Simply having...

a wonderful Christmas time, however I'm glad it is over. Is there such thing as too much Christmas? My boys may have experienced this, we started our Christmas adventures on Sunday the 23rd with Grandpa Tim's family Christmas. It was great to see everyone and Gabe had a great time opening his presents. He loved everything and still loves to get clothes, he would take everything out of the wrapping and immediately want to open the box or would try to put on the clothes, if only he could keep that excitement for getting clothes through elementary school age, don't worry I'm not holding my breath for that. Everyone also had fun trying out my cousins Nintendo Wii. I thought we may have to call an ambulance for Carl as he overexerted himself with the boxing game but had fun none the less. The 24th we went to church and celebrated Christmas with my immediate family, where Gabe once again had great fun opening his presents. I am enjoying a gift from that Christmas as well in the form of a new, fully-functioning dish washer, ours bit the dust a few months ago and I have been hand washing all the dishes since and using the dishwasher as a glorified drying rack, one never appreciates the convenience of a dishwasher until they have lived with one, then without and then get one back! Ty this whole time really does not care if he has any presents at all, he just loves to chew on his hands. Christmas morning we had our family Christmas just the 4 of us, Gabe loves his new tool set and often helps Daddy fix things around the house now. That noon and afternoon we celebrated with my Mom's side of the family. At this point Gabe is pretty much already on present overload. That night my Aunt and Uncle and boys got a hotel to stay at that had a pool so we took Gabe swimming, he had fun once he got over being scared of the water. He also tried out the sauna with Uncle Pete. The 26th we celebrated with Carl's family and Gabe received his biggest present yet, a tractor that he can ride on, fully motorized (well with the help of a battery) complete with a wagon to pull behind. The boys had 4 days of non-stop Christmas and for Gabe very little to no naps, he was tired, as were his mom and dad. So now that Christmas is over ( and I'm glad just to get back to a normal napping schedule) I look back and realize how blessed we are to have such close knitted families to celebrate the birth of Jesus together.

For Unto You is Born This Day...

a Savior Which is Christ the Lord! We just wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Blessed New Year!

Hilton Magic

We were adventurous last night and took both boys to the basketball game at Hilton. My mom and dad came with so we had some extra hands. I found you really don't watch too much of the game when you have a 2 year old around. Gabe was funny doing the cheers and clapping with the fight song but mostly he wanted to give Cy high 5's. Ty found the game to be somewhat boring apparently as he fell asleep on Grandma's lap. When he was awake he would just look around at all the lights, he did a great job. As Gabe would say "we had fun at the baketball place."

Snowy Days

Gabe loves the snow, it could be -30 and the kid would still want to play outside in the snow. I finally found him a pair of snow pants, they didn't match his coat, which bugged me because I'm weird like that, but they were Navy and they would keep him warm and dry and that was all I was going for at this point. Anyway so we let him go outside and play in the back yard on Saturday, it was pretty cold so I would check on him quite often and always ask if he wants to come in, his answer was always no of course. He loved playing in his car and with his dump truck and loved digging in the snow with Daddy's shovel. Finally red cheeked and runny nosed Gabe was forced to come in by his Mommy, what a mean lady! On another note Gabe went potty in the toilet this past weekend as well, it was a big celebration at our house! He is no where near being completely trained but we are making progress. Ty had his 4 month check up this past Friday. He weighed in at a whopping 15 lbs. 2 oz. I was thinking he weighed less then that so I was surprised. He is doing great and we can start cereal anytime now, I think we will wait awhile though since he doesn't seem to need anything else to eat right now. He got 4 shots which are no fun, he is okay the day of but the couple days after my cute, content little baby turns into a crab, I think the effects have finally worn off now. We took his 4 month pictures in the chair and it always ends up being a few of Ty and then Gabe wants to join in the fun too. Ty scratched himself pretty good this past week also so I had to post the picture, with the towel over his head Carl said he looks like Rocky.

Out of the Mouths of Gabes

I was relaying some stories of things Gabe had said the other day and I thought I would post them, I thought they were pretty cute, of course I am probably biased. A few weeks ago we were driving out to church to drop off a lasagna for the cast of the Christmas production and of course we were running a little late. I decided in not my best judgment moment to take the back entrance, which is a gravel road that was basically sheer ice with a few assorted divets and ruts from tires. As we were driving I hit one of the big ruts and it sent the jeep spinning, we proceeded to spin to the edge of the ditch , pretty close to one of the electric poles but stopped just short. I was able to drive right out as we didn't go in very far. I said to Gabe, more reassuring myself than him that it was okay, we were okay, that it just scared me, to this Gabe replied, "it okay Mommy, God help you," a good lesson to be learned from a 2 year old. He also sometimes makes my heart melt with his sweetness. Ty had his 4 month check-up the other day and had his shots. I was changing Ty's diaper and Gabe noticed that Ty had band-aids on his thighs. Gabe said "Baby Ty has owies" I said yes, Baby Ty got his shots. Gabe replied, "yeah Baby Ty got shot, I got shot too" I said no you didn't get shots, he then agreed with me and said "I need to biss, Baby Ty's owies, I need to biss them Mommy, I need to make them better" so Gabe had me pick him up so he could kiss his brothers owie leg, it was so cute! That's all for now, I will post pics next time but just wanted to get those two stories blogged.

