Christmas Day

 Merry Christmas!  We had a wonderful Christmas and are now enjoying watching the snow come down.

 We had a wonderful Christmas.  We opened presents at our house in the morning and then went over the my parents house in the afternoon. 

 The boys got some legos in their stockings which was great for them to play with while we got dressed and made breakfast.

Joel got his very own big boy lego man.  And a little helicopter.  Now when he tries to grab all of Colin's we can give him his own. And he'll still try to get Colin's but it'll buy Colin some time to get his put up - in theory :)

Joel doesnt seem very excited about his present but he does love playing with it.

 After all the presents were opened we spent some time creating with Legos.  At one point in the morning Colin leaned over to Joel, gave him a hug and kiss and whispered "thank you for my soldier planes you gave me"  So sweet and hopefully the whole giving part of Christmas will be what they remember instead of all the getting. 

 My pretty sisters

 Mary and her baby

 Mom and sisters

 Colin and I went to three different stores to find the perfect present to give to Ant Ant.  He was very specific and was so excited to give them to her.

 A very excited boy

 Mary's classic face

 My baby sister

 This family loves books

 Joel fell asleep on the way there and then woke up from his nap a little unsure of the whole thing for a while.

 James and Angela sent everyone bags of candy/snacks from Japan. This might have been the cheese kit-kat. They sent some really neat stuff. Colin woke up this morning and wanted to use his chopsticks to eat his cereal.  So he tried. 

Joel trying one of the kit-kats too.

 My grandpa saw me taking a picture and said here take a picture of me.  haha I love my grandpa

 My parents

 Colin and Ooo-eee reading one of his books

 Joel was fascinated by a snow globe

 See we all really love to read

 Colin reading his soldier books

 Mary

Merry Christmas Everyone.  Thanks for all our gifts and a great day.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Love, Colin and Joel

Isn't my big boy so handsome?  Love my new camera.  And I love this boy.  He is growing up so fast. His favorite channel on tv right now is the History Military Channel.  He'll tell you all about World War II and was very excited the other day when they advertised "world war II in COLOR!"  haha we do make sure its not graphic but he loves learning about the battle plans and I think gave Ant Ant a whole lesson in U-boats one day.  So the other day when Rod Burley stopped by with some presents dressed in NAVY CAMO my sweet boy almost passed out from excitement. And not so much over the gifts.  A real live soldier was in his house.  I'm not sure if he even talked the whole time Rod was here but after wards that's all he would talk about.  Still talks about. We did open the presents the other night since the kids were going crazy and Colin loves to tell you who gave him what so we thought this way he would remember.  Thank you Burley family for the wonderful gifts.  We now own our own Lizzy to go with AJ - Colin has claimed Lizzy and takes her everywhere.  Interesting which kid picked which dog :) And the kids are loving their bibles.  Now there is no more fighting over the bible during our family devotions.  It always felt wrong to have the kids fighting over the bible while we were trying to read it. :)  Thanks so much for loving on our family.   And now I am off to finish wrapping gifts and hoping Joel wont unwrap every gift I do wrap.  He seems to have figured out the unwrapping thing pretty quick. 

belly button

Who needs toys when you have your bellybutton

Ask Joel where it is and he will be entertained for a while.  Especially outside when he likes to fill it with dirt. 

 Joel is also a great help in the kitchen.

 It always takes longer to clean him up and the kitchen than to make an actual meal

But he loves it and this smile is worth all the mess. 

Christmas Party

 This morning we had a Noah, Adah, and Nathan over for a little Christmas fun.  Colin was so excited for his Christmas party that he didn't want to go to bed last night.  I can't imagine what Christmas Eve will be like.  The kids exchanged gifts they thoughtfully picked out at the Dollar Store for each other.  Colin took forever picking just the right gifts and Noah and Adah were super excited to give Colin his gift. It was so cute to watch them give their presents.  

Then after playing for a while they all made Gingerbread houses.

 Nathan knew the bigger kids were getting the better end of the deal here.

There is a function on my camera that automatically takes a picture if it detects a smile. 

 The kids all tried it out and it worked. 

 I want to try this function and try to get a family picture. Maybe Colin will  want to take a picture finally

 The finished results after the kids all gorged themselves of candy and frosting. I feel like a professional photographer with these artsy food pictures :)

 Noahs

 Adahs

 Colins - somehow he only got 1 or 2 pieces of candy on his house.  I'm sure the rest ended up in his mouth. Little does he know he can eat the houses later. 

Joels.  Surprisingly after all the candy Joel ate he is sleeping and taking a rather long nap (or at least long for him) 

A really fun morning.  With all the colds and sickness we've both had our families haven't seen each other for a few weeks.  Which is way too long to go without playing.  (at least for me!)

Santa Came Early

This weekend we are celebrating Christmas early with Brents dad - aka Pops.  And as you can see from the pictures Santa came early.  I'm still trying to figure out how to use the camera and will need to learn more about it but for now its very exciting.  Colin got a Leapster Explorer and we haven't heard a word from him since :)  He loves it. 

 Joel also loves it.  Basically whatever Bubba has must be better and he'll do anything to get at it.  It might be interesting Christmas morning :) 

O Christmas Tree

Dear Christmas Tree,

For years we have wanted a real tree.  It just didn't seem like Christmas with a fake one.  Last year when all the lights burnt out on the fake one we were excited about getting a real one.  And we think you are a beautiful tree. And to see Joel get so excited and yell "WOW" every time we turn the lights on is priceless. BUT YOU ARE MAKING US SICK!!!! All of us but Brent. We both grew up having real Christmas trees and it bothered me a little but not like this. I have never been more blocked up in my life. So much that the boys and I can't play in the room with you more than 5 minutes and our noses start to run and we can't breath.  Sad to say this is the last year we are going to have a real Christmas tree in our house.  Enjoy it now because the day after Christmas you are coming down.  I am going to enjoy my fake one and wont even notice that it doesn't smell like a "real" tree because right now I can't smell anything.

