December's Everyday Moments

December was full of treats and parties, play dates, friends, and family. 

We like to soak up every minute of the holiday season....from home. I love being in our home and just enjoying each other. I sure am blessed with these 4 cute boys!

Here are a few of our everyday happenings we caught on camera 

(Tave is MIA in pics because he despises getting his picture taken...I'm going to work harder to get some candid shots of  his cute self next month!):

Callen's tried food for the first time. He wasn't sure at first, but then gobbled it up pretty quickly!

We did lots and lots and LOTS of coloring. These boys are color-holics.  Which I love!  

Ryder usually just scribbles on the page for a sec and is done, but this month he actually started coloring. At 29 months (so almost 2 1/2 years) he is my youngest to be able to color this well. We were all super impressed:

Very first fully 'colored' picture:

This crazy guy loves dress ups:

I made a cupcake hat for my friend's little girl. I LOVE how it turned out!  It was a fun and pretty easy pattern to follow:

Callen discovered his toes. This photo cracks me up:

And of course, the boys in their new Sunday Christmas outfits.  

These boys have every bit of my heart:

Happy 2012!

Jingles

We had a friend come visit over the holidays. 

Yup, we started the elf on the shelf tradition! 

We had so much fun with this little guy, who the boys finally named Jingles (after many days of debate!)

Jingles got into quite a lot of mischief at our house and he is most definitely part of the family for good!

Most of our pictures are on Jeff's phone...but here are a few of the things Jingles was up to:

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Christmas!

Christmas Morning at our house:

Kiddos woke up and got to open stockings right away, then we had breakfast:

Callen thought it was okay:

We tried something new this year and had the kids open 1 gift every half hour. It was a lot of fun because they actually played with the gifts in between. We loved it!

My parents made the boys these AWESOME sling shots and angry birds.  Seriously, they are the coolest things. I am so impressed with my mom and dad's handiwork. Of course they were a  hit and we all had a blast shooting down the pigs! 

We love watching Nonny & Grandpa open their stuff from us:

And Uncle Shawn:

Mckenon:

I think every boy under the age of 7 got the Imaginext Castle this year...all our friends now have it!  It is definitely a favorite, though, and the kids were THRILLED:

My mom made the gift of $ so much fun:

Love my bros:

We were SO excited for the boys to open the trampoline. We waited until the end of the gifting and it was so worth the wait:

Uncle Shawn & Callen:

Since Callen is not old enough to care, we just wrapped a few toys that were the boys at this age.  I hadn't pulled them out, yet, so I could do this. New toys for him, $ saved for us = win/win!  

Jeff and his Christmas/birthday gift, he was happy!

The best part of Christmas is spending the time together playing with everything.  We loved it:

And Merry FIRST Christmas to this little man, we are so glad you are part of our family:

We were too busy having fun and playing together to get a group shot! 

Christmas Eve...after the kiddos go to bed

I love Christmas. I love the magic and the Spirit and every bit of it.  I love the giving and the loving and the selflessness that comes with doing for others.  

As a parent, Christmas is even better than I ever thought as a kid. 

We spent the evening listening to music, putting toys together. And wrapping. And wrapping. I kind of procrastinated that part! It was awesome, and I loved it. Although, next year I WILL wrap before hand so we can watch a Christmas flick and go to bed early!

Because winters are so snowy and cold and we are stuck inside for so long, we decided to get the boys a trampoline.  My dad and bros helped Jeff put it together and then we had some fun on it...as much as we could considering we had a ceiling to watch out for!

All wrapped up:

The tree:

The stockings:

Our little family:

 So excited for the a.m.!