Jake's new favorite outfit

Jake got this adorable sweater and hat for his birthday last year (well this year I guess!) and wasn't really into wearing sweaters. That is until today! I showed him the hat that goes with it and he has been wearing it ever since! (even to nap time!) So, thank you Aunty Rebecca, Nick, Ellie and William! The other two kids were feeling left out so we took a couple photos of them too! I guess it was very important to AnnaJoy to have the unicorn in the photo! She made me take 3!

Our Santa Visiting Adventure!

I brought the kids to see Santa this morning when he arrived...well we were earlier than he was, so we played on the carousel. That was interesting! All three had a blast. Actually, all 3 were psyched out to see Jolly Ol' St. Nick, until I placed Luke on his lap, what do you think? Is that the face of excitement?

Going to the movies!

We haven't really done anything special for the kids lately, so Mike decided that we could take the kids to see Madagascar 2 when he got home. The real plan was to go see Santa then go to the movie. Well, weigh-ins with the wrestling team took longer than expected so we had to cancel out the santa thing! It would have been a bad situation, but thankfully they were all still excited about going to see a movie! Shockingly, all three did a fantastic job! Luke got a bit tired in the middle, and the big kids had too much lemonade so we had about 3 potty breaks but other than that, success! And we even went coat shopping after! They were beat when we got home! Yet, still woke up at 6:15! Who does that? I am going to bring them to the wrestling meet for a little while on Saturday before naps. Then it is off to work for the weekend for me!

Dreaming of gifts to come!

p.s. no Jake ones because he wasn't in the mood!

The effects of being sick for 6 weeks!

One or another of the kids has been sick for over 6 weeks now! It has been a frustrating time for all of us! Jake is probably the sickest right now! We all went to bed for naps at 1pm, I opened his door at 5pm in hopes that he would wake up on his own...which he finally did!

One of our Christmas Outfits!

I think this is going to be their Christmas Eve. outfits...although AnnaJoy likes this dress better than the one she wore the night of her program!

Making treats for daddy...well o.k. for us!

See, I can be a good mom sometimes! Even on NO sleep! It's been one of the most stressful weekends of our year so far, due to snow, babysitters not showing up and mommy getting no sleep, while Mike is arriving home from wrestling meeting Fri. night at 11pm and leaving by...well 6:10 (supposed to have been 5:45) this morning! So, I decided to have the kids make some brownies! It was actually Luke's idea! He found them in the pantry and said, "CAKE". Not quite. But they put the ingredients together, mixed them and we put them in the dish. They helped determine if they were done and after bath time...yum! The fruits of their labor! P.S. can you tell the boys have to have the exact same things!? If Jake has Lightning McQueen, so does Luke. It's such a glorious thing! NOT!

Mommy's weekend...fun?

This LARGE amount to snow that we have gotten is really bringing me down! Seriously! Mike has been completely booked with wrestling, so the job of driveway cleanup fell on me all weekend! I am no good at it and was plugging the stupid snowblower up constantly! GRRRR! Needless to say, yesterday I did the driveway and porch 3 times...today I gave up and waited till around 4pm. It's actually much harder when there is more, so I guess next time I will just give up and do it multiple times. I did talk to Mike while he was at the tournament...he taught me a solution to my "plug" problem! These photos are of the boys "helping" me clean off the deck! I wish it showed how high the snow was on them! It came up to Luke's knees when we first got out there! Initially, Jake took a dive right in! It was a large cloud of snow! Crazy boys! I think Mike may have to retrain me on how to "properly" clean the drive! P.S. Anna was too cold by the time we got to the deck, she was inside thawing out! Lucky kid!

A snow storm is brewing! Just in time for the bus stop!

We are getting a whole lot of snow for early December! I certainly didn't ask for it! Anna thought it was funny that she had to shift through snow that was practically at the top of her boot as she walked down the driveway to the bus stop! (grr! I forgot again to put them in reverse order! sorry!)

photos from the concert

(once again these are in reverse order, as I forget I have to do the last photo first!)




It was hard to get a good photo of her this year, I guess I got lucky last year because she was in the front row!!

If you ever wondered whose eyes Anna has, wonder no longer!

Aunt Katie is the winner! I am pretty sure that this seals the deal on who she looks like! She may have more of my coloring, perhaps even my nose or ears...but those are NOT my eyes! (although they are beautiful!)

It's the BIG night for AnnaJoy!

Tonight was AnnaJoy's school Christmas program. They did "Santa Claus Rock", "Emmanuel" and "Feliz Navidad". It was pretty funny to watch them all.

"When Daddy is gone, I'm in charge"

That was a direct quote from Jake!





Jake takes his place in the family seriously, I guess! He decided that since daddy wasn't going to be home until real late, that the burden turned to him to be in charge of clearing off the deck!! (p.s. sorry the pics are in reverse order, blogger is weird lately!)

Helping Daddy snowblow for the first time this season!

Helping Daddy before the big storm came...and before mommy had to leave for work!

If you don't have one of these, you should get one!

Mike and I bought this when we were christmas shopping for the kids. This is the best thing ever made! The kids sit still and just watