Best. Presents. Ever.

My 3 best presents :) 

We are having a great Christmas break and I hope you are too!  Although I'm just posting one picture tonight, I have 350 pictures on my memory card so far...Just no time to upload them!  Ha Ha!  Hopefully I'll be able to remedy that soon.  It's a gift to be home with my family this week and we are cherishing every day we get together.  We are playing with the kids, watching lots of home movies, eating constantly, and laughing like crazy.  A perfect holiday!  

Have a wonderful week with your own family and friends!

Merry Christmas to you :) 

Something to Make You Giggle!

My brother in law posted this on his blog the other day, of my parents and his parents, getting in the Christmas spirit while waiting for all of us to come home. Who knew they had moves like these???

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Cold Weather Babies

 It's the start of another week here, therefore the start of another snowstorm.  For the 3rd time in a couple of weeks, we are under a winter storm warming until 6 am tomorrow, with 5-7 inches of snow falling.  It's a beautiful sight outside right now, kind of like a snow globe in fact.  We were supposed to get bundled up this afternoon for a Christmas party, but it's been postponed until tomorrow, which means another day and night in our jammies :) We've had so many of these days that I'm thinking we need to invest in more jammies for all of us!  It's all we wear right now...

But when we do bundle up, this is one of Ava's cold weather looks :) 

That hat is just my favorite and she is so good about wearing it!  In fact, she always pulls it down at an angle, which increases her "winter chic" factor and makes us laugh.

But not to be outdone by his sister, this is also one of my favorite hats for Carter!  He absolutely HATES having a hat on his head, but you know he loses that fight every time.  I have a variety of ones I like for him, but the best ones are the hats with ear flaps like this one.  So much easier to keep those little ears warm!

The other day, while Carter was napping and I was putting laundry away, I realized Miss Ava had been awfully quiet.  When I came to check on her, this is what I found...BUSTED!!

 While she did have a runny nose, she thought it would be better to pull out a single kleenex each time she decided to "wipe" her nose, which she apparently did at least 25 times :) 

 Now Mommy knows better than to leave a box of kleenex within her reach!

 Until the last week or so, TV really didn't hold too much appeal for Ava.  She was always too busy to sit down and watch it.  Well, from the first time she watched this sweet DVD, she is now hooked on it!  As soon as she wakes up in the morning, she begs us to watch her "show" and proceeds to ask me about it all day long.  I'm quite certain we've watched it at least 25 times :) I will say, it's got beautiful Christmas music and it tells the story of the nativity, so that does ease my guilt about saying yet too many times!  It also provides me 30 minutes of time to attend to her little brother or get stuff done around the house.  

 And that's because she sits as quietly as a mouse the whole time while she watches it.  

It's now my favorite DVD too!

 When he's not eating or napping, Carter likes to lie around and strike his best model pose...

 ...until I cave and scoop him right up!

Sweet little guy!  

Yes, good things do come in small packages...

Ok, 3 posts in one day, that ought to make those grandparents happy!!  I'm off to do some dishes and make my 3rd soup for the week!  All of this snow, combined with our colds has made me hungry for soup :) Last week it was Wild Rice Soup, this weekend it was Chili, and tonight it's Corn Chowder.  Yummy!  I better get it started before Trav gets home and these babies wake up.  

So excited that our Christmas week is finally here!!  We have so many fun days ahead!!

Wacky and Tacky

On Wednesday night, Travis hosted their annual "Wacky Tacky Christmas Party" in Junior High and of course, the kids and I decided to go be part of the fun!

Santa made his appearance and kept the crowds happy with his charm and good looks :) 

 Leading the way by looking especially tacky in his ugly Christmas sweater, Santa hat and running pants.  

 Ava came dressed in her wacky Christmas jammies and spent the beginning of the night, dying in anticipation of that door opening so all of her junior high peeps could come in!  

 See what I mean??

 Tacky!

 Wacky!

 Tacky AND Wacky!

 Decorating Christmas Sugar Cookies

(I made sure to eat mine before hundreds of germy hands touched that stuff!)

Travis did not...

 Ava and her groupies :) 

Doing her best to get that jar of frosting. 

