January

Usually in January we would be bundled up in as much warm clothing as we could find and out in the yard throwing around that white stuff. NOT THIS YEAR!!

 

 

I have to admit that I am a snow lover!! I love everything about snow, I really do. Nothing is better in the winter months than fresh fallen snow. Now, we can only hope that February will bring us some of that fantastic fluffy stuff!!


MOON
One night while we were eating supper, Cael says "moon" "moon" "moon"...sure enough as we looked out the window we saw a bright, FULL moon! From his highchair he had a perfect view of this gorgeous moon!

 

TRACTORS
"TahTah" "TahTah"...this is a common known word in our house these days. My nephew, Mason let us borrow one of his tractor movies because he thought Cael would love to watch it. Oh boy, was he right!! One night after supper we put in the tractor movie and for the next 20 minutes this is what we saw...

 

 

After a while he had to go and find HIS tractor. He hardly took his eyes off of the TV.

 

After that one showing he has not forgotten about this movie. He now finds the remote and carries it around saying "TahTah" until we either distract him with something else or put in the movie. Let me tell you..He is PERSISTENT!

 

PLAYSKOOL TOYS
A few years ago, I had a friend of mine clean out her classroom. She had a box full of old Playskool toys that she was going to just throw in the dumpster. I said "WHOA..WAIT...You can't throw these away..these are VINTAGE". So I snatched them all right up! My niece and nephew both have LOVED these toys and ask me to get them out all the time. So one day I thought I would bring a few of them out to see how Cael would like them. This one is one of his favorites.
I walked around the corner the other day to see him doing this...

 

 

I love seeing him actually play with toys. Oh how I would love to be inside his little mind. I wonder what he is thinking about?




Have I mentioned how much this little boy steals my heart every time I see him. Or how that smile melts me to the core?

 

I try and take in everything about him each day because I don't want these "being little" days to end.

Pete's Birthday Present

A few weeks ago I shared about Pete's birthday


Here is the gift that I worked so hard to put together!!!

 

A friend of ours does this as a hobby. She takes pictures of any and everything and then spells out words for others. I shared with her some of our interests and she put a few options together. This was the combination I went with..for a few reasons.
The D is in the sand. I forsee our little boy spending countless days in the sand at my parent's pond(in our backyard).
The R is out of rocks. Pete loves rocks and has found many field stones that adorn our yard.
The U is of fish. Fishing is my husband's favorite hobby. He does it when it is warm and he does it when its freezing cold. Now that is committment...or insanity.
The R is of fire wood. We love campfires and enjoy them often as a our family.
The Y is of a tree trunk. We both love trees. Pete spends a lot of time tending to the trees in our yard.

So in a nutshell this respresents our family. I picked out each letter that I thought fit our family's dynamic. I think the ones that she offered us were fantastic and I couldn't be more pleased with how it turned out.

SNOW!

From Collages

As most have experienced, it has been a very mild...snowless..winter!! Last year Cael was way to little to be out playing in the snow. So as we anticipated winter this year we thought of all the fun our little boy would have out in the white stuff. We finally receieved some snow a week or so ago but the temperature was below zero so we couldn't go out and play in it. :( So I decided..Hmm...If we can't go out in it...why not bring it in to US!!
Cael had so much fun! Yes, it did make a big mess all over the floor and yes, his clothes were soaking wet when we were done playing...but it was sooo worth it!!!

Pete's Birthday

On January 3rd, we celebrated Pete's birthday. As you can see by the pictures, he turned 32 years old. Yes..I know..just for the record, he is younger than me..but only by a year and a few months!!! I stick with him to make myself feel more "youthful"..I guess!! Pshhhhaaww...All it is is a number, right!?!

This year for his birthday, I worked..well lets just say..really hard!! I had planned to give him a special wall hanging (I will post a picture of that later when it is complete and hanging on the wall:). This gift took a lot of work on my part. I had to contact the friend for the pictures, pick the ones that I wanted, find a time to pick them up, buy the frame to put them in and wrap it up for his birthday. Sounds easy, right?! Uh..wrong! :( I just about had to spill the beans the day I went to go pick up the picture because I was a little late coming home and he got a little worried..oopps. Then, I thought buying a frame would be easy..wrong! I had to drive out of town to get what I wanted; then I ended up buying the wrong one..grr. My sister came to the rescue though and went to buy the last frame on the shelf for me!! Thanks LISA!!;) The day of his birthday, I had to pull off driving out of town, baking his cake and making sure that dinner was in place by the time he got home from work. I am here to say I PULLED THAT ALL OFF!!!! I was so proud of myself! After we had dinner, we had to sing HAPPY BIRTHDAY and of course, blow out the candles.

 

Cael LOVES..I mean..LOVES..candles!! Every time he sees a candle he says repeatedly "HOT HOT HOT HOT" and proceeds with lots blowing noises. He will even do this to a candle that is not even lit. So whenever it is someones birthday and we have a reason to blow the candles out..Cael is fascinated!

 

 

He enjoyed sampling the whip topping!

 

 

MORE..MORE..MORE!!! I think the jello cake was a hit!

 

I had more pictures of the little boy in this post than the guy who we celebrated!

I love every year that I get to spend with this man. I know I have bragged about him several times before but I can't thank the good LORD above enough for allowing me to call this man MY husband!! Happy Birthday Pete!

Nativity Program

The weekend before Christmas, our church put on a Nativity program. All of the kiddos in our church dressed up as wise men, angels, Mary, Joseph, King Herod and of course little lambs! As you can see from the pictures below, all of the little lambs were free to "roam". With the help of some older "shepards", we were able to keep the little ones coralled. It sure was cute to see all these little ones learning about Jesus.

