Frosty the Snowman

My mom got us this neat snowman kit for Christmas, this is what it looks like put to use:

Snow Fun!

Three post in one day!? I know, the kids are out playing in the snow with Todd, so it is QUIET! Here are some pictures from Sunday and Monday....

Sledding at Maw Maw & Paw Paw's.

Alyssa trying to pull Aiden...

...until she fell.

Look at that face!

Happy Snow days, I love it!!

Christmas Day

Aiden got a train table from Santa and that is all he has done since then. He plays and plays and plays with it. I asked him if he wanted to see what else Santa got him and he said "NO!" and kept pushing his train around the track...forever. Santa did good to him for sure, except for the next few days he wouldn't eat because he wanted his train. He would take one bite (if we were lucky) and push back from the table and say "I'm done, play train." He is back to eating (some) but still loving his train. Alyssa got The Little Mermaid bath doll from Santa that has somehow ended up in the master bathroom?? And she got an American Girl Doll, that she loves and dresses in her new PJ's at night to sleep with her. We are working on her name...I am pushing Holly over Alice (long story, but she has an imaginary friend Alice that is very peculiar). Here's a look at our day:

Check out that happy face :)

The Little Mermaid.

Loves her!

Still playing...

We finally got him to open one more...a motorized Thomas for the track. The rest of his presents were opened by a helpful big sister.

Alyssa and her presents.

Aiden and his.

Who knew the drawers serve a dual purpose?

Round 2 with Maw Maw, Paw Paw and Uncle Todd. Aiden participated in some opening.

He loved this snow globe...it had a train around the bottom :)

Hope all had a Merry Christmas!!

December Fun!

Here's a little update for December. We had a fun month getting ready for Christmas, now that the kiddos are getting older and understand more it keeps getting more exciting! We made cookies, decorated the tree as a family (and it looked like it, but I wouldn't change it...Alyssa had sooo much fun putting the ornaments on, even if they were in one section :) And most importantly we focused on Jesus' Birthday. We went to the Living Nativity with friends and Alyssa loved being in the Church service for the Christmas Musical. That night while we were praying she said, "Thank you God for letting me hear the music this morning at church." It was worth every bit of the battle to keep a 4 year old quiet and in one place for over an hour. Aiden is growing up so much lately he looks like a little boy and has really started talking. A lot. I love it! So here are some things to look at:

Getting older and enjoying some coffee...

YUM! (It was empty, I promise)

Sometimes we just have to brush our teeth anywhere.

Aiden, Alyssa & Kyla ready to walk through the Living Nativity at Church.

Ready to roll out some dough...

Eh, this is easier.

Eating mini hot dogs at Grandma & Grandpa Raines house on Christmas Eve. He loved to stab them with his little sword.

Well, I guess that turned into a bit of an Aiden post.

Growing up

Aiden is one more step away from being my baby boy. Tonight he is in a big boy bed! I am a fan of leaving my kids in their crib for as long as possible, but my little climber was just moments away from falling out on his head...so we had to move him. His furniture came in yesterday and Todd set up the bed this evening, we will move the old dresser and changing table out tomorrow and set up his new dresser then as well. I decided on black furniture and am glad I did, I really really like it! Here it is, what do you think?

Alyssa reading (well, actually singing) him a story, if you can see he looks like he is covering his ears.

Ready to sleep...HAHAHA. Yeah, he screamed for like 40 minutes and a few trips in from Todd and I before he finally passed out. Overall I am going to call it a success. Until 1 pm tomorrow (Nap time).

Pajama Day and Christmas Progam

On Tuesday we had pajama day at our house. It is Alyssa's favorite day, of course you may think this means to wake up and never get dressed, which works for Aiden. Alyssa on the other hand picked out pj's on Monday night to wear for pajama day. So she got up Tuesday morning excited to "get dressed" for pajama day. I love that girl and all her quirks! So we snuggled on the couch and watched a movie, had a tea party, made muffins, played in tents and just hung out. I think I will make one day a week an official pajama day throughout the winter, life seems so simple when you don't get dressed and don't have to leave the house!