Because she is so persistent, I should tell you that she did succeed at this.  When no one was looking, I caught her dipping her finger in the frosting, then running over to a little table where she smeared it all over, before licking those same fingers :) 

No wonder we all got colds this week!

 Merry Christmas from the wackiest and tackiest youth staff around!

Would you trust your teenagers with these people???

My List of Excuses Begins Now...

I know, it's been awhile.  I'm hearing from the Grandparents now...You know it's serious when they're begging for some new pictures on the blog and checking our facebooks too :) I do have a few good reasons I haven't been on here, so to justify my behavior, let me list them here:

1.  Our internet has been down.  Legitimately down.  But, after a second call this morning with customer service we are back up and running again!

2.  My computer is completely out of memory on my hard drive.  Not a single bite left.  This has been a long time coming, but it also means we are in the market for a new computer and hope to have one in the next week or so.  Praise the Lord and Hallelujah!  

3.  Because my hard drive is full, every time I want to upload pictures, I have about 30 minutes worth of work to do in deleting old pictures in order to make room.  It's a big hassle and often the thought it makes me want to give up entirely.  BUT, I've been working on that this morning and like I said, I have a new computer with LOTS of hard drive coming soon :) 

4.  In our effort to stay home and out of the cold, we all managed to catch a cold.  That figures, right??  It started with Ava, then Carter and over the weekend Travis and I.  Fortunately, Carter seems to only have a very, very mild version but the rest of us have been hit with a runny nose, sore throat and achy body feeling.  I've chosen a nap several times over blogging.  

5.  It's almost Christmas!  Therefore my "spare" time has been filled with address collecting, Christmas Card letter writing, online shopping, errand running, etc.  I don't expect that to ease up in the next few days, but get ready because I have an onslaught of posts coming your way anyway to keep you updated and entertained!

So there you have it. 

My list of absentee excuses.  

Christmas with 2 cuties is more overwhelming than ever, but ten times more fun so far :)

And speaking of those 2 cuties, here they are in their jammies this weekend.

Morning looks and all :) 

Apparently shocked at Mommy's lack of blogging too.

No worries, I'm back and soon you'll be sick of me again!  

Especially considering the number of pictures I have ready to send you way.  

So Happy Monday everyone!!

Especially to the Grandparents in our life :) 

Christmas Came Early

On Sunday night, after realizing how cold it was getting outside and knowing we had 20+ inches of snow on the ground with more on the way, we made a wild and crazy move.  

I know, so unlike us :) 

It was becoming apparent that Ava was feeling the same cabin fever feelings that her Daddy and I were.  While the snow fell fast and furiously, she happily played with all of her toys, watched a few of her favorite shows, ate as many snacks as we would allow her to, and read every book she owns.  She was very, very good and happy to be at home with us...blissfully unaware that she was about to be homebound for days on end.  But with below 0 temps and wind chills in the  negative 10's and 20's, we knew we needed to keep the kids in for awhile.  Especially Carter.  It's just too cold to have him out and about when he's so little and at risk for respiratory infections, the flu, etc.  So as I pondered how to keep them entertained, with the walls of our condo literally closing in on me, I realized we were quickly running out of "fun" options...

  

In a complete role reversal, I suggested we go get the large Christmas gift we had purchased for Ava and let her open it now...13 days before Christmas.  I thought it was a brilliant idea, she doesn't even know what Christmas really is yet, or that typically gifts are given that morning.  As I explained my reasoning to Travis, he agreed and like 2 goofy kids dying in anticipation of their own present, we brought it out.  

We didn't even wrap it :) 

And we didn't have to...

 As soon as she saw it, she gasped in excitement and immediately broke out into applause!  

She LOVES play kitchens right now and I think she was totally thrilled at the surprise :) 

Her initial reaction was totally worth penny and more...

 "Daddy, can we open it??"

 "Seriously, what are you grinning about??  Can you get this thing out??"

 Before we could even pull it out of the box...

 ...she was already all over it :) 

 And she didn't even need it to be all set up before she started to play with it and chatter incessantly about it!

