We wish you a Merry Christmas!

Although this year will be deferent with dad gone, I am thankful that he is celebrating his first Christmas in heaven. What a glorious Christmas it will be for him..I can only imagine it! I told the kids the other day that Papa gets to sing "happy birthday" to Jesus face to face this year! The thought of that is both sad for me and yet amazing for dad. He will be missed! We hope you have a blessed Christmas with your family.

Connor had his preschool program as well. It was super cute and the teacher's went to alot of work for it! The kids did great! I was surprised that Connor actually participated. I thought he'd might just stand there. But he did all the actions and sang all the songs! We were so proud of him!

Here's a short video of his program!

We had Mitchell's Christmas program last week Friday. The kids did such a great job! It was soo cute!

Here's a short video of their program! Enjoy!

Advent

We have been doing a advent series called the "12 days till Christmas" that I found online. It was wonderful, it had a Bible reading, family discussion and alittle craft that you could do with the kids. One of the days we were talking about Christmas tree's so we made rice krispie cut out shapes and decorated them with frosting and candies. The kids had a great time! We have really enjoyed the advent theme this year. It was the first time we've tried it. Each day there was an activity that I put in a sealed envelope with the # of that day on it.  The kids couldn't wait to open each envelope for devotions each night. I think it helped the kids realize the true meaning of Christmas.

Connor's preschool party!

Connor had a great birthday! He first had a party at preschool in the afternoon, then he had his extended family over for supper! I got to spend the day with him at preschool that day! Connor is quite a different child at preschool than he is at home. He's more serious and quite and hardly cracks a  smile! The whole time he was up front in his class, he wouldn't look at anyone or would even smile just alittle bit. Finally at the end he finally got alittle smile out of him! What a fun day!

Connor's airplane birthday party

We had Connor's birthday party on Denember 1st. We celebrated with a pizza party this year for something special! The kids had a great time unwrapping the presents and Connor loved his airplane cake. The runway strip even light up in the dark!  Some of Connnor's favorite presents was the bat/ball  and the football. He played with Caleb with that for a while downstairs after we ate cake. Thanks to all the wonderful family that came to make his day special! Happy Birthday Connor! We love you!

Connor's 5th Lego birthday party

Connor had his 5th Birthday party and wanted to invite some preschool friends! We had a great time together celebrating! We first did a lego coloring sheet, then played a few lego themed games that I found on Pinterest. After that we opened presents and then had lego cupcakes! We had a great time playing with each other! Thanks to all his friends for coming to make his day special!

Christmas decorating!

This year I decided to tackle decorating and putting up the tree without Elden's help! I do like to do it together as a family, however I had it in my head that the tree had to be put up that day. So Mitchell saved the day and helped alot! He helped me carry the tree in the house and stand it up. I was impressed! He also started putting on the lights without me having to ask him! He did awesome! The boys of course wanted to put the tree up already at 8 in the morning, so we settled on letting them put up their pencil trees at 8 instead. But by noon, we had the big one up as well! The kids did great with decorating the tree's this year and were a BIG help! I always look forward to decorating the tree's with them every year and will miss this age some day! Here's a few pictures of our fun day together!

Thankful Tree

This year I wanted to make a thankful tree. I've seen alot of people do it, and thought it would be a good lesson for the boys to learn and to remember what thanksgiving was all about. I went to the library and made some maple leaves from their die-cut machine and then had the boys tell me what they were thankful for and put it on the leaves. I hung the leaves with a paper clip so the leaves hung nicely. I just used a old vase and put some rocks in it for the base and used a branch for the "tree" that I found from the yard. Total cost: $0. I like to make things that don't cost anything to make but look cute in the end! I was happy how it turned out and the boys learned a valuable lesson!

Wild Kratts

Last week Friday Mitchell had "dress up" day at his school. My good friend thought of an idea of having her little boy and Mitchell be the "Kratt brothers". Connor of course didn't want to be left out, so he was "Jimmy". Mitchell was "Martin" and Skye was "Chris". The boys had a great time together and even made it in the school's newsletter! What a fun idea!

Halloween Party at Nana's house!

Addy holding Peyton

                                             The cousins in the costumes!

We had a great time at Nana Olson's house this year at trick-or treating! The kids had so much fun dressing up in their costumes...Papa was often thought of especially seeing Caleb's costume! Papa would have LOVED that costume!! We first made a craft with Mason canning jars. We cut out "leaves" from duck tape and let the kids put them on the jars whereever they wanted to . Then the kids painted the jars and put a battery operated candle in it. It turned out cute! We then put on our costumes and looked for candy down stairs. The kids had a blast finding it! We were going to make a halloween treat but ran our of time but our cousin Dawn brought us some yummy cup cakes to have instead! It was alittle crazy with 10 kids in the house that were 7 and under, but they all had fun playing together!Enjoy the pictures!