Christmas 2006

This past week has went by in a blur, a lot of fun and good times were had by all though. We had a really nice Christmas and were able to spend time with family. I took a bizillion pics so it was hard to pic a few to post about our Christmas. Some additional pics are on our msn site if you want to click on the more family photos link on the side bar. We got together with my family on the 23rd and had dinner and the kids enjoyed seeing Grandparents and getting in their first day of the present opening frenzy. Christmas Eve we were with Bills family. Santa stopped by for a visit on his very busy night, to give the kids an early gift. THEY LOVED IT!! Here is Elena just about to open her gift Santa gave her.

Here is Ethan at G & G W's house, He was soo excited to get his new car.

Jason got just what he wanted, a new Browns hat, an Ohio State hat and Ohio State sweatshirt!
Here are the kids coming downstairs Christmas morning. They actually did pretty good at waiting until 7:00 AM to come downstairs. They listened for the Christmas music which is the cue and down they came.
On to plan the New Years Eve party, which this year will be a full event. Bill & I will be celebrating our 7th wedding anniversary, Bill will be celebrating his 32nd b-day and we will be bringing in the new year!!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all our Family and Friends!This was the perfect pose for our Christmas cards, until I noticed Mr. Ethan.

Had to share it somewhere ;)

Hope everyone has a blessed Holiday!

Elena's Christmas Program

Elena's First Preschool program. Hard to believe it is time for her to go through all this fun stuff already! She was very excited and has been practicing her songs for the last few weeks. She picked out her pretty dress and even let mommy put a few curls in her hair. She was all set to sing her heart out. Here she is before we left for the church.

Funny thing, she remembered from Ethan's programs that after the program we would go into the gym and have cookies and punch. That was all she talked about during the day "We are going to my program to have cookies and punch!" Here is a link you can see the kids singing a Christmas song. It was quite a comical show. I of course had my eyes on my daughter, but quite a few of the kids were a little silly.

http://www.clipshack.com/Clip.aspx?key=59B7F9160B53907F

I thought it was so cute that Natalie recognized her sissy up on stage. Once the kids got up front, Natalie yells out "sissy!" and we spent most of the time trying to keep Natalie from running on stage to see her sister.

Here she is just about to go on stage. Her buddy Andrew is right behind her. They did such a great job!

Here comes Santa Claus

Christmas 2006. Santa Claus came to our town last weekend for a quick visit before heading back up to the North Pole. The kids were all ready and geared up to see him. We went uptown had some cookies and hot cocoa while we waited for our turn and when it was time for our kids to visit, Elena had second thoughts. Ethan had no reservations and jumped right up there and talked with Santa a bit. I think only the year he was one he was afraid of Santa. Natalie kept saying Ho, Ho while we were sitting and watching other children with him, and smiled at Ethan when he was up there,but once we got up close she wasn't too sure. She sees Santa all the time but he's in the form of the light up plastic one on our porch or pictures... this guy is real. I put her down in his lap and she didn't cry, she wouldn't look at him, but she didn't cry.

Now miss Elena would have nothing to do with him. So finally mom plopped her down by his feet to snap a picture. Gotta have the pouty face pic to show her kids when she's older ;) The kids were the last ones for the day so Santa over loaded them with candy and treats and we went on our way.

When we got outside Elena was funny, she said "I hope Santa knows I want Polly pockets for Christmas. "I told her he knows. he always knows. Ethan wrote a letter to Santa and included what his sisters wanted also. (what a nice brother)

Christmas Tree Wonderment

I cannot believe how this season is passing me by! Here is it the middle of December and this is my first Christmasy post!! This is the first year that Natalie has experienced the Christmas Tree. Last year she loved to look at the colorful lights, being all of 6 mths old. This year at first it was difficult because she wanted to touch everything! Esp. was hard because all the ornaments Ethan and Elena hung are within her reach. She is getting better now that it has been up for a few weeks. She still loves to sit and stare at all the lights and shiny ornaments.
She makes the funniest little noises as she admires the tree. Lots of ohhs and ahhs. Very cute!

Today we have a fun filled day ahead: going to see Santa, making our cut-out butter cookies, finishing up teacher gifts and then we are gonna end the day with Story time with Mrs Claus and driving around to look at Christmas lights. That's a lot for one day for our little tots. Hope we can get through and enjoy it all!! I will have Camera in hand so I am sure I will have something new to add....