Mallory was an angel. She is right in the middle of the picture, if you look closely.

 

 

Mason was a wisemen. He is in the red robe.

 

 

Here are all the little lambs together before the program.

 

 

I was still shocked that he kept that "hat" on for the entire program. I thought for sure that would be a problem, but he had plenty of other things to keep his mind off of the scrachy bonnett on his head! Don't you just want to squeeze him?!

 

Grandma Jo came to watch our lil lamb perform.

 

Grandpa Craig was there too.

 

We had some other family members there too, but I didn't get any pictures of them. Rats!!!

Before we left for church that night, we thought we would try and take a cute picture of him in his costume in front of the tree...looking at the camera with a cute little smile....YEAH RIGHT..who was I kidding. :) Instead of doing what I hoped he decided that he wanted to rip baby Jesus out of the blanket, shake him and throw him across the floor. Not what I had in mind, but it usually isn't when we are dealing with a one year old, right!?

 

 

Our 4th Annual Baking Day

Four years ago, my sister, my mom, my aunt and I started a new tradition. We decided that it would be fun to take a day and bake all of our favorite Christmas treats.
Running Shoes-CHECK
Booklet of receipes-CHECK.
Ingredients-CHECK
Cookie Sheets-CHECK
Candy Themometer-CHECK
Double Boiler-CHECK
Parchment paper-CHECK
Ziploc baggies-CHECK
Christmas Goodie Plates-CHECK
We are set to GO!
We start early in the day and we finish by 10pm. Each year it has taken the ENTIRE day and sometimes into the next day. By the end of the weekend, all of our backs are killing, our feet need rubbed (hence the running shoes:) and our bellies are sore from sampling. In the end, it is SO worth it. When the day is done, we not only have several goodie plates to deliver but we enjoyed great company as a family.
Here is a picture of almost all of the items we made this year.

From Collages

The kids were here all day as well. The dads helped out by entertaining the children to keep them out of our way. They did a great job, for the most part! :) Mason and Mallory helped with the Spritz cookies. There is a cookie press that we used to put the cookies on the sheet so it was quite easy for the kids to help.

 

This is where the kids were for the majority of the day.

 

 

Christmas 2011

It is hard to believe that it has been nearly 3 weeks since Christmas. I have a bit of updating to do, I know. So I will attempt to cram as much as I can into this one post. I will spare many details and let the pictures tell the story of our family's christmas.

CHRISTMAS EVE
On Christmas Eve, our church has a candlelight service. My family all loaded up and headed out the door with lightweight sweaters and no coats. The weather here in Iowa has been insanely warm and dry. When we should have inches of white stuff on the ground, we have green/brown grass instead. I have to admit that I miss the snow but not having to bundle up Cael has been really nice.
Here is our handsome little boy ready for church. He looked so stinking cute in his sweater vest.

He's texting his friends. ;) Actually he is "pooosh" (pushing) the buttons. He LOVES to "pooosh" buttons no matter where they are. He will say POOSH until you let him push whatever it is that he thinks needs to be pushed. Silly boy! He is defintely persistent.

 

 

After church, we tried to capture a COUSIN picture in front of the Christmas tree. Of course, trying to manage a 5 month old, a 14 month old, a 4 year old and a 7 year old..when it is past bedtime..and it IS Christmas...this is the best picture that we could come up with. I would say that with all the given circumstances, this picture turned out pretty nice!!

 

CHRISTMAS MORNING


TRACTORS
"taahter"..kind of sounds like he is saying "dah dah"
(insert lil boy motor noises)

 

 

 

RACECARS
I'm not sure who is more excited about this gift..daddy or Cael?! Oh wait, I think the picture (that was exaggerated on daddy's part;)tells the story itself. This was a gift that Pete wanted to get Cael for many reasons. He loves the Hot Wheels cars and plays with them often. Since we knew he loved cars, Pete thought it would be a good idea to get him a track to run the cars on. Pete has vivid memories of building a race track for his Hot Wheels, when he was a kid. He felt that this was something that Cael needed for his collection.

 

 

BOOKS
We LOVE books!

 

Gotta love MICKEY MOUSE!

 

PUZZLES

 

WRAPPING PAPER
Honestly Cael really wanted nothing to do with opening presents. He is really starting to take off with walking, so he was enjoying his new found freedom of walking. These pictures were taken at Granny and Pa's house Christmas morning. We traveled a long distance of about 200 yards to my parents house that morning. We enjoyed some time together eating brunch and opening gifts.

 

Or playing with christmas toys that have been out for weeks! Who needs NEW toys, right!??!

 

A Few Days After Christmas--Another Family Christmas

Of course, not interested in the gifts to be opened but more interested in walking behind the recliner. There was plenty of "toys" (or electronics) that were much more interesting, so he thought.

 

Uh..Cael you have a gift to open..

 

A Few Days After that Family Christmas--Another Christmas/Birthday Party
A new scooter from his Great Grandma and Great Grandpa..and he LOVES it.

 

 

A TENT
Who would have thought that a tent could be entertaining?! A great gift that he recieved from Pete's Aunt, Uncle and cousins. I foresee many hours will be spent in this gift.

 

Every year it seems that Christmas time becomes a little bit sweeter. I have noticed as I get older, I spend more time reflecting and appreciating things more. As our small little family prepared for Christmas, we started a tradition of wrapping Baby "Jesus" in a blanket and placing him under the tree. We want this to be a constant reminder and conversation starter each year of why we celebrate this holiday.

Isaiah 9:6
For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.