Ringing in the New Year- Early!

We went to my parents house today. My Mom pinned Geremu down to get a laugh out of him, some things just never change. I remember my mom doing this to me when I was little... And last week.

Then we watched the early 6pm fireworks display and pretended it was midnight. Yelled Happy New Year before throwing the kids in bed.

Geremu seemed to like the fireworks today more then he did on the 4th of July. Wondering if it has anything to do with the fact that he was watching them inside with the big guy? Tonight my parents and I headed next door to the neighbors for a CrAzY New Years Party!

Overheard...

Last night I cut Cullen a grapefruit to eat for dessert while I washed dishes. Shortly after that I overheard Cullen say to Geremu, "Here have a try little buddy, this is my favorite recipe."

If you would like to try Cullen's favorite recipe grab a pencil and paper and feel free to copy it.

Ingredients= grapefruit, Utensil= spoon- enjoy!

Sledding with Friends

The boys slept good in the tent and were ready to go early this morning.

We meet our friends Billy, Carson and Sophia at the sledding hill in the morning.
A fun time was had by all. Geremu insisted on going down the hill by himself today. He did pick up a bit of speed but never fell off and seemed to enjoy himself. Below is the infant sled that Billy brought for Sophia. I would NEVER send a kid down a hill by themselves in this sled and it's clearly not big enough for more than one person. I think it's for just walking around and pulling a young kid. I decided to give it a whirl on the hill, it is FAST and if you don't go down straight the lip of the sled can catches the snow... It's enough to knock the wind out of you:)
Nick took Geremu and Carson snowshoeing for a bit after they were done sledding.

Then we headed over to Carson's house for some lunch and hot chocolate before nap time. It was another beautiful fun day.

Katie our blow-up sled lasted about as long as yours did. The plastic seemed to get really hard in the cold weather. Cullen and I were both on it going down the hill (which was probably way too much weight in the first place). We were going at a pretty good speed and the next thing I know is the tube is out from under us and we were sledding down the hill on our body. We tore a HUGE hole in the bottom of it and it deflated so fast, no slow leak to warn us. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

Outdoor Play Day

We came home yesterday to have a little family time with just the four of us before we head to Iowa for Nick's family Christmas later this week. Today was a beautiful, breezy day so we went to a park with trails early to snowshoe and enjoy as much of the sunlight as possible. It was really windy and cold until we got into the woods, then the wind seemed to die down.

The boys enjoy snowshoeing as much as we do. They don't have the endurance to go long distances but it's still fun to get out, eat snow and enjoy each others company.

At one point the boys were standing on this little bridge over a small stream, I asked them to turn around so I could take a picture. The next thing I know things seem to happen in slow motion. As Cullen starts to turn around he jumps off the bridge onto the ice and breaks through. It was not deep (perhaps only a foot in depth) and only his feet fell through (his entire body landed on ice) but it still scared me. I never saw that coming from Cullen, I would sort of expect that from Geremu (my future stunt man), not Cullen- ugh...

Below the boys race down a hill, Geremu's usually the fastest but he is also the one that has the least amount of body control and usually ends up falling down head first. In his defense, he also has the young kids snow shoes without big claws to grip the snow making it a bit slippery.
After a morning of snowshoeing we headed back to the car to grab the sleds.

There were very few people out and the boys were champs at walking up the hill themselves, which is a HUGE improvement from last year.

Cullen attempting to pull me up the hill.

Nick hitching a ride from Geremu.

The boys are now "camping out" in a tent in their room with Nick.

They told me it was for "Boys Only", Yee-haw!

A Christmas Story with Pictures

We left town as soon as school was over on Wednesday because of the predicted bad weather. We hit the nasty weather about an hour east of my parents house, making the driving difficult and slow but we made it safe and sound. Christmas Eve the boys spent the morning playing outside.

All the festivities started right after the afternoon Christmas Eve mass. My sisters made it home with their families and my Aunt Kathy and Uncle Jack's family joined ours for the good food and fun.

Shortly after eating the music and dancing started.

Megan and Meredith enjoyed the action...

As well as, Erik and Andy.
My Christmas puppy rang his bell until... Santa joined the party to hand out a few gifts early.

Santa gave Cullen a pep talk about getting his stitches out the next day.

Family pictures were taken before the kids were put in bed for the night. (Geremu still doesn't seem to like Santa- he's a bit afraid of him.) The adults stayed up playing the dice game and doing the adult gifts only to wake up early the next morning to Katie yelling, "This is my worst nightmare" after she found out Curtis had the flu. So the kids opened their gifts...

and ate breakfast while enjoying their gifts.

