Ayden and Anna met Santa!

Santa and Mrs. Claus crashed my Aunt Lena's Christmas party last night and even brought gifts for all the kids!

You can't tell in this picture, but Anna liked sitting on Santa's lap

Santa got her a fun toy that plays music, she loves it

Ayden refused to sit on Santa's lap, but liked him ok as long as he didn't get too close

Santa gave Ayden a motorcycle!

Vroom!!!

All the kids also got ornaments, here is Anna sitting on Grandma's lap playing with hers

Christmas #1

We had our Christmas with Eric's family last Thursday because his parents are going to be out of town for Christmas. Ayden was dying to open the presents all night and finally grabbed one and started opening it, luckily it was actually for him. Anna enjoyed unwrapping the gifts and then playing with the paper (of course).

not sure what he's doing in this pic, but it's cute

A crafty playdate

Tuesday morning we went to a playdate at my friend Tracy's house. She had a couple of crafts planned for the kiddos to do. There were cutouts of Christmas trees and stocking and some stickers to decorate them with. Tracy also had baked sugar cookies and had frosting, gel frosting in tubes, chocolate chips, and sprinkles to decorate them.

Ayden decorated both a Christmas tree and a stocking. He was very happy to be allowed to stick stickers wherever he wanted them. He also decorated a gingerbread shaped cookie with a healthy helping of chocolate frosting and some sprinkles. He had a couple bites of it and then spent the next 20 minutes eating the frosting off the top of the cookie.

Here is (almost) everyone starting their various crafts

Rana and her son Lucas

Keagan and her daughter Keara

Kim and her son Timmy

Tracy and her son Caden

Hard at work creating a masterpiece

I couldn't resist making a cookie for myself

Chocolate face

Anna played on the kitchen floor while we crafted

After everyone had left but us, Ayden and Caden raced cars

We finally got our Christmas tree up!

Tuesday we bought a Christmas tree. We didn't get to the lot until about 7:30 at night and it was around 20 degrees outside with a chilly breeze blowing to boot. It was COLD! We hurriedly looked through all the trees and chose the first one that looked decent. We ended up picking a really great one, it is almost perfect.

Ayden was really excited to bring it inside and set it up. By the time we got the tree up it was bedtime, so we didn't decorate it until Wednesday evening. At first, Ayden was all gung-ho about putting the ornaments on, but the excitement wore off after only a couple of ornaments, so he opted to run around and play with Otis while Eric and I decorated the tree. He did help put the angel on the top of the tree, though.

A dog and his boy

He's gonna be such a good daddy someday!

My front pack was still out from when we all went and played in the snow, and Ayden decided that he wanted to wear his baby around. He was so cute! At one point he got a bottle and sat down on the stairs to feed his baby. He kept saying, "she's drinking a lots of milk."

A wolf in sheep's clothing

Tonight, Ayden put on Anna's coat and I couldn't resist taking some pictures. I'm sure he'll really appreciate them someday :o) I admit, I put the bow on him, but in my defense it just goes so much better with the coat than the baseball cap does! Am I right or am I right?

trying to be scary while wearing baby sister's coat

♫ I feel pretty, oh, so pretty! ♪

hammin' it up

Our first really good snowfall

helping daddy shovel the driveway

she's a snow bunny

happy to be playin' in the snow

all bundled up

throwing snow at Anna and mama

showing off his "cool" gloves

he's a snow monster . . .arrgh

Just like daddy and big brother

Our boys love their ball caps and Anna decided to see what the fuss is all about. She was playing with daddy's hat today and put it on all by herself!

The reason for the season

It's really important to Eric and me that our kids grow up knowing and loving God and understanding who Jesus is and what he has done for us. We want them to know that Christmas means more than just pretty lights, Christmas trees, Santa, and getting presents.

Ayden and I have watched a couple of DVDs this year about the birth of Jesus, but I didn't feel that he was really understanding that it was more than just another cartoon. A couple of weeks ago, we were over at Eric's sister's house for dinner and she had a nativity set that is especially for kids. I fell in love with it and saw an opportunity to give Ayden and Anna a hands-on lesson about the birth of Christ. I ordered one for us from http://www.christianbook.com/ and it was delivered yesterday. We had lots of fun playing with it last night. Ayden already knows the names of all the pieces, and Anna has chewed on all of them, even baby Jesus.

She's on the go!

Anna walked with the aide of a toy for the first time last night! She is getting very good at being mobile. She is even starting to transfer from one piece of furniture to another and cruise along things(albeit very slowly). I'll bet that she will be walking by her first birthday.

Some Sunday night family fun

Most Sundays all of Eric's family, including us, get together and have dinner. Tonight we all went over to his sister and her husband's house. One part of their house is an old shop that was converted into living space so it has cement floors. They have these office type chairs, the kind with rollers. Well after dinner a few of us were sitting in these chairs, on the cement floor, and discovered that the chairs rolled amazingly well across the floor. One thing led to another and before you know it, we all had a chair and were zinging around the room like crazy people! We had an absolute blast! Everyone got in on the action and we spent a good hour or better rolling to our hearts content.

I am so thankful that Eric happened to fix my camera today, because I got some priceless footage. This is the kind of stuff that will be looked back on in a few years and really enjoy. I had the funnest evening that I have had in a long time.

My hero saved the day!

♥♥♥♥ Eric fixed my camera!!! What a terrific guy I have! ♥♥♥♥

Oldies but goodies

So I've decided that since I can't post any new pictures due to my broken camera, I will post some of my favorite old pictures. You'll note that these are completely random, and that is mostly 'cause I'm lazy :o)

Anna's piggies

One of my very favoritist pictures of my Ayden boy

A boy and his grandpa: it's a beautiful thing

My water babies

Ayden's #1 fan . . . himself!

The other day Ayden was singing a-la-la over and over to himself in his own random, made-up tune. After listening for a couple of minutes, Eric told him "I like your song" to which Ayden replied, "yah, it's my favorite song."

Our elf-selfs cuttin' a rug!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Tragedy has struck!

I dropped my camera and broke it!!! I am so mad at myself. I was holding Anna and I wanted to get a picture of her cute bedhead so I picked up my camera with the unoccupied hand and turned it on, and then deftly dropped it. It bent the lens part that goes in and out when you turn the camera on and off, so now it won't move or work. I will probably take it to a camera repair shop and hope that it won't be too expensive to get fixed. In the mean time, I am without a camera. I feel crippled! Hardly a day goes by without me taking a picture of the kids and now I am looking at a couple of weeks. Sheesh, me and my butterfingers!