Resolutions

 The end of the year always makes me a little sad and I've been sadder this December 31st for obvious reasons.  I'm saying goodbye to the last year my brother ever saw.  I'm thinking of my mom, who next week will experience her first birthday without a call from him.  And we're all coming up on the one year anniversary of the day that changed our family forever. 

 

But, of course, time marches on.  And I'm trying to focus on the new beginning we will all have at midnight tonight.  I like to think that the upcoming year will be better and that I, as a person, will be better, too.  Here are the ways I would like to improve in 2014:

 

 

 

I actually read this book in 2012 and haven't been able to consistently stick to spending 15 minutes outside each day, but the ideas have stayed with me.  I would recommend this book to anyone, but especially moms, because it shows the many ways getting outside is good for the soul no matter what time of year.  Of course this is especially difficult during these tough Wisconsin winters (it was 8 degrees outside this morning!) but I really want to make the effort this year.

 

 

I am soooo excited about this little gem I picked up last night.  I want to work on organization and my time management skills and this calendar posted in the kitchen should help tremendously.  I still love and use my Erin Condren planner faithfully, but this will help with the schedules for everyone in the family, not just me.  I like how the side of it has Post-it notes that I can grab whenever I need one.  (Hopefully the kids won't figure out what those are!)

No list of New Year's Resolutions would be complete without the resolution to lose weight.  I say this every year, but this is really going to be THE YEAR for me to get to my ideal weight.  That's 20-25 lbs away, but I just know I can get there by summer and maintain for the remainder of the year.

In addition to the general resolution about getting outside more, I also want to start running again.  I was running 2 miles a day for about 6 months when William was a baby, but stopped that winter and never started up again.  This is the year I WILL run a 5k!  I can hardly wait!

Sledding

 

We are thrilled with the amount of snow we have.  (For now, anyway.  Ask me again how thrilled I am in March when we are still knee deep in it!)

 

Today we went sledding at a cool hill in Elkhorn, about 10 minutes from our house.  It's a little ways off the road, as opposed to the other (more popular) hill around here.  I prefer to not have to worry about cars at the top of the hill if I decide to sled down with one of the little guys. 

 

It was really cold and windy so we only stayed about an hour.  We met a new-ish friend up there - she has three boys, ages 9,8 and 7 and homeschools them all, too.  Needless to say, we always have a lot to talk about!

 

Here are a few pics...

 

Christmas 2013

The children were nestled all snug in their beds....

 

 

But Chris and I, who hadn't gotten to sleep until close to 1am couldn't sleep from the excitement, so got up at 6:15am.  Chris kept wanting to wake the boys up, but I insisted we wait.  At 7:30am, we finally heard voices and eavesdropped from the hallway for a few minutes.  They were so cute, excitedly talking about what might await them in the living room.  They were a bit disturbed by the fact that I had sealed their doorway with wrapping paper, but loved that moment when we told them they were free to rip through it. 

 

It only took about 10 minutes for everything to be unwrapped and, as suspected, the tablets were a huge hit....

 

We settled on the Nabi 2 for both the little boys and the older boys got the Samsung Galaxy Tab in the 7" size.  William is perfectly content with his "kid" tablet, but Luke is frustrated that his won't do exactly what Owen and Sammy's do.  For instance, the Nabi has no voice command but Luke keeps yelling things at his tablet anyway because he sees his older brothers doing it.  Maybe he just thinks his is hard of hearing.

 

I got the warm socks I've been wanting/needing for so long. But the best part was the homemade tags William made when he wrapped them.

 

Chris asked the boys to wrap the gifts without me seeing the day before and as soon as they were done, out came Luke.

 

Luke, whispering:  "Mama, we got you new socks for Christmas."

William:  "NO, Luke!  You weren't supposed to tell her we got her SOCKS!"

Luke:  "Sssshhhh, William!  It's a SECRET!"

 

They are so funny!

 

All the boys got toothbrushes in their stockings, but only Luke's plays a song.  He loves that song "Dynamite" so when I saw this toothbrush that plays it, I had to get it for him.

 

The only problem is that he wants to listen to the song so badly, he walks around the house holding like a phone with the bristles in his ear.  Pretty gross.

We had such an amazing Christmas, especially because Chris was ACTUALLY off work.  Hallelujah!  That almost NEVER happens and we were so lucky it did this year, especially with all the other people at his job having time off.  He will likely have to work on New Year's Eve, but that's really no big deal.  We don't do much on NYE anyway.

Christmas Eve

I have always loved Christmas Eve.  When I was a kid, that was the night we would go to my cousin's house (we called her "Aunt Sue" because she was quite a bit older, but she was really my cousin).  My memories of her house on Christmas Eve are primarily of candlelight and soft Christmas music playing.  She had two kids, but her house always seemed in perfect order.  The food was not at all fussy; mostly just hors d'oeuvres.  She had a few things to do in the basement (shuffleboard, an arcade game and a pool table) so we were never bored.  I also loved driving home and seeing the lights, with the anticipation of Christmas morning still in front of me.

 

Chris and I were just comparing our childhood memories of Christmas Eve and his were very different.  He and his family went to his Aunt's house, where there was NOTHING to play with and he and his sister were bored to tears.  He dreaded it every year and got out of going as soon as he became old enough to beg out and stay home alone.  Funny thing is, his aunt's house and my cousin's house were/are separated by about 2 blocks.  Isn't that so strange???  So even though Chris and I didn't meet until high school, we were within a couple hundred feet of each other every Christmas Eve for our entire lives.  Even after 12 years of marriage, there are still new things I find out about him all the time. 