 I was the decal gal :) 

 And I took great pride in my decal applying skills, knowing it would make me crazy to live with decals that weren't on straight for years to come.  This was a critical stage and as you can see, I had a little helper who insisted on cooking while I was designing her kitchen :) 

 There is a good reason most people put these things together while their kids are in bed!

 We could not get out of her way fast enough :) 

 Oh how I love this future chef of mine :) 

 Guarding her kitchen with her life...

I think she was "over" us showing her every little thing and explaining it.  

The girl just wanted to play!

And so, with great joy in our hearts over making her so happy (ha ha, can't you sense her joy here??) we watched her play for hours on end that night.

She carefully examined her new cookware...

...and whipped up her favorite dishes for her adoring parents to eat :) 

Yep, Christmas came early in our house and no one was more excited about it than 2 grown adults who would do anything to make their little ones smile!  

I'm sorry, but Santa has nothing on us!!!

Just Another Weekend in MinneSNOWta

You may have heard...We had a blizzard here yesterday.

A BIG blizzard.  

The 5th largest snow in Minnesota's history, actually.  

Yep, it was big.  

It started snowing on Friday night, while we were coming home from our date.  It was gorgeous out, the kind of night that is incredibly romantic...still, quiet and full of big, wet flakes.  Beautiful.  By the time we woke up the next morning, this is what we saw.  

 A white haze and snow that was falling faster than I've seen in many years.  

It was crazy.

 Normally, we can see right through our screened-in balcony, out into our neighboorhood.  But not yesterday.  Yesterday we just saw white, and lots of it!

 We had our own accumulation going on right inside our balcony!

 When we went to bed last night, it was dangerously cold with total white-out conditions.  We had something like 14 inches of new snow, on top of our 6 or so that was already on the ground.  It was a definite "snow day" if I've ever seen one!  We thoroughly enjoyed it and stayed in all day with the kids.  We watched movies, baked cookies, cleaned up, read, took naps, and just relaxed.  It was a great day.  We also invited our sweet neighbor over to have dinner with us, which was fun.  She gave us another face to look at after hours and hours of being home :) 

 This morning when we woke up, the snow had stopped, but it was BITTER cold outside.  

Like 2 degrees with a -25 windchill.  

Not ideal in any sense of the word.  

The sun was shining however and Trav had to go out to get to Church.  

Because in Minnesota, we don't cancel Church, even with 20 inches of snow and 20 below wind chill!  

Life goes on, but the kids and I stayed home :) 

 We have several inches of snow, just inside our balcony!

There is so much blowing snow because of the wind, you'd never know we are screened-in!

A view of our parking lot, which had been plowed at least 5 times when this was taken!

We've spent a lot of time doing this...

...just lounging around and napping :) 

 At the request of my brother-in-law, I did venture out for a few minutes this afternoon and take a few pictures of the "aftermath."  

Those black dots are the remnants of a bush, covered in 2 feet of snow!

 And this is our freshly plowed sidewalk...

 Some of the drifts by our parking garage...

 ...and sadly, this is Trav's car.  Totally snowed in.  

We do have a heated parking garage, but only one spot.  Because my husband loves me and is kind, my car is warm and toasty inside, but his is not.  Because I love him and I don't want him to freeze, I'm happy to stay put and give up my car in weather like this.  There is no where I want to go that badly!  

Here are some drifts at the end of our lot, at least twice as tall as I am.  

I'm pretty sure this pile will be there until April.  

And I'm totally serious.

 This is a tall tree, that now looks like a bush.

 And this is a view of a our big hill in our backyard, which now looks like a giant, snow covered parking lot.  

 One of my boot prints :) 

I was sinking fast and quickly pulled my foot out before I had snow up my pants.  

Man, I hate that!

Fittingly, as I walking back to our front door, a snowmobile went by.

And he quickly sailed up that big snow hill!  

Only in Minnesota do you have to look out for snowmobiles on your neighborhood sidewalks.

The pile of snow by our front door, where our landscaping used to be :) 

Jesse, this post was for you!  

We have lots of snow, can't wait to see you soon so I can throw you in it!! Ha Ha ha...