it was. And talk about perfect timing, I was really in need of a pick me up.

My friend Neva hand made knit hats for the kids and she even made one for mommy too. They are so nice! And the boys were absolutely thrilled with hat of their favorite colors red and blue. Thank you so much Neva!! We love them and have already gotten good use out of them. Last night was cold and wet and we were our hats out to dinner! Just in time for this chilly season in Whidbey.

Order up!

I just love having Noah at home by himself sometimes. He and Gabriel play together really well, but Noah tends to be a follower of his Big brother. But when he is by himself he is soooo creative. Last week I found him making dinner for his stuffed animals. He had to get them situated just right as they were a little short for the table, but he figured it out. And then he got a book from the shelf so that he could "follow a recipe" and followed directions carefully while he put together a hearty banquet for his three friends.

Nerf Fort

Well after two weekends of cleaning out the office we had a bunch of boxes in the garage. So daddy decided to build the boys a fort to play Nerf Battle with. They saved up there bonus bucks(the money they get for extra chores) a couple of weeks ago and bought nerf guns. Boy what a great way to get them outside this weekend, they spent hours battling. And were VERY sad on monday when the recycling truck came and the boxes had to go.

Five and a half months old

Blackberry Pickin'

Jason found a HUMONGOUS blackberry bush close to our house, so on saturday we walked to it and picked enough for a blackberry cobbler.

Don't they look yummy!

Does mommy look a tad pale? Gabriel gave me his cold and I was feeling pretty yucky, but being out in the sunshine really made me feel better.

RECIPE FOR GLUTEN/DAIRY FREE BLACKBERRY COBBLER/CRISP

About 3 CUPS of Fresh Blackberries

Sprinkle 1 Cup of Sugar on top of the Berries

In a separate Bowl Mix

1 or 2 Cups of Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Bread mix

1 Cup of Brown Sugar

1 Stick of Dairy Free Butter Softened

About a Teaspoon of Vanilla Extract

Sprinkle the "Crumbly" Flour Mix on top

of berries. And Bake until Crisp.

Serve HOT... MMMmmm!!

It was DELICIOUS!!