Our Christmas

My parents arrived last week to spend Christmas with us. On Thursday evening we took them for a drive down to the South Hills to see all the infamous Christmas lights which are totally amazing. Santa and the elves were there and the boys got to feed the camel carrots! On Christmas Eve we went to our church's candlelight service and then were able to come home and get into new Christmas PJ's to hangout for the night.

I will have to tell you that I am totally amazed with how our boys did. We had told them they couldn't come downstairs to check presents until we were awake. Last year this meant they woke us up during the night to see if we could get up. This year they went to bed no problem
and then when they woke up in the morning they hung out in their room waiting. Dan and I could hear the older 2 talking at about 7am. At about 7:15 we decided to get up and when we went to their room, Caleb was reading books to Elton while they waited! Incredible! When I was a kid I could never wait like that. When we went downstairs they even sat on the couch and waited patiently while Dan got the video camera set up (which seemed like it took forever). Then Caleb reminded us how we needed to sing "Happy Birthday Jesus" (a tradition we started a couple of years ago) before we started the presents. You see even though Santa comes, the presents are to celebrate Jesus' birthday! Caleb had been asking for weeks to be "Santa" to hand out presents and was excellent at bringing his brothers presents and waiting to open one of his own. Most of the pictures you see above are from the day after Christmas because Dan had the video camera running and with the excitement not many pictures were taken.

After breakfast I made a huge breakfast skillet while everyone played with their presents and in the afternoon we went to Dan's parents house to hang out with family. It was a wonderful Christmas!

Thanksgiving

This year I cooked the turkey and stuffing for Thanksgiving. We went to Dan's parent's house where Dan's siblings and their families were and hung out for the day. You see Caleb here with a whole turkey leg because this is what he was so excited about (along with hanging out with cousins) and he actually ate most of it. He did admit is was a little bigger than he expected. The boys stayed at Dan's parents that night so Dan and I could get up early (3am) and go do a little Black Friday shopping. We weren't crazy shoppers by any means, but did get a good chunk of Christmas shopping done. On Saturday we got our Christmas decorations up and with all of the snow we have had I am sure we are going to have a white Christmas.

A Snowy Winter

It is looking like we are going to have a very snowy winter. The Saturday before Thanksgiving is when you see the boys with the snowman after our first big snow and the second picture is by the end of the weekend. The boys actually had a snow day that Tuesday which is practically unheard of here in town. The surrounding area of schools have already had over a week of snow days.

Teddy

Our pound puppy Teddy has adapted to our house well. When he first moved in his favorite spot to sleep on the shelf under the coffee table. Then he discovered he could climb into the shelf of the TV stand and that became his new favorite spot. You can see we added a blanket, but he was quite content there even before the blanket.

One Last Trip To The Mountains

Since we only made it up to the mountains once this summer, we decided to get one more trip in before Winter the first weekend of November. We were lucky there was no snow as there had been a couple of weeks before and actually had great weather . We had a great time hanging out at the cabin with Dan's parents while Dan's dad showed him how to winterize the cabin.

A Weekend Of Halloween

Our Halloween lasted 3 nights this year starting on Friday night with a Trunk or Treat and games at the boys daycare. On Saturday night we went Trick or Treating and then on Sunday night we went to the Trunk or Treat at our church. We were all tired by the end! Caleb was Harry Potter, Elton was a Bakugan, and of course Oliver was Woody. The weather was wonderful all weekend, which you never know how it is going to be at that time of year so we were very lucky.

Caleb Is 8 Years Old!

On October 26th Caleb turned 8! It is hard to believe it has been 8 years. He is growing into such an intelligent, focused young man. At the beginning of the summer he won the first Harry Potter book at an event at school. I had told him he would probably need to put it away for a while because it might be too hard for him to read. Determined, he started reading the book this summer and by September he was 3/4 through the book. He had been asking Dan and I for a while to watch the movie, so I decided that if he could finish reading the book by his birthday, I would let him invite a couple of friends over for his birthday to watch the movie. On the Saturday before his birthday he had 3 friends over and all the boys (including Oliver) ate Jack O' Lantern pizza and the Worms N' Dirt you see above to celebrate as they watched the movie. It was so interesting to see these little boys hang out and interact. As Caleb received some new Bakugan brawlers for his birthday, they even got to try them out.

The next day we had grandpa and grandma, Aunt Marsha, and the Voss family (Caleb's cousin's) over for birthday cake to celebrate. Caleb was thrilled with the Broncos hoodie and stocking hat he received from his grandparents as well as the next Harry Potter book from us to start reading. As of today he is already on chapter 6!

A Halloween Story By Caleb

Night Of The Deadly Bat

One night I went to the Forest. I was afraid that a deadly bat would suck my blood. I was chattering in panic. Then I heard a shriek of the vampire bat. I was afraid. Very afraid. My legs began to tremble. The skreech of the vampire bat was loud and louder. There it was - the vampire bat! I watched in terror as the vampire bat was opening his big deadly fangs. I ran as fast as I could but then I tripped over a log. I began to scream but then I saw the end of the road and the end of the Forest. I got up and looked back. The bat was gaining. I ran and ran until I reached the end of the forest. I ran all the way to my house.