 

This Christmas Eve, I believe the kids and I discovered what will be a new tradition for us:

 

After dinner, I told them to clean their room and they would get to open one present.  They were able to correctly guess it would be new pajamas, since we did the same thing last year.  I love the idea of new pajamas - sure wish I'd gotten some myself!  The boys also got new slippers, since they have been wearing holes in all their socks running around the concrete floor in the basement.

 

They were quite excited to open the PJ's and then they all showered/bathed and got into them.  I had them zip on sweatshirts and we loaded up the car to take a tour of the lights.  The Grand Geneva does "Christmas in the Country" lights that are really something to see.   My plan was for the two little boys to fall asleep, but that didn't end up happening, so when we got to Grand Geneva we ended up going in.  Yes, in their PJ's.  (I was dressed, of course.)

 

The resort was teeming with people who were enjoying all the many decorations they put up.  Each year is a different theme.  I'm sorry I didn't get any pictures of the displays but the lighting was bad and I only had my phone.  I did snap this one of the boys, though:

 

 

The Grand Geneva also has a gingerbread house competition.  Each entry is numbered and you get to vote for your favorite.  We all loved looking at the 50+ creations, most of them VERY creative.  Here are a few of our favorites...

 

After we were done walking around, we stopped at the little café and each of the boys wanted a scoop of gelato.  I grabbed myself a hot chocolate and reveled in getting to spend a snowy Christmas Eve at such a beautiful place with my four beautiful sons.  We had such a wonderful time!

 

 

Chris didn't get home from work until 11:30pm but we will be happy to have him accompany us next year.  We all decided it would be a wonderful tradition to start and are already looking forward to doing it again in 2014.

 

Merry Christmas!

Anticipation

As I'm sure you can guess, Christmas Eve seems like an extra long day for us.  Anticipation and excitement runs high on both sides, for both the givers (us) and the gives (them).  Chris and I are so very excited to give the boys their gifts tomorrow morning but are a little worried that we may never be able to top this Christmas.  The $500 Best Buy credit we got when we bought our furniture in February is going to make this Christmas VERY memorable for the boys. 

 

To add to the length of the days, I've practically become a single parent.  Chris has been working 7pm-7am for the last 10 days and even when he had a couple of days off, he still had to sleep during the day to maintain his body's schedule.  It's been soooo difficult to keep the boys quiet all day while he needs to sleep.  Between being cooped up inside and the excitement of Christmas, they have been nothing short of obnoxious.  Gotta love little boy energy, right? 

 

In an attempt to keep them quietly occupied, I've been enlisting their help in baking a lot of seasonal goodies.  This morning we made Peanut Butter Balls using this recipe.  I prefer the ones that use graham cracker crumbs to shredded coconut or any other filler. 

 

 

As my three elves rolled the balls, we debated whether or not these

should be considered a cookie or a candy.  What do you think?

 

Unfortunately, I have no "after" pics of the tasty little morsels, but suffice to say they are a HUGE hit.  I remember going to my grandmother's house on Christmas Day as a child and she would have plates of assorted cookies set out to much on;  these peanut butter balls were my absolute favorite!  I have only made them once before in my life YEARS ago for a work party, but am going to try to make them more often now that I know I have such enthusiastic helpers.

White Christmas

This is our eighth Christmas in Wisconsin and I think only one of them so far hasn't been "white."  Most years, we start building up snow that first week in December and by Christmas we have a few inches.  This year, we had snow starting in mid November and haven't seen much of it melt, so by this past weekend we had about 4 inches on the ground.  But it needed to be freshened up for Christmas and boy, was it!

 

We watched for the storm all day on Saturday - oh, the excitement around here!  But it really didn't hit until early Sunday morning. When all was said and done, we had about 7" and the boys were thrilled!  Here are some pictures of them enjoying the snow...

 

Owen, age 10

William, age 6

Sammy, almost 9

Luke, age 4

 

Luke never was much of a fan of the snow.  Remember this post?

 

I took Scrabble for a walk and let me tell you, he is not a fan of the snow either.  He sure looked cute in his little coat, though, and I enjoyed the walk. 

 

 

More than the snow itself, I love the excuse to stay home.  I've become quite the hermit in the last few months; I don't think I've ventured out in almost a week now.  It's just so nice to hole-up when it's cold and snowy and focus on what I love most.  And that's all right here in this house.

 

Merry Christmas!

William's 6th Birthday

 Not my most timely post ever, but I write this blog more for myself than anyone else just to record all the moments that make up our life as a family together.  Birthdays are always fun for us to celebrate being a family and what the birthday boy brings to it.  We celebrated William's birthday a day early because Chris had to work on Saturday the 14th.

 

You can see our neighbors, Nick and Erin, in the background.  I think they like the invitations they get six times a year to come over for cake and ice cream.  No gifts allowed, except this time they brought William an obnoxious prank hand buzzer.  I just love it.  (sarcasm)

 

We got to Stonefire Pizza Company around noon on Friday and my friend, Darcy, met us for lunch.  She adores William and works just down the road, so it was a nice chance for us to see her and vice versa.  William felt VERY special that she took the time to come see him and wish him a happy birthday.

 

 

This is the only picture I could get of the boys together, as they watched a cartoon on one of the TV's.  We had the place practically to ourselves, so we made a day of it just running around playing and munching on the buffet.

 

One last shot of the birthday boy.  Ain't he a cutie?  Hard to believe it's been six years since I fell in love with this little guy.