Christmas Eve Photo Flops

Since I didn't get around to taking an official picture for Christmas cards this year I didn't do my annual Christmas card Photo Flops. However the kids in their Christmas outfits in front of the tree on Christmas Eve did provide the opportunity to post some photo flops anyway. Enjoy(disclaimer...my camera stinks, takes terrible flash and dark pictures, sorry)Merry Christmas! Love, Gabe, Ty, and Callie

Our Christmas Card

I am being very cheap this year. I did not do a paper Christmas Card. We are on a tight budget and the Christmas Cards were one place I could trim a little around holiday time so I decided to do our annual Christmas update on here instead(after all what good is a blog if you can't make good use of it:) A quick little update on us...

Carl-Still working at Jcorp in Huxley and enjoying his job. He will begin taking his exams to become licensed the first part of this coming year. He can still be found cheering on the Cyclones most Saturdays as well as keeping our house and yard in good shape. He is leading our connection group from church again this year and we are loving it. It is so nice to have a great group to share life with!

Hollie-Stopped working at the local coffee shop this past spring when it was beginning to get difficult to get time off and was going to miss kids activities. While she enjoyed the people and the job it was just time to be done. She loves getting to stay home with the kiddos and with Gabe and Ty gone at school at least 4 mornings a week has been enjoying getting some 1 on 1 time with Callie.

Gabe-Started Kindergarten this year. He goes full days and he LOVES school. He is reading more and more and amazes us with his stories he likes to write and have Carl help illustrate. He is still our space nut and enjoys looking through space books and in general leaning new things to share with us about space. He played T-ball this past summer and enjoyed it.

Ty-Started preschool this past fall. He goes 4 morning per week and also loves his time at school! He is getting so much better with writing his name and drawing pictures. We love his people pictures. He loves cars and racing and making up games to play with his brother. They can often be found playing real life angry birds and Mario Brothers around the house. He played Bam Bam baseball this past summer and still talks about it!

Callie-Turned 2 this past October. She is energetic, talkative, opinionated and cuddly. She loves Cinderella(every Princess is Cinderella to her), pushing her baby in the stroller, causing trouble for her brothers and "helping" Mommy with everything. She is talking more and more all the time and most of the time we can figure out what she is saying now:)

Baby #4-yep you read that right. Baby #4 is due to make his/her appearance in the middle of July. July will be a busy month for our family as Hollie's brother is getting married at the beginning of the month in Iowa City. We are praying baby #4 is cooperative and stays safely put until after his wedding! We are very excited to complete our family and welcome one last little bundle into our lives! We had our 1st Doctors visit this past week and got a sneak peak at the little peanut. Doing well and wiggling all over with a strong little heartbeat.

We pray that Jesus remains the focus for your family this Christmas season. May you have a Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year!

Christmas #1 and Basketball

We celebrated Christmas this past weekend with the Mawdsleys up in Burt. My Grandma is still healing from her broken leg so we took Christmas up there this year. The weather was so nice and the kids had a blast actually getting to play outside. They had lots of fun exploring and racing around the farm. Callie was content to sit in this little chair and say cheese.We got one with her and Great Grandma and Grandpa too!
Callie also enjoyed spending some time with Great Grandma in the big chair.We did manage to get a picture of all 3 with Uncle Bone. Although it was hard to get all 3 to look and smile at once(but what else is new...) Callie was sporting her new princess stocking hat and mittens from Great Grandma and Grandpa.
We all had so much fun spending time with family and then kids were worn out and slept a lot of the drive home. The next day we had tickets to the basketball game.
The kids had lots of fun cheering and yelling during the game(and dancing to the music) Ty wanted his picture taken with me so he could see it on the camera. I thought it turned out pretty cute.Callie got a little restless between songs she could dance to so she switched between sitting on our laps and sharing a seat with Gabe.All the kids enjoyed their popcorn throughout the game.
We had a good time at the game and are glad they don't last any longer for Callie's sake. She was starting to get rather restless by the end. This last picture is not from Christmas or the game but Gabe got ahold of my camera the other day and I found a lot of random pictures he had taken around the house. I thought this one was too cute not to share.
What a couple of cheeseballs!

