Cookie Making Night

Last Saturday night we ordered pizzas and made cookies with the kids. Funny how the dads were MIA...they were in the basement watching tv. Basically they told us..."come on its the best night in sports". We let the kids play with some of the sugar cookie dough. After watching it getting coughed and sneezed on we decided to toss that stuff and pretend that we used their dough:)
My mom has mini rolling pins for the grand kids. We borrowed them so the kids could roll out their dough.

Colin and Madi carefully decorating their cookies!

Look at all of those sprinkles Kaitlyn!! No wonder my floor felt like a sand box after we were done decorating cookies!

Colin ate more than he decorated I think:) It was a fun night! The best part is that next year its the Harvey's turn to host!!

Toys For Tots Parade!

This post is a little out of order. At the end of November we went to a Toys For Tots parade in our town. Our neighbors were participating in the motorcycle ride with their toy donations. Here are a few of the kids waiting for the parade to begin!

Talk about LOUD!!!! We were surprised that the noise didn't bother the kids too much. Someone said their was over 1000 motorcycles that participated this year!!
We were blinded by the sun here:)

Kaitlyn was afraid and wouldn't take a picture with Frosty, Rudolf and the elves. Colin thought they were hilarious!! He was cracking up at them in this picture:)

Whats a Zhu Zhu Pet?!?!

Until about a week or two ago I had no idea what a Zhu Zhu pet was! Kaitlyn and Colin saw them on tv and that was it...it was added to their Christmas list!! Oh boy did I not have a clue what I was getting myself into. The search began and I realized that you cant find them anywhere!! I ended up winning my first on one ebay. Paid more of course:) Then today my mom(THANKS so much mom...I owe you) and I stood in line at Toys R Us for almost 2, yes two hours so we could each buy one zhu zhu pet. We actually had a great time and were in line with a fun group of people around us which made the time go by really fast. I haven't laughed that hard in awhile:) We were numbers 48 and 49 in line...they only had 100 pets and each person was allowed to buy only one. We had someone take a pic of my mom and I using her iphone.

I officially have 3 Zhu Zhu pets and am on the hunt for accessories:)

What we wont do for our children!!

Gingerbread Workshop

Saturday we went to a Gingerbread Workshop fundraiser for the kids school. The kids enjoyed making crafts and seeing Santa. Here's Madi and Kaitlyn smiling while working on their gingerbread crafts.

Mommy and her favorite handsome little boy!!!

Daddy was helping Kaitlyn with her craft.

Spending some time with Santa! Colin was telling Santa how good he has been this year:)




Group shot!! 4 best buddies:)

PJ Day at School

Thursday was Polar Express Day at school. We were supposed to wear our pj's to school and bring a favorite stuffed animal. Mommy almost forgot and had us dressed and ready to walk out the door to school when she realized it was pj day...oops! Being a teacher you would think I would check my school calendar more often:) Here they are ready to ride the Polar Express!!

They were so excited when we came home from school and it was snowing out! Our town got just under 1.5 inches of snow. This was just at the start of the snow coming down.

Happy Winter...brrrrr!!!

Traditions

We love having special traditions! Grandma and Papa Young stopped by our house last Sunday night to bring us a special surprise. Ever heard of "Elf in the Shelf"? Its so much fun and we are very excited about this new tradition!! Every night Elfie(K & C's name for their elf) goes to the North Pole and reports to Santa about their behavior and then comes back. The fun part is that Elfie is in a different place every morning. The kids love getting up and searching the house for Elfie!! Also they can not touch him...its part of the rules. If they touch him Elfie will go to the North Pole and not come back. They love the cute book that came with it too.
Grandma read us the story.

The next morning Elfie was on our big clock. K & C couldn't wait to call and tell Grandma and Papa that they did find Elfie and they were so amazed at the magic that this little elf went to the North Pole and came back:) Its so fun to see their excitement!!!

Papa bought Kaitlyn and Colin a very rare LGB Christmas train for their first Christmas. He helps them put it up every year. Please excuse my bare tree!! We didnt have all of the ornaments on it, etc. Here are some pics of the kids helping Papa with their train.

Thanks Papa!! We love our train and the additions you make to it every year!!

Thanksgiving Weekend Away

This year we spent Thanksgiving with the Willis side. We had a great time spending 4 days at Cams parents house. We loved playing with our cousins too!!! Here we are Thanksgiving night out cold on our cots...belly's full and completely exhausted!!

Silly Colin!! He was hiding a ball form his cousin Everett....doesn't look

obvious where it is does it:)Would you believe that I didn't take any pics the second day we were there...we went to the Children's Museum. The moms shopped while the dads stayed at the museum and watched the kids. We were busy the whole time we were there and I was relaxing and enjoying myself so I didn't take as many pics:) Cam and I got up two of the mornings and went to their YMCA and got in a good work out. It helped to lighten the guilt of everything we ate while we were there:)

Pretty smile:) We were on our way to Iowa to go to the mall, see the movie Planet 51 and then go to a Christmas Lights Parade that night in Burlington.

Colin was amazed that we were leaving the stae of Illinois and going to Iowa:)
Our first visit with Santa....Kaitlyn is telling him that yes she has been a good girl!!

Thanks Santa for spending so much time talking with us.....this Iowa Santa was very nice:)

Uncle Craig wants a new tractor for mowing his lawn. Colin wanted to check out the John Deere's. This was his favorite one!!

This bridge is the dividing line for Illinois and Iowa...when we drove over it Kaitlyn yelled out, "mommy...Iowa is so BOO-tiful".

Family Pic....it was SO warm out....notice 3 out of the 4 of us didn't even have coats on!

Cousins Pic

Another cousins pic with Ike in it too:)

Here we are waiting for the parade to start once it got dark out. We missed Uncle KC, Uncle Chad and Papa. Papa was still in the field so he was working some of the time we were visiting.

Auntie Jill and her boys:)

Grandma, Kaitlyn, Colin and Everett!

One of the floats. Everything was lit up really nice. The kids had a great time watching the parade!!!

Video of Kaitlyn, Everett and Colin dancing during the parade:)

Video of Santa arriving!!

The bridge lit up at night!!

Do you think Kaitlyn was tired after the parade?!?! She was sleeping on the couch even with about 14 people in the house:)

Thanks to Uncle Craig for being a good sport and letting Kaitlyn do your hair:) What a great Uncle you are....oh and your hair looked awesome when Kaitlyn finished!!

Colin loved Grandma's chocolate pudding..yum!!

Our last day...getting ready to go to church. We had a wonderful time at Grandma and Papas house!!! We look forward to seeing everyone again in about 2 weeks for the Willis Christmas!!!