Then Katie's family packed up and headed out (slippery roads and all) around 9 am.

Katie was so disappointed she was leaving but Johnny didn't seem to care one way or another that their trip was cut short. He got his guitar and Packers gear from Santa and left the house with his hand raised in victory. The house was cleaned from top to bottom by 10:15ish with everyone helping and Kyle was left wondering how, "Katie's family got so lucky" that they got to leave early.

Meredith however was excited she got to spend more time with me!

The boys spent the day playing with their new gifts and Cullen got his stitches removed by Kyle's brother.

It was a good Christmas.

Try not to drool on your computer...

Nick and I stayed up way too late last night making...

Katie is this the angle food you requested, we doubled the batch and it expanded a LOT.

Beyond Busy

Life has been busy lately but today things seemed to slow down a little. I had a chance to clean the house, as well as, start my Christmas baking. I hope to get the rest of the baking done tomorrow night. The boys went swimming with Nick today then came home and played. No naps were had so an early bed time was planned.

But as luck would have it, the early bedtime got pushed back after Cullen fell off the bed and ended up needing stitches. Here he is with numbing medicine on waiting to to get "fixed". His eye is a bit swollen, as you can see.

Santa drives through the neighborhood every year on the back of a fire truck. Here the boys are waiting for him to turn the corner onto our street.

Geremu after receiving candy from Santa. He couldn't have been happier.

I took the boys to see Santa earlier this month and I was listening to what the boys told him they wanted. Cullen asked for a little sister, when Santa didn't respond Cullen said, "Or don't you have one of those in your bag?" Geremu on the other hand doesn't quite understand that you ask for things you want. He just sort of associates Santa with Christmas books. So when Santa asked him what he wanted he said, "Frosty the Snowman". Pretty sure neither boy is getting what they want this year:)

Recently Cullen started to tell me that he is "sea sick" and can't go to school. This is a daily occurrence as of this month and he never says it until we start waiting for his bus. Everyday I tell him that I think he will be just fine because we are not at sea. I sort of though Cullen has picked up his "I can't go to school" thing from a Gilbert book we read. Turns out I was wrong- shocking, right? Upon further questioning I finally figured out that Cullen is getting HOT in all his winter gear when he waits for his bus. We have since cured his "sea sickness" by eliminating the winter coat until we see his bus turn down our block.

Christmas is coming...

and I'm not ready. But it's not stressing me out because I've got a plan. You heard that right, I've got a plan people! I'm going to use Tylenol PM to get one or two good nights of sleep this weekend (something I haven't been getting) and then work my butt off during the day to get all the things done I need to do before Christmas.

Get ready to see some amazing dessert platters (pictures to be taken after the treats are actually made.)

Tonight we had our good friends, Erica, Curt, Beth and Patrick, over for a pre-holiday feast. We had a great time with good food. The boys enjoyed the company and passed out homemade gifts. They also LOVED their Packer socks and Packer Reindeer they got from Beth and Patrick.

Mr. Mom

Nick's home alone with the boys while I'm away at a conference until Tuesday night. He told me tonight that I asked him to do "just one thing" several times today. So what "just one thing" should he take care of? He started naming off the things I asked him to do: brush the boys teeth, get Cullen's school stuff together, give the boys baths, move everything by and around the windows (we are getting new windows tomorrow), put tags on the water shirts, bring water shirts to the boutique in town that will now be selling them for me, etc... The list goes on and on and I've now decided I actually need him to do about 100 things while I'm away and not "just one".

Hey Nick, one more thing, while I'm away don't forget about Rootsy:)

Love ya!

Living in a Winter Wonderland

What a day for the snow-blower to not start. We have a LOT of snow and it's still coming down. School was called off last night for us and it was not possible to even get out of our driveway before noon today. The boys had a BLAST spending time outside most of the day. They came in to eat lunch and get their hat and mittens dried before heading back out. Here are lots of pictures of the boys enjoying the snow.Tonight we went out to Chuck E. Cheese to help Carson celebrate his 5th birthday. We had a great time with the place to ourselves. We were informed they would be closing early but we still had plenty of time to eat/play. The highlight of the birthday was when Billy and Nick won "Deal or No Deal" (50 tickets). Billy did a lap around the place holding the tickets above his head with the tickets trailing behind him. While Nick informed Katie and me that if we ever got on the show and needed a lifeline they would be who we should call. Um, isn't a lifeline from "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire"?