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"?

Chestnuts Roasting...

This morning while I was getting ready I asked Nick if he could make the boys breakfast before heading off to work. I came down to the boys eating in the middle of the living room.

When I came home from school I walked in to find Cullen roasting homemade marshmallows over an open fire while reading. I took a picture just to prove that some boys can multi-task, a skill Cullen must have picked-up from me:)

I have no idea where the below picture came from, I didn't take it but it was taken today. I found it as I was downloading pictures. This looks more like something Geremu would do then Cullen. I wish I knew exactly how he got down without tipping the table.