Around the Tree Farm

Besides picking out our Christmas tree the kids also had lots of fun playing around the tree farm.

Like playing on the ramp with cars and in general just running and jumping off it. (Until I made them pose for a picture:)

and using the tool box as a stage.

The netter always makes for great entertainment

The tractor is always a fun entertainment option as well.

Fortunately while it was cold and somewhat windy we had pretty nice weather overall and it was great the kids could be outside to play quite a bit of the time.  That helped everyone keep their sanity I think:)

The Christmas Tree

The weekend after Thanksgiving is traditionally spent at Carl's parents house and helping out at the tree farm. This year was no exception and after being around all those Christmas trees all weekend the kids were very excited to go out into the plot to pick out their own tree! It actually didn't take us long to find it this year(I think the really cold temperatures had something to do with that) We actually didn't walk too far when Carl and Gabe spotted this one.

With a little help from Dad, Gabe finished sawing down the tree.

Callie did a great job supervising the tree cutting.

After the tree was cut down Ty discovered a tree he wanted instead because it was "pretty orange"

Ty was overruled even though we did agree it definately looked orange:) The kids helped Daddy drag the tree up to the shop.

Gabe actually only helped a little and then decided to run ahead to claim his spot on the tractor to shake the trees. Callie helped the whole way.(I don't think Ty helped at all actually pretty sure he ran to Aunt Em)

Here's Gabe from his perch on the tractor.

Before we could shake it we had to get our families picture with our tree.

amazing how the kids look so much bigger then this picture from last year and especially this picture from 2009! After the picture Gabe started the shaker and we shook all the loose needles and stuff we didn't want out of the tree.

and then the boys helped pull it through the netter.

After the tree was all netted Carl got the tree tied down on top of the van.

We also pick out a frasier fir from the shop to take home as well. That tree goes downstairs and is my tree the tree from the plot goes upstairs in the hallway and is the kids tree that they get to help decorate and put on the fun ornaments. I think it's a good compromise I just have to keep biting my tongue when they decorate the upstairs tree when they tend to clump all the ornaments together in the same place:) Here are some pictures of the tree decorating.

And Ty was happy to learn that since Gabe turned 6 it was his turn to get to put the star on top of the downstairs tree. We implemented the once you turn 6 rule the job passes onto the kid below you:)(Mostly because Gabe is pretty heavy to try to lift up there anymore)

Ty got it up there just fine but it did need a little straightening afterwards.

and just because she's cute.

So both trees are now decorated and the stockings are hung by the chimney with care and we have 3 very excited children anticipating this Christmas season! Just this morning I was serenaded by We Wish you a Merry Christmas as I was getting out of the shower. It is so fun to see their excitement.

November Update

Wow long time no blog.  It hasn't been a boring November exactly I guess I just haven't taken very many pictures.  We celebrated Carl's birthday on the 19th.  The kids were pretty excited to help him blow out the candles on his birthday cinnamon rolls.

Those yellow towel things in the picture were part of maybe the best part of Carl's birthday weekend.  They came from the ISU vs. Oklahoma State game the night before.  We had tickets from Carl's work and a babysitter(Thanks Danielle!) and were able to go watch our very own Cyclones take down the #2 Cowboys in 2 overtimes!  The day of his birthday my parents watched the kiddos so we could enjoy both of our birthday presents with great seats to the musical Wicked in Des Moines.  We were going to celebrate afterwards by meeting everyone at Hickory Park for supper since we went to a matinee performance but we forgot the All State Music festival was in town that day and wow talk about a busy place.  We went somewhere else to eat and all had a great day celebrating Carl's birthday.  The rest of our month was relatively uneventful of course uneventful with 3 adventurous little ones can sometimes be rather messy.

If you guessed that is powdered sugar all over you'd be right.  Callie decided to make it snow in the kitchen I guess.  Look at that face.  Guilty but loving that sweetness.

We spent the end of this month celebrating Thanksgiving with my family and then heading up to Algona to help out at the tree farm Friday morning through Sunday evening.  I have lots of pictures from our time in the trees but I'll save that for the next post.  Just so I have a good start to December:)