Movie time.

Tea party.

He is so good about her treating him like a baby doll.

Aiden already bored with the muffin making and all we had done was the muffin liners.

So, he decided to try and sit on the island and drum on the bowl.

Notice Alyssa working away while Aiden tries to keep himself entertained...He succeeded :)

Tent fun.

And just hanging out!

Thursday morning we had our first snow flurries, here are the kids watching them. It was very short lived, I can not wait for the snow!!

Alyssa's 5 am waking FINALLY catching up with her.

Ready for her Preschool Christmas program.

Aiden enjoying some punch.

Singing on stage.

So now maybe I will not be such a blog slacker and keep slightly more updated??

November Review

I am so behind on blogging I am not even going to try and catch up. So here is a brief on November...the kids Halloween pictures are on this post because if you remember my last post told of poor Alyssa being sick, so we got dressed up the Thursday after and went to Mom and Dad's to trick-or-treat. Which I might add didn't work either because I wanted to surprise them so I didn't call first. Nope, they were not home so we helped ourselves to some candy and called it a day! Also, I accomplished my goal of running a half marathon, on my Birthday! It was hard, but I am so glad I did it. I had said I only want to run one half marathon in my life, but today they announced there will be one next October here in town and for some reason I am tempted??? Anyways here are some pictures from last month:

Aiden helping me read.

This is Alyssa's new way of posing for a picture, she calls it her "style pose".

Me at the finish line :)

Snow White and a frog.

Snow White kissing her frog in hopes to turn him into a Prince.

Pumpkin Patch & NO Trick or Treating

Nothing around Halloween seemed to work out right for us this year (or maybe just how we thought). With Todd's surgery we didn't want to chance any hayrides or a lot of walking so we went to the same pumpkin patch as we did last year to get our pumpkins. I am not that upset, it is set up very cute in a church parking lot and they always have really good pumpkins. We carved them into Cinderella and Mickey Mouse per the kiddos request and Todd did a great job on the actual carving part. Alyssa helped clean them out as Aiden kept his distance from the pumpkin goo...he is pretty backwards when it come to "icky" stuff. Then on Thursday before Halloween Alyssa came down with the stomach flu :( As most of you know she has a condition that makes her body dehydrate at a fairly quick rate. So on went the stress factors for Todd and I as we took turns sitting with her upstairs while the other played with Aiden downstairs (in the disinfected part of the house :) We thought we were in the clear Friday afternoon before she started getting sick again. I called her Doctor to see if he could call in something for her and he said there was nothing, so we waited. By 10:30 pm it was apparent she was going to need some help getting over this as her eyes were starting to sink in. So Mom and I took her to the ER (Todd stayed home with Aiden). WOW, ER on a Friday night...not recommended...the crazies are out. We were moved into a trauma room behind closed doors after the police escorted patient next to us screamed the worst curse words at the top of her lungs for a while. At one point I looked at mom and she was checking out the labels on the drawers in our area...she said she was looking for a scalpel, just in case...can't say I blamed her. At this point I was glad she offered right away to join me in my trip I had planned to make myself. We saw some more police escorted patients on our way out. Anyways, back to my story, they were able to give her an oral disintegrating pill for the nausea and on try 2 after the first came immediately back up we were able to go home with a prescription for it. Makes me wonder if we could have avoided the whole ER scene if her Doc was willing to call something in. She still had a rough Halloween with round 3 of the bug but is finally back to normal. So, Aiden got in his costume for about 3 minutes and one day this week we will dress them all up and take them to Maw Maw and Paw Paw's (and some neighbor friends) so they can Trick or Treat! Sorry for the loooong post but that is a summary of Halloween for you!

Picking out pumpkins.

Getting ready to carve.

Finished products!

Our little frog.

He was debating a little walk.

Trying to climb the stairs was quite humorous :)

I will post our after Halloween shots when we get to it this week.