One Thing - 12/30/14

This is what a week of Christmas celebrations and a few days at Grandma and Grandpa's house does to a busy 2 year old.

One Thing - 12/28/14

We went sledding again today and took Lydia with us. She loved it! 

"Snowflakes that stay on your nose and eyelashes" 

One Thing - 12/27/14

We had our family Christmas at my parents' house in Mountain Lake today. After opening gifts and eating lunch, some of us went sledding. We sure are thankful for the 3 or so inches of snow that fell overnight that made the brown landscape beautifully white!

One Thing - 12/26/14

After I got home from working this morning, we finished packing and loaded up our van for the trip to Mountain Lake for a few days with Grandma and Grandpa Nelson. We are here for a few days and another Christmas celebration tomorrow. Sweet boy is asleep by a Christmas tree. :)

One Thing - 12/25/14

Merry Christmas!

We are so thankful to be back in Minnesota this year! We were able to wake up in their own beds, open stockings, drive to the cities for 2 family celebrations, and drive back home again to sleep in our own beds. We had a great day!

Jude loves his new elephant squeaky toy

Hanging out with Grandma and Great Grandma at Mommy's cousin's house.

Jonah doing a sticker by number

One Thing - 12/24/14

Today...

Lots of time to play with new toys

Hanging out with this cutie (And last night he decided it wasn't enough to just sleep as close to me as he could get. His goal was to get his face as close as possible to my face.)

Only one day left to go on our Noel Calendar

Children's story time at our Christmas Eve service. And, all 4 kids sat in on the service with me tonight for the first time ever. We definitely weren't as quiet as we could have been, but I didn't have to take anyone out until the last 30 seconds of the service. I would call that success in this stage of life!

Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!

One Thing - 12/23/14

We celebrated Christmas at home today with just our family. We always look forward to this day to be together. There are many pictures I could share, but I will stick to what I captured with my phone. 

We started the day with Christmas tree cinnamon rolls, eggs, and bacon.

We finally lit the last candle in our advent wreath after singing Happy Birthday to Jesus. He is the light of the world! 

Then, we read Luke 2 and opened our gifts.

The kids spent the rest of the day playing with their new toys. We also watched Garfield Christmas, read God Gave Us Christmas, and enjoyed a nice supper together.

Lydia put a dollar bill in her bird bank.

One Thing - 12/22/14

It was so fun helping Jonah and Silas wrap the gifts they bought!

One Thing - 12/21/14

IWe have been overwhelmingly blessed by our church as families have given us wonderful Christmas treats and gifts over the past few weeks. 

Today, we all received beautifully knit hats from the boys' Sunday School and Weenesday night teacher. She made these beard hats for all the boys including  Mike. I need to get a picture of all 4 of them together!

After naps this afternoon I took each of the boys shopping separately so they could buy gifts for their siblings. They each used their own money. Although their budget was only about $2 a gift, I was so impressed with their choices and the thought they put into them. They are looking forward to our family Christmas so they can give their gifts!

And, ever since Grandpa helped to get the Legos organized and put away, the boys' creative minds have been building lots of cool creations. This is Jonah's farm.

This farmer is busy harvesting his corn!

 

One Thing - 12/20/14

Whew! Grandma and Grandpa Nelson just left after being at our house for just about a day. It was a great and wonderfully helpful 24 hours! 

They brought this beautiful entry bench that my dad made. I am so thrilled that our shoes, hats, and mittens will now have a more organized home!

Grandma brought a couple of new-to-us Berenstain Bear books that she found at the thrift store in Mountain Lake.

Grandma brought a yummy meal for supper and lots of our favorite desserts. Then, they watched some stories on Grandpa's iPad and played a board game.

After everyone was in bed, we played cribbage and rummy - an enjoyable pastime we don't get to do much in these years with little ones. 

This morning, Grandma got to hear Jonah read one of his stories from his reading lesson. Grandpa fixed a broken drawer in Lydia's antique dresser. They hung out with the kids while I went to church to practice for a special music for the service tomorrow. Then, Grandpa stayed home with the boys while Grandma, Lydia, and I went shopping at a few places in town.

While we were out and again after lunch, Grandpa (with a little help from the boys) worked on sorting Legos and cleaning up the boys' room. Jonah and Silas are SO excited about their clean room. And, I am, too! 

Also this afternoon, the boys decorated gingerbread men that Grandma made.

I was finally able to hang this vinyl lettering over my nativity scene that is in a display area over our stairs. I LOVE it! 

We also got most of the house picked up and about half of it vacuumed. I am so thankful for the help we had in making our crazy home a little more sane! And, we are all so thankful for the kindness of my parents to help us with all of these things!

And, Jude - he was just hanging out enjoying all of the extra cuddles and attention. He has not been sleeping well

at night for almost a month. We are exhausted! He has been ending up in our bed at some point nearly every night. Thankfully he slept until 6:15 this morning after only waking up once to eat last night. I snapped this picture this morning after I fed Jude. I think it perfectly depicts nights with our baby in this tiring stage of life.

One Thing - 12/18/14

This morning we met with our homeschool group that gets together every other week to do a science lesson. We have recently added a couple more kids and found a new location to meet so we don't have to rotate houses. We now meet at a teen center in town. After our lesson, the kids enjoyed some ping pong, foosball, and playing at the pool table.

One Thing - 12/17/14

Silas had his Christmas program at preschool this morning. He did a great job!

One Thing - 12/16/14

Tuesdays are usually our rest days. Mike doesn't work and we don't do school. So, we always look forward to this day together. This morning we slept in until 8, got some rooms picked up, finished off Christmas cards, put together plates of cookies for our neighbors, and stayed in our pajamas until we decided to go to the Downtown Deli for lunch at noon.

As Lydia and I were walking to the van after lunch she said, "I liked my munch, Mommy. I liked my munch." I just love how this girl calls lunch "munch!"

Then we stopped by the post office to mail out our cards and headed home for naps/quiet times. Hopefully the rest of our day will be filled with delivering our plates of cookies, a little more cleaning, wrapping gifts, reading Christmas books and maybe watching a Christmas movie. We love our days together!

One Thing - 12/15/14

Lydia is beginning to like books on tape just like her brothers.

One Thing - 12/14/14

It was Christmas Program Morning at church!

One Thing - 12/13/14

I have joined the masses in this modern era and gotten a smartphone. We have held off to this point, but out of a desire to have easier ability to take photo/video Mike got me an iPhone. I am thankful already for the pictures and video of daily life that I have been able to take.