This and That

This December has not been a pleasant weather month. It is hard to keep a 2 year old entertained in the house everyday. To add to the problem I went to Target to buy Gabe some snow pants and they were all out of boy colors. They had 2 pairs of pretty pink pants left but that was it, I didn't think his Daddy would approve of that color so I refrained from buying him any. To keep him somewhat entertained I bought him bubble bath. He has not liked taking baths lately but will play for a long time if there are bubbles in the tub. To add to our stir crazy mood Gabe decided to fall asleep on our bedroom floor yesterday, for those of you who have not been to our house we have wood floors throughout so this couldn't have been a comfortable place to sleep, well I thought it was cute so I grabbed the camera, took a picture and then picked him to lay him down in his bed. Not happening yesterday, we went round and round for over an hour with him not wanting to sleep and me wanting him to. He went to bed early last night. Ty is trying to roll over and gets all the way up on his side and then just lays there. I help him out every once in awhile to see if he will figure it out but it hasn't happened yet. He is getting really strong little neck muscles though and is holding himself up so much better on his tummy now. He has his 4 month Dr. checkup on Friday, I can't believe he is almost 4 months already.

Toothy Grin

It's official, Ty now has 2 teeth. Just like big brother Gabe he got them both right about the same time and at 3 1/2 months. I have been trying to get a picture of them but I have been rather unsuccessful. I have one where you can kind of see them but it is blurry. I'll just post one of him smiling and you can use your imagination, trust me they're there. This past week and weekend we were able to go to the Christmas production at our church, Carl went 3 times and I went twice, the first time with his work, the 2nd with my parents and Carl went with some friends. It was absolutely amazing. I'm so glad I was able to see it more then once. So much time, hard work and dedication went into this production and it showed, it was fabulous. While Carl went with our friends I stayed home with our kids and their little girl Olivia. It was fun for her and Gabe to play together, it always brings a different dynamic to the mix when you throw in a little girl, while still playing tractors and blocks Olivia played dress up and Gabe was her model once with her putting her pretty pink coat on him, it was pretty funny and surprisingly he was cooperative. Gabe had a big day that day with no nap since we had been to the production in the afternoon and was pretty tired. He climbed up on Daddy's lap and while he was reading to him he fell asleep. I of course, had to grab the camera and capture the moment as it happens so rarely anymore. It seems like just yesterday he would fall asleep in our arms so easily and now he hardly even lets us snuggle him anymore. Where has the time gone?

Adventures in Cookie Making

Today was cookie making day at our house. Gabe's friend Brady and his mommy and baby sister came over and we made roll out sugar cookies. Brave you might say, with 2 two year olds and two infants ages 6 months and 4 months but it actually turned out pretty good. There were a few tears and moments of frustration and the boys got a little frustrated at times too, but for the most part they did a good job. Gabe did much better this year then last. Last year he was afraid to touch the dough and didn't quite get the gist of the sprinkle thing. This year he wasn't at all afraid of the dough as some of it ended up in his mouth and the sprinkles were the best part. As I cleaned up the mess I thought why did I want to do this again, but even just sitting here now I realize that this is part of making Christmas Memories, I'm sure the day is coming sooner then I want to think about, when my boys won't want to help their old mom make cookies anymore and when that day comes I will look back on today and smile thinking of my flour covered little boy and how much fun he had eating, I mean making cookies with his Mommy.

Christmas Jammies

Gabe singing Oh Christmas Tree while reading his book.
Christmas Jammies are so cute, so brothers wearing their matching Christmas Jammies are even cuter!
Ty's First Christmas Jammie picture





On a non-Christmas note this is one of the projects we got done on Saturday, the lettering had been sitting in our house for quite awhile and it finally was put up above our dining room. We love it.

Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful

Wow what a bad weather weekend. We ended up not going to the tree farm on Saturday because of all the snow/ice. We just stayed home that day and got some Christmas shopping done and a few things around the house as well. Sunday morning my mom and dad watched the boys and we headed up to the tree farm since the weather was better and we were fearing a large crowd since Saturday was so bad. It was a good thing we went, we did end up selling lots of trees Sunday afternoon. I posted a few pics, Ty fell asleep in his bouncy seat still hanging onto his butterfly(he loves those things) I finally put the boys in their matching pj's the other day and remembered to take a picture and I am trying out putting up a video. Gabe is doing the Go Cyclones cheer he learned at the games and also helping me sing Twinkle, Twinkle(please no one be jealous of my insanely good singing voice :)

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

I forgot to mention in my last post we put up our Christmas tree on Monday. Gabe was super excited, he kept saying "Bismas Tree in da House" and then he would laugh. We had him put the star on top. When he went to bed that night there were only lights on so when he woke up the next morning and came out to find a decorated tree, complete with pine cones, he was super excited(the kid loves pines cones for some reason.) He has already called Grandpa and Grandma to come over to see his Bismas Tree.

So why the switch?

So I decided to switch our website with a little prodding from my husband. He said this is a better layout so we are giving it a try. We have had a busy past couple of weeks. We traveled up to Algona for the Thanksgiving holiday to celebrate with the Mawdsley's and to help out at the tree farm. It was a busy weekend but it went well. Gabe enjoyed helping to run the tractor to shake tree's and Ty kept Grandma Nancy busy in the house. Ty got to meet Aunt Em for the first time this week as well(see picture). I think she kind of liked him as she joked she was going to take him back with her in her carry on! Gabe had a great time being on the farm. He was able to visit Uncle Bone one day and he got 2 tractor rides, as well as the tractor rides he received everyday on Grandpa Matt's blue tractor, he was in 7th heaven! Gabe also loved Purdy (Andrea and Alan's dog who Grandpa Matt adopted) she was a patient dog who endured many Gabe hugs during the week(the picture didn't capture the hugs but we did get a few good ones with the two of them). We were also able to get the boy's Christmas Card picture taken, it is extremely difficult to get a 2 year old and a 3 month old to look at the camera at the same time, let alone smile, but we did get a few good ones. We will head up to the farm again this weekend, as it will be a busy one. We hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving.