When the Weather Outside is Frightful...

Granny Bird will read the boys bed time stories.

Once the boys are in bed, the Christmas shopping in the freezing cold house can begin.

St. Nick....

Came a night early!

The boys could not have been more excited. They came downstairs this morning to look for Rootsy (our Elf on the Shelf) and found their stockings full.

The boys filled out "paper work" this past summer to adopt another Elf. When Rootsy was the only elf to show up this year they asked me why there wasn't another one. I explained that adoption sometimes takes longer than a year. Truth be told, I thought I'd be able to find the brown Elf on the shelf around here but it turns out stores are only caring the "blue eyed Elf". So today Santa left the boys a note telling them that Rootsy is now bringing along his mouse friend to help keep an eye on the boys. They are to treat the mouse the same as they would Rootsy, so they named him Gumdrop. Hopefully the new Elf adoption is completed before the holiday season next year.

The boys enjoyed playing with their new goods. This year the gingerbread house they received came smashed in several little pieces. It took a hot glue gun and lots of frosting to fill the holes.

The finished house is now displayed with the new tree Cullen grew today. Look closely it is in front of the house.

We spent a lot of time this afternoon at the Children's Museum before going out for hot chocolate.

Yesterday the kids attended their first "Christmas Party". The adult party (it was a work party) was upstairs and the kids party was in the basement- babysitters provided. They had pizza, ice cream parfaits, played games watched Toy Story 3 and got goodie bags when they left. They had such a good time, I'm sort of wishing I had been invited to attend the basement party.

Santa's Reindeer

Today I was laying down and I over heard a conversation between the boys.

Gere: "Hey Cullen I no wanna be Santa anymore. I wanna be Santa's deer too."
Cullen: "Okay but I'm Twitcher so you can't be him."
Gere: "Fine then me be Ice Cream."
Cullen: "Geremu, Santa didn't have a reindeer named Ice Cream."
Gere: "Yes, he did."
Cullen: "Oh, he did? I didn't know that..."

Just Another Day

So I got a plasma car the other day as a x-mas gift for someone... That someone was playing outside a little later in the day and came running into the house holding it yelling, "Look what I found." It was left in the back of the van. I explained how I got it as a gift for my godchild and well let's just say we've been playing with it ever since...

It's made for people age 3 - 225lbs and since I fit that perfectly I've been having a blast chasing my kids around on it.

Nick came home tonight and decided to have fun with his "no shave November" look. I'm pretty sure he doesn't understand the importance of symmetry.

Geremu's Clock

Today Cullen and Geremu were laying in my bed, I let them sleep with me since Nick is out of town. Cullen had his head on Geremu's stomach and we were just talking. All of a sudden Cullen sits up and says, "Mom did you know Geremu has a clock in his stomach." He puts his head back on Geremu's stomach and tells me to listen so I can hear it too. Geremu mean while has this look of terror in his eyes and starts tell me that he, "No wanna go to the doctor." Cullen couldn't have been more proud of his exciting discovery and Geremu couldn't have been more fearful that he was going to go to the doctor to get another shot.

Happy Thanksgiving!

My parents, sister Colleen, and Luke joined our family for Thanksgiving. Nick wasn't with us for the festivities because he goes hunting with his father and brothers every year at this time. We had a relaxing day. I got up early with my mother and headed to the YMCA to get a quick workout in before spending the rest of the day enjoying the company.

The boys spent a little time wresting...

And lovin' each other. I'm so thankful they have each other!

We enjoyed acorns roasting on an open fire... Picture the below candle burning to basically nothing and all the acorns ablaze. The lantern kept it contained, it did however require me to wear oven mitts to get the fire out of the house. Anyone that knows my Dad can imagine just how calm he remained through it all:)

The same woman that does not allow us to even drink water in her living room ate a wild rice salad while sitting on the couch in my living room. She never even got rid of the evidence...

I ordered a french silk pie a few days before Thanksgiving and my babysitter picked it up with the buns on Wednesday morning. Had I known the size of the pie before hand I would have ordered one for everyone in attendance...

Also for those of you that told me you can't screw up stuffing, you were WRONG. Had I not put tin foil over the pan I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have even been able to get a spoon into it. It was so dry even dumping gravy on it couldn't salvage it.

I also learned I don't have enough serving utensils... Unless you count using a ladle for the mash potatoes and an ice cream scooper for the green bean casserole. I'm hoping my family doesn't go all practical on me for Christmas this year. Despite the missing minor details we had an excellent time and the crowd seemed please.

Colleen and Luke stayed up and hit Wal-mart up at midnight. They seemed to have a good time and had some great stories to tell us today.

I wasn't really planning on going shopping this morning but when I woke up at 4 am and there was no power or heat in the house I headed out with my mother around 6ish because we could not fall back asleep. I did find some pj's I was going to get for the boys but after talking to a few people in line decided it really wasn't worth waiting in line for over an hour. We really didn't even end up getting anything but had a good time watch other people and texting my sister in NC who is the type of person I like watching shop on a day like today.

Scared? (A Picture Story)