This is the first story that Caleb has written. It was an assignment at school.

Addition To My Sewing Center!

Do you remember how last year Dan remodeled a room in our basement into my sewing center for our 10 year anniversary? That is the bottom picture you see. In the past couple of weeks he built me a new wall unit for storage and put it up the other night. That is what you see in the top picture. Isn't it awesome? I told him that when I married him I had no idea I was marrying such a handy man! I love it and can't wait to get busy with my sewing.

All Sorts Of Mazes......

Last weekend we took the boys on a fall adventure. A local nursery had the setup you see above with all sorts of mazes. There was a 3-D straw bale maze the boys crawled through. It made me a little claustrophobic and with my back acting up I decided not to crawl and climb through it. The had a straw bale maze, sky maze and corn maze too. The corn maze was a little trashed so I didn't take any pictures of it. They also have a haunted maze set up for the night time, but we didn't stay for that one. The boys had a blast and then later that night when we got Oliver to bed, Caleb, Elton and I watched the original "Wizard Of Oz". They had never seen it so it was fun to watch with them and they loved it!

School Days...

It has been hard for Oliver to adjust with both Caleb and Elton gone for school all day. However, you can see he has 2 new best friends. He loves hanging out and playing with the dogs while I get some sewing done.

Elton is doing great in all day Kindergarten and doesn't seem tired at all when we pick him up. He loves having show and tell on Fridays and just had a field trip to the Pumpking Patch on Friday. He is learning how to read and write his letters in lower case after focusing on upper case letters last year.

Caleb is loving his new school and has made a couple of new friends. He likes taking the bus to Boys & Girls Club on the days I work and seems to be handling the new responsibility well. We did however get him a "Firefly" phone in case of emergency so he can call us. It is probably for my peace of mind more than anything and so far he hasn't even had to use it. He is doing well with his school work getting A's and yesterday he brought his IRI reading results home. He is reading 174 words per minute!

First Day Of School 2010!

School has begun and we have a 2nd grader and Kindergartener in the house! Elton was up at 6:30 am for his first day and then at 6:15am today for his second day he was so excited. He is at Immanuel Lutheran again this year for full day Kindergarten with the same teacher Caleb had and is loving it. This means that both boys are in school all day this year.

Our biggest changes are with Caleb this year. He has started second grade in a public school that has about 600 students! There are 4 second grade classes of about 25 students to each class. I'm not sure who has been more overwhelmed preparing for this change, but probably me. I have been walking him through step by step what he has to do and what is responsibilities are in preparation. He is also going to be going to Boys & Girls Club on the days I work, which means getting to the right place after school to catch the bus there. What makes me nervous is that they don't track which kids are supposed to be getting on the bus and so it is his responsibility to make sure he gets on the bus and gets there. Today when I picked him up I walked him over to where he stand to catch the bus which is quite a distance from the school and then we waited in the car to see the bus come so he could see what it looks like for tomorrow. We waited half an hour before the bus arrived! Hopefully tomorrow will go smoothly. He says he is ready and knows what he is supposed to do so we will see.

I am so proud of both boys and how excited and how much they like school! There level of independence makes me feel like I am doing a good job of preparing them for all the next steps in life. It amazes me how quick they pick things up. I have to admit that I am really liking the freedom Oliver and I have now for almost 7 hour, but Oliver really misses his brothers. He cried when we dropped Elton off this morning and then even more when we dropped Caleb off. He has been very happy when I wake him up from his nap to go pick them up!

County Fair 4-H Dog Show 2010

Saturday Caleb's 4-H club "The Mighty Mutts" had their dog show at the fair. It was a beautiful day out and Caleb was the first into the obedience ring at 8:20am. Caleb did well showing Mimi and I really liked the fitting and showing judge as he really interacted well with the kids and asked lots of questions. When he asked Caleb how old Mimi was and Caleb told him she was one, he told Caleb that he was a "brave little soul"! After we got done with the dog show we put Mimi in my bag and I carried her around as we checked out the fair. She had never road around in a bag before, but did really well and seemed to enjoy the sites.

Saturday night Caleb and I had to go back to work at the 4-H food booth from 6:15-10:30. I had offered Caleb the option of not going as I knew with him being the youngest and it being such a late night they would not be upset if we didn't make it. However he said he wanted to go and that was part of him helping his club and community. He got to wipe and clear garbage off of tables. At about 9:15 his leader told me that he could go anytime and she knew it was a late night for him. At about 9:45 he asked me how much longer we had to stay so I told him that we could go anytime if we wanted. He asked me how much longer the other kids had to stay and when I said 45 minutes he told me he really should stay since he was part of the club. He stuck with it and I was really proud of him! It is nice to see the values a program like 4-H helps instill and this day and age.