Happy December

Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and all the December fun we have been having.

Happy Birthday to me. I celebrated my 40th birthday a few days after the 3rd with a wonderful dinner made by Greg and a fun day which included getting a long over due hair cut :) and an evening with my boys and Gramma came over to play some games. A simple quiet birthday just as I was hoping.

Google was nice enough to wish me a Happy Birthday too ;)

On my actual birthday day we took the boys to see Santa! I love taking them and seeing the joy and excitement on the little boys faces as well as the "oh Mom do we really have to do this" look I get from the big boys. I love my yearly Santa pictures and told Tristan that until he is 35 and starts his own family I will always take them to the mall Santa for my yearly picture. He was not all that amused but I was. Here are a few fun pictures.

Santa was silly. He told the boys to make silly faces to get them to smile. It kind of worked.

Talking with Santa

The next week we bagan decking the halls. First we had to get our tree. It was a little weird feeling picking out a tree in 50 degree weather. I had thought about getting a fake tree this year. I thought it would save us time in the future as well as money. However, I found that the big boys did not like that idea at all and looked forward to going to the hardware store to pick out a real tree. Tristan said a fake tree does not smell like Christmas. I would have to agree. I love the smell of the real tree as it fills the house when we set it up. So we picked out a nice full real tree, took it home and got busy decking the halls.

tree hunting

Tristan putting the lights on the tree

Grayson and Declan putting ornaments on the tree

Grayson hanging his stocking

our tree

We ended up with two trees this year. this little one we put up in the computer room and decorated with all the ornaments and little decorations the boys have made over the years. 

We went to Gramma's church and had fun making many projects at the advent day. 

 All my boys. Checking out a video with Daddy. 

 Liam's class decorated candy houses. He was very excited I was able to help out. 

 

Declan was so excited to perform in his preschool Holiday program.

After all the fun school activities we started our Christmas celebration with the Shockey family Christmas at Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Jasonea's house. It was a fun day. We always enjoy when we get to play with them. 

the boys with their cousins and two cute puppies

cousin gaming 

and we got a family picture!

The beginning of next week brought Aunt Lindsey and H to town. They were able to visit for two weeks we had a great time with them throughout the holidays. We enjoyed the dancing lights at midtown but we were a bit sad when we found out they did not decorate the windows this year. Unfortunately my camera did not like the cold and I did not get the best pictures. But they'll work.

Lindsey and H loving the lights

Gramma and Tristan at the midtown lights

Grayson loved just running around that blur is him.

Declan and H had a blast dancing to the music with the lights.

We had a great time decorating Christmas cookies. Declan especially loved helping me by tasting the frosting.

He was also a great helper cutting out the cookies.

Tristan very precisely cut his cookies. He wanted to get as many as he  could out of his turn. 

T looking dashing in his chili pepper apron

Grayson got a little carried away with the sprinkles but he had a great time doing it.

 On Christmas Eve we went to Gramma's church for a beautiful service. I love that they still use real candles during Silent Night to end the service.

Looks like Santa stopped at our house.

Five eager, excited boys waiting patiently for Mommy and Daddy so they can go down and see if Santa was here.

Merry Christmas

 Looks like  everyone was on Santa's nice list this year!

After our Santa Christmas Aunt Lindsey, Gramma and H came over for the day. We enjoyed Christmas bread, bacon and eggs for brunch then had fun opening gifts from each other. 

Gramma got a blanket with a heart made out of all the names of her grandchildren 

I loved my blanket from Krista

Daddy was pretty excited about his Batman blanket Krista made.

I think Lindsey liked her gift. 

 Grayson was very excited to get his own deck of cards

Liam loves his new stuffed animal

H really got into unwrapping her gifts

We had a fun day playing new and old games enjoying good food and great company. It was such a great laid back Christmas day where we all enjoyed watching the children play. The days that followed between Christmas and New Years we went to the Durham Museum and saw the amazing tree they had decorated and had fun checking out the trains.

I loved so much watching H explore and enjoy the holidays. Colin has always been very good with her. 

Most of the days we spent hanging out at our house enjoying playing toys, games and loving playing with H. Again it was a very nice easy going playful time with new toys and games. There was one crazy snow day that pretty much had the city shut down for the day. Luckily it was a quick snow day that only lasted one day. 

Gramma reading to the children

Tristan enjoying the snow.

Happy New Year!!

Aunt Lindsey brought some fun new years eve count down activities to do between games, awesome food and new years eve fun. This make and melt your own little snowman was a huge hit. 

Another fun game she had was the balloon punch. How many times can you punch your balloon. It was a lot of fun to watch them all figure out how to do it and keep it going.

Declan was really excited about all the "competitions" as he called them,

The next game was balloon car races. These were a blast to watch and they all had so much fun racing them. Great find Lindsey!

Olaf waited a whole year for his nose again turns out he will have to wait another year as no one was close to getting his nose on.

Tristan and Aunt Lindsey worked really hard on this year fun New Years Eve cake. It started as an idea last year and came to be this year. It was fun watching them make this spectacular treat. 

We rang in the new year with noise makers and fun hats. Welcome 2016!