Our 2010 Christmas

I sorta drug my feet on getting a Christmas post up because all our christmas pictures were taken with a camera phone :)  We didn't have a good camera to use that day, but we definitely have some good memories.  It was fun to see Josiah get excited about opening gifts.  He did a nice job of helping everyone  open their gifts as well.  Gracie spent the day sleeping, smiling, being cuddled and laying around in those beautiful bright Silks from her sweet Aunties (thank you Christie and Kelli!!!)  Brian loves his TOM shoes from Nathan, Josiah has played with his new Thomas the Train set non-stop since he opened it (thank you nana, grandpa and yiayia and grandad!!!)  Nana and Grandpa were able to be with us that day and share in the fun, which mostly included being entertained and playing with Josiah the entire day!  It was definitely the most quiet Christmas I'v had so far, but a nice one!  I am very blessed to have Brian, Josiah and Grace as my family. And how wonderful to have Nana and Grandpa with us as well.

Just a side note so I can brag for a minute. Here are the cute Pillow Pets that the kids got because of my couponing! I got Joey's for $.57 and Gracie's was a bit more expensive at $2.03!!  I love couponing !! :-)

A message from Santa

This is so cute! My dear friend Megan sent me this link so that Santa can send a personalized message to Josiah. It's Adorable! And Josiah is watching it over and over and over.  Here's a little video of him watching Santa's personalized message to him.  I think no matter how you celebrate Santa in your house, you shoudld make one for your kids :-) (Thanks again for sharing Megan!)
http://www.portablenorthpole.tv/home

Tired giggles

This is tired Grace, laughing, but on the verge of a meltdown

And this is when she reached her laughing limit :-)

Happy December 21st

Happy Winter Ya'll!  On this shortest day of the year we stayed home and cooked soup, cleaned, read, napped, played and cozied up together! I was organizing the kids' closet and Josiah kept Grace happy in the crib for quite a while. It was nice! I think we'll do that again when they each need a distraction.

Santa and Snuggies

We hosted a very fun party this past Saturday night.  It was a Christmas PJ Party! We even had a visit from Santa Claus! 

Here's my sweet littel Santa Girl. (Josiah wore this Santa outfit too - I think it was Tristan's)

 Santa was handing out gifts and Josiah tried very hard to reach his gift without getting too close to Santa.

Then I put Joey on Santa's lap - haha!

 Our little family

And I got a Snuggie in our gift exchange!!! :-)

Merry Christmas Everbody!!

Santa Claus

A friend and I were recently talking about santa claus and our different experiences growing up.  I personally enjoy Santa and have tried to get Josiah equally excited about him when we see him at the mall. Josiah is scared of him and I think rightfully so.  What 2 year old isn't scared of some large man with a burley white beard and bright red outfit bellowing, "Ho Ho Ho".  Anyhow, I'm not exactly sure how this whole Santa thing is gonna go down in our home as Josiah and Grace grow up, but I like to hear people's Santa experiences from their childhood.  My friend sent this article by Mark Driscoll, "What we Tell Our Kids about Santa"  It's a good article, check it out. http://blog.marshillchurch.org/2010/12/13/what-we-tell-our-kids-about-santa-pastor-mark-for-the-washington-post/
I also heard of these great books put out by The Voice of the Martyrs.  They have books written by Cheryl Odden entitled,






St. Valentine more than cards and hearts,
St. Patrick, more than shamrocks and leprechauns
St. Nicholas more than reindeer and a red suit. 

These books tell the real story of these good people and it's written in easy to understand language for kids. They are great books that I plan on reading with my children when those holidays come around and they want to know why we celebrate Valentine's Day etc...

Just a Little TV time

For the record I'm not quite ready to potty train Josiah, but hopefully that will happen sooner rather than later.  But he likes to sit on the potty - so that's a good sign, right?  The other day Josiah wanted to sit on his potty. So i put on a Thomas the Train show and Grace wanted to sit by her brother and she also got into the Thomas the Train show (i'm pretty sure there are people out there that just might be sick at the thought of allowing their 4 month olds eyes to even look at a tv - I guess I'm not one of those people). So here they are - being babysat by the tv :-) HA!

Haha funny family photos

HAHAHA, So for those who may not be on facebook, the Old Navy facebook page has been posting bad family pictures - they're pretty funny, you should check them out.  And when I saw this one I couldn't stop laughing outloud! so why not blog it!

These are cracking me up.

Lately...

Lately we've been up to all sorts of random fun.  One of Josiah's favorite things (and Brian's too) is chopping wood. We're loving our warm fire place.  You can expect just about every evening there is a fire crackling here.

We've hung out with friends

Here's Johanna with Grace and Miles.  Miles is starting to catch up to Grace's size I do believe :)

Martin is also enjoying some quiet reading moments with us on these cold wintery days :)

I like tree Ornaments

I just love all things Christmas! And am excited to start my own family traditions as my children get older. Today Josiah and I started his advent calendar and he gets a chocolate treat each day (thanks for the calendar Kelli!). I'm pretty sure he has no concept of this whole Advent Calendar idea, but I look forward to the day he grows up and has his own fun memories of our little traditions that we will do year after year.

Speaking of good memories. I was decorating our tree a few days ago and thinking about the memory that went along with each ornament. I have this toy soldier ornament and apparently LaLa (my grandmother) gave it to me, because "From Lala -1983" is written on the back. Although I don't actually remember getting it from her, seeing it year after year has made it very special to me. (side note: My favorite ornament has always been and will always be my ballerina from Aunt Carmen. Nathan is your dude ballerina on your tree this year?)


Speaking of grandmothers, Josiah's Yiayia sent him and Grace sweet little ornaments. I was trying to explain to him how to hang it on the tree and that it's from Yiayia and Grandad and now when he sees the ornament he says "Yiayia". It's pretty cute. When he's grown he may not remember getting that gift from Yiayia, but he will remember seeing it year after year and it will become very dear to him because she's written on the back of it and made it special for him.

Love those two bears on our tree this year!

 Bonus Picture:  Sweetie little Grace