Elena's Big 4th Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my sweet little Elena! My little girl is now officially four. And if you lived in our neighborhood, you probably figured that out, as every time a family member arrived at the door, they were greeted by Elena screaming :I'M FOUR TODAY! TODAY'S MY BIRTHDAY!!!!

She wanted a mermaid party so mom did her best to make an Ariel mermaid cake and cupcakes. She was pleased with the final result, so that is all that matters! I know she really enjoyed having family here to celebrate with her and cousins to play with. I joked that the next birthday party will be at 9:00 AM as having to wait until 2 PM was quite a long day for a momma to endure. A breakfast party, that would be fun. Come in your jammies!

She received so many nice things she didn't know what to play with first!It is so neat though when you get a moment on their special day to recap all that you went through on the day your child was born. I happened to glance at the time and it was the exact moment I began counting my contractions just four years ago. I love to remember those special moments. The day my sweet baby girl was born. My best baby. She was a good eater, a good sleeper and cute as can be. My little girl I prayed so hard for is growing up so fast!! Happy Birthday Elena. Happy Birthday :)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Very Thankful for so many things this year. Love that the kids are starting to understand that too. Last night before bed, Ethan and Elena were actually allowing each other to hug each other and gave each other a kiss on the cheek before bed. Then Elena says to Ethan " I am thankful for you Ethan, I am lucky to have you for a big brother" Instead of pushing her away or being mean to her, he gives her a big hug. It just melted my heart to see that even through the day to day squabbles, they really do have love for each other.
Here is Elena before her Thanksgiving feast at preschool. She loves to dress up and could hardly wait to get to school that morning. They had a regular thanksgiving meal for the kids. Turkey, stuffing, potatoes etc. The moms were talking about how funny it was to serve these things as most preschoolers won't eat these things. To our surprise many of them ate quite a bit! One mom had the theory that if they see other kids eating that maybe by Turkey day, they will recognize some things and maybe try new things. We'll see how that works. She did eat her Jello jiggler first and that is something she never will touch at home! Go figure! Ethan had a feast at school with the first graders. The kindergarteners were the native Americans. They got to watch a movie and have popcorn and apples. He is so excited for Thanksgiving and having grandparents come over. He woke up about 7:00 and started clearing off the table, when asked what he was doing, He said" Getting ready for Thanksgiving!"
Natalie was my helper while I was making the pies. She just kept reaching for everything. So finally she pulled up a chair and stood there watching me. The pie crust wasn't really the taste she was hoping for. I think she was looking for some cookies ;)
She did have fun playing with the extra crusts.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Kitty Love

I have posted pics of our kitty Madison before, but lately the girls have an obsession with the poor old guy. He is getting older and slower and pretty much just lies around, the girls take advantage of this by laying on him, pulling on him, etc. Despite all the times he snaps at them, they think he is still playing around. Most days I have to put the cat out on the porch or hide him in a bedroom just to save him! But the minute they find him, they are all over him! the other day I walked into the dining room and there is Natalie sitting on the cat like a pony, holding onto a chair bouncing up and down!! Madison just looks at me as if saying HELP!!! I missed a chance to take the dining room shot, but here are a few of what he puts up with all day long.




I don't know how much longer Mr Madison will be with us, every week we say it is the last, he has to go, but the truth is we do love him too much. I couldn't imagine not having little "key" to pull the baby off of 300 times a day :)

Beary Birthday!

This year for her birthday Elena wanted to go to Build-A-Bear workshop. Her cousins birthdays are close to hers, so that was their birthday present this year as well. This was the first time for all of us to come here and they were all very excited! Little did we realize what a tough decision this would be!!
As you can see here, Emma and Abby are really thinking about what outfits to select for their bears... We had to stop and go get some ice cream to think this over, there were so many choices... Chocolate and vanilla do wonders at helping you think things through :)
Here Elena was telling the stuff and fluff man she is three years old. After they sang happy birthday and announced her age, she is convinced she is 4 now. (her actual b-day is later this month) There is no trying to explain it any other way! She's 4 now ;)

Here the girls had to sit on the counter and be sung to hee, hee :)
Click on the thumbnail to see them being embarrassed..

And the finished products! Cinnamin, Koala and Daisy have been born!!

Uh-Oh!