The one good thing you have going for you is the amount of needles you drop every day. Pretty soon you wont have any more needles left.  But my Colin gets excited to see the needles on the ground because he thinks it means the elves have been swinging from your branches at night.

So enjoy our house now Christmas tree and please stop emitting your mold spores which according to Google are making us sick.  

weekend away

We just got back from a weekend away from the kids.   The kids were excited to spend the weekend with my parents but unfortunately Joel got really sick.  so my parents were reminded of what it was like to be up all night with a sick baby. Poor thing.  I felt awful for my parents.  But Colin had a blast. He didn't want to leave and has since kept asking when he can go back to grandpa and Ma-ma-maas house without mommy and daddy.  According to Colin they did really fun things this weekend: build an army tent, play with Uncle Opies really cool legos, make monkey bread, etc.  He keeps telling me all they did. But according to him he had FOUR jobs in the monkey bread making and Ma-Ma-Maa only had 3 jobs...

But the reason we left town was to go to our friend Troy's wedding. Brent was in the wedding and it was a great weekend hanging out with friends.  Brent has an incredible group of friends who have been friends for a really long time. It was really fun to all get together. It was fun for me to meet Melissa - Troys wife.  I always tried to picture who he would marry and she is just perfect for him.

Thats the only picture I got all weekend.  Still hoping Santa comes through with the camera. I should have asked for an early delivery :) But i did get this video at the rehearsal.  I think i was trying to get a picture but I'm glad i got the video.  I love Pete and Ashleigh's voices. 

Brent and I had a great time together. It was great to be able to finish conversations and have so much quality time together. Great for our marriage so thanks Mom and Dad for taking care of the boys.  Next time we'll do it not during cold/flu season! 

And so I don't forget.  We came home last night and before bath time Joel said "ga pee" and i held him up and he peed on the potty!  What a big boy.  My mom said he was also saying "read books" very clearly all weekend.  And Joel definitely has a ton more hair.  Even my mom thought so.  Go away for a few days and your baby is all grown up. 

I DO!

Isn't my little boy so cute?  Joel has finally come up with a name for Colin - Bubba.  Colin loves having a name now.  We're not sure it will stay but we think he's trying to say brother but it comes out bubba.  Its so cute.  He will sometimes go through our family and say momma, dadda, bubba, baby.  Not sure if he's calling himself baby but when he sees pictures of himself he always points and says baby. 

Another thing he does now that is so cute and fun for us is when you ask a question he will raise his hand and say "I DO!" but it sounds like "I DUUUUE" For example "who wants lunch?" "Who wants a fruit snack?" (his favorite by the way) "who wants to go outside?"  Pretty  much any question.  Its gotten so Colin or I can say "who wants to eat poop?" and Joel will excitedly raise his hand and say "I DUUUUE" Colin thinks its great.  And it is pretty cute and funny.  Poor guy - the abuse he gets :)

Snow and Christmas Trees

 Another weekend has come and gone.  But we finally finished our floors!  On Saturday night we went with some friends to watch the Chesapeake Christmas Parade.  During the parade it started snowing - just a few flurries but the kids were really excited.  Early Sunday morning I got woken up by Colin saying "mommy come look - there is like 1000 snowflakes on the ground!!!!!"  We got a light dusting of snow.  The kids wanted to go outside and play right away so I bundled them up and we went to play in the snow before church.  Colin got outside, knelt down on the ground and started praying "thank you Jesus for the snow.  You answered my prayer!"  I guess on the way home from the parade he was disapointed it wasn't still snowing and prayed that it would snow more.  

It wasn't much but enough for Colin to scrape the snow into a few snowballs to throw at his poor mom. 

Later in the afternoon we went and picked out our Christmas tree.  Colin was so excited and of course got there and found the biggest 20+foot tree.  We didn't have the money for that tree or the room in our house.  But he was determined and camped out near the tree until we picked him up and took him home :) 

He then came home and shut himself in his room and said he wasn't coming out until after Christmas because he didn't want daddy's tree - he wanted his huge tree.  I got him to come join in the fun when I got our all his Christmas ornaments and we went through the box and I told him who gave him each one. He still says his tree is much better but I think he's starting to come around.

Joel loved it all and has had fun playing with the ornaments.  All the non breakable ones are at the bottom so now we're teaching him how to touch without pulling the whole tree down.  We only lost 1 angel and 1 hokie candy canes so I'm hoping thats all we lose this season. 

Family Devotions

We started this a few months ago and I think thats when these pictures were taken. But we started calling bedtime "family devotions" and reading the kids bedtime stories/bible together as a family.  The kids LOVE it.  All you have to say is that its time for Family Devotions and they both run to Joel's room.  And fight over Colin's picture bible.... Joel loves to story of Jesus telling the disciples to throw out their nets and they caught all the fish.  Colin just likes to choose a new story every night.

And then we'll read more stories and watch the kids dance to some music.  Every night.  We always have to then say "whoever wants to pray raise their hand" and Colin always has to get his hand up first.  Joel now will raise his hand with the rest of us.  Then we sing our goodnight song to everyone: "Good night Joel. Good night Joel.  Good night Joel. Its time to go to sleep."  And we sing it to each person.   And sometimes we sing goodnight to poop and pee (to the great amusement of the boys)  Colin and I sneak out where he gets another bedtimes story while Brent puts Joel to bed.  Its getting so fun we are starting right after dinner so we dont have to rush it. The kids are in bed and asleep so fast and easy without complaining about bedtime.  A fun family tradition we all love.