Liam's Christmas Pageant

Still trying to play blogging catch up, moving backwards in time a bit to Liam's Christmas pageant earlier this month.  This is always a very short, but very sweet program, and we look forward to it every year.

 

 

 Liam was super pumped up about it this year, and told me all about the practices they had been doing on the "big stage" all week.  So I knew he would most likely get up there with no issues, but I had no idea just how much enthusiasm he would show. Here he is, coming down the aisle and heading up to the stage....it is at this point that he began to say "HI!  HI MOM! HI DAD!  HI GG! HI PAPPY! HI JAKE! HI! HI! HI!" very loudly. 

That grin!!

As he made his way up to the stage, he continued to tell everyone (very loudly) that we were there.  "THAT'S MY FAMILY!  THEY'RE RIGHT THERE! HI!!!!"  Here is a snippet of it, pay attention around the 38 second mark:

These videos got a bit out of order, but here is their rendition of "We wish you a merry christmas", while Liam was holding the last "S" in "Jesus"....

Up on the housetop:

In Bethlehem:

As you can hear, Liam definitely subscribes to Buddy the Elf's idea of holiday cheer:

image courtesy of hark.com

Some other shots of the evening:

 

 

 

Proud of our little showstopper :)

Pre-Christmas Fun

It's so hard to believe that Christmas is over already, but here we are...practically ready to ring in the new year!!  Before the big day, we had lots of fun stuff going on.

The week before Christmas, Liam had his Christmas lunch at school, complete with a visit from Santa himself.  Of course, Liam was rocking a festive outfit for the occasion:

#toddlerswagger

 A few days later, Jake had his very last basketball game and got a trophy at the end:

Liam continued his tradition of keeping himself entertained with the Leap Pad for the last game of the season:

 Later that day, we went to the annual Capo Christmas party....these lucky boys got to see Santa AGAIN!! 

 We spent the night at GG and Pappy's that night and had an early bday celebration for moi, and the next day GG babysat the boys so that Brian and I could head to the Steelers game with Dennis and Melissa.  We had a great time and they won!

sweetheart selfies!!!

love this girl!

Jazz hands!!

 My birthday was Monday, and I was excited that the boys got me some Alex and Ani bracelets to add to the one I already had....aren't they pretty?  I already had the "E" initial one from my mother-in-law, Brian and the boys added the chunkier bangle and the "love" one.

Unfortunately, I had to call off sick and drag myself to the doctor on Tuesday :(  I hadn't had a voice for about 5 days and had a hacking cough for over a week.  I wasn't prepared to be handed one of these when I walked into the doctor's office:

 Yikes!!  I guess it was for flu prevention.  Didn't  make me feel like some type of freak or anything.  No flu for  me, but I did have bronchitis.  After a quick stop at the pharmacy for some antibiotics, I parked myself on the couch for a good portion of the rest of the day and enjoyed some  more Hallmark Christmas movies!! I even found this one, starring Naomi from 90210! 

 
Nana and PopPop arrived that night, and we were all home the next day for Christmas eve.  We spent most of the day hanging out and doing some Christmas prep, then headed to the early family service at church at 4. 

That night, it was a crockpot roast dinner, followed by cookies and milk for Santa and shuffling the little ones off to bed!!

image courtesy of ifihadamilliondollars.wordpress.com

 Full Christmas post to come later...we hope you have been enjoying the holiday season!!  

Conductor Jake

Jake's school does this thing where teachers can pick a "conductor" to represent the class for a week; a conductor is someone who honors the pledge of their school to be a responsible, safe, and respective member of the community.  The teachers look for someone who has shown kind characteristics and lives up to the pledge.  After wishing for weeks that he could be the conductor, Jake was notified last week that it was him!! 

He was VERY excited.  The kids get their picture taken and it gets placed on a huge train that runs the span of the main hallway in the school right by the office, and their picture goes up on the screens in the lunchroom.  He felt like a celebrity! 

In other fun Jake news, here is a recent assignment that was sent home that made me giggle:

In case it's not clear, it says:

Instead of a baby brother, I think it would be fun to have a baby wildebeest. First of all, they have the largest migration of any animal and I want to go with them.  Also, I have a lot of grass and they eat grass.  Finally, wildebeests snort loudly which will make me laugh.

I'm impressed with his animal skills, and the fact that he knew how to spell "wildebeests"....because let me tell you, I just tried to type it in as wildebeasts and autocorrect saved me.  Schooled by my 6 year old again!! 

What we've been up to....

Phew, it's been a busy past week or so!!  I had to go to DC for work 3 days last week, so Brian was on his own with the boys, while I was in a hotel room with a remote all to myself.  I sent him this picture from when I first checked into my hotel and had a bit of time to kill and told him I was about to do some serious daytime TLC and Bravo binge watching:

It's nice to get away for a bit (and catch up on sleep!), but I'm always happy to come home to all 3 of my boys. I left the conference early on Friday to make it home in time for Liam's Christmas pageant...that event deserves its own post, so once I upload the videos I'll be sure to get that up :)

On Saturday, we started off the day with some Christmas coloring....Liam said "Mommy, where's your phone?  Let's take some selfies"  Sorry, I must have missed the part where he was 13 and not 3....but I complied.  Here are our selfies....at 6:45am.   Real life here, people.  And really dark undereye circles.

 

 

Jake had a basketball game later that morning...and the moment came that the poor kid has been waiting for for weeks now....he made a basket!!! He was so excited, fist pumping his little teammates.  Some pics from that game (he's #7):

 

 

 

 
Liam will pause sometimes to cheer for Jake, but for the most part, he spends the hour and a half snacking and playing his Leap Pad (what a lifesaver that thing is!):

 

 

The rest of Saturday was spent just hanging out, getting some stuff done around the house.  That evening, once we triple checked that the kids sound asleep, it was time for our marathon of gift wrapping!! Our tradition has morphed into turning on a Christmas movie and just going full-force with trying to get as much of the wrapping done as possible.  "Love Actually" was the movie selection this year....it really never gets old.

"So if you really love Christmas....come on and let it snow!"

You know you were singing it, too. We got about 80% of it done before having to tap out.  Brian had plans to take the boys skiing on Sunday (a day to myself 10 days before Christmas?? It was like some type of holiday miracle!!) so I knew I would just finish it up then.  (which I did, woohoo!)

It was super foggy and kind of drizzling all day, but they had a blast skiing:

 

 

 

The aftermath.

I shared this on facebook, but it's worth sharing here, too....I made chili for dinner last night and this was Liam's reaction once he started eating:

Liam: mommy, I don't want all of these ponaenos in my chili.
Me: Do you mean tomatoes?
Liam: Yeah, that's what I said....ponaenos. 

Duh, mom. :)

 
Only 10 more sleeps until Christmas!!!

image courtesy of trainsandtutus.com