This is what happens when you leave an almost 18 mth old alone in the room for a minute and forget to put away the liquid baby powder..........

Natalie has an obsession with putting bottles or anything with a lid she can pop open with her teeth in her mouth. Crazy little girl!

Of course I had to snap a pic before I said "no, no" So she probably has no idea if it was a good thing or bad thing to do. Mom will just be sure to put up the bottle when we are done in the future ;)

Trick or Treat

These are our Jack O' Lanterns from this year. Jasons is on the left, Elenas in the middle, and Ethans on the right. They were soo excited to carve pumpkins, but once the pumpkin was cut, they would have nothing to do with scooping out the pumpkins. What party poopers! That's the fun part!
We went Trick or Treating on Sunday with cousins. Elena was a Lady bug. Here she is with her cousin Abby who wasn't completely in costume yet. She was a spooky witch.
Jason was too cool to Trick or Treat this year, so he just walked around with us and went through the other kids candy to "inspect" it. Silly tweenager! Ethan was the race car driver for school, but decided that for trick or treating he wanted to be the Tootsie Roll! That costume has been in our box for years and noone has wanted to wear it! It was a big hit, everyone thought he was so funny (of course, so did he!) Natalie was a sweet little bumble bee who loved to get treats! I let her hold her bucket for a bit and when I looked down, she was eating the candy through the wrapper!! So I had to just give her a sucker instead which she was very happy with!
On Halloween night in our town is trick or treat, so we just pass out candy. The kids got into their costumes again and went to Great Grandma and Grandpas house so they could see them in their costumes and they came home and helped me pass out goodies. I think they have more fun doing that than the actual treating! I didn't get too many good shots of them this year as my camera batteries wouldn't hold a charge, so my sil took some and my grandparents. So I may have more pics to share later.

School Halloween Party

This being the first year that Ethan is in big school, they had a Halloween party for all the kids and parents this past weekend. A chance for the kids to wear their costumes, have some goodies and play games. It really was a fun time. I wasn't sure what to expect when we got there, but to my surprise they had it set up nicely for it being such a small gym. Ethan was excited to wear his costume and to see his friends from school in theirs. He isn't a Gordon fan, he just thinks race car drivers are cool:) Here are the girls getting ready to go.
Natalie was soo good. She just sat in her stroller taking it all in. She wasn't sure what to think of all the costumes, but she sure liked the table full of cookies! Once she saw that- she had to have one!
They had game stations set up all around the gym and Elena wasn't sure at first. There was a huge crowd when we first got there, but once she realized you could pick a prize after you played she was all for it. Ethan was such a good big brother, she was scared to wait in line by herself so he stood with her and helped her with the games:) I just love days like this...

Furry Fashionista

When we got out the Halloween box of costumes this year, the kids really enjoyed going through all the different things they found in there. We even discovered a costume that Ethan can wear for Halloween next year! We found this old fur wrap thing. It used to be attached to a coat. We long got rid of the coat, but the fur thingy you just never know what use we could find for it. Natalie thought it was fabulous. She wanted it on and made it known by her series of repeated uh, uh's. Once it was wrapped around her, it needed to stay there for all of snack time.


When it would start slipping, she would get so upset, I am not sure what she thought it was, but she thinks our cat Madison is a pillow, so who knows? It was soft that all she cared.


Here she was trotting through the dining room and realized her uh was missing!

Mommy put it back on!!

Pumpkin Time!

The kids have anxiously been waiting for Septober as Elena kept saying. She wanted to get out the pumpkin stuff, fall decorations and paint the pumpkins. During September I kept telling her wait until October. So every day that was the question. Is it Septober yet?? Well it's finally here and we had a nice day to go out and take in some fall splendor.Once we were home, Ethan and Elena were drawing on their pumpkins, and Natalie was having some fun of her own. She made friends with a little pumpkin and was rocking it, putting into her buggy car and pushing it around. - quite funny! Here she thought I was gonna pick her pumpkin up. No mom this is mine!
For a brief moment, Ethan and Elena sat together and decorated. Here big brother is even helping little sis write her name on hers. Ahhh, those moments come to few and far between, you need to snap a photo to remember the sweetness:)
While the kids were decorating, we all were also putting up more spooky decorations. We made a big spider in the yard and I had hoped to get a pic of it, but we are yet to make her big web, I will share it when we get a day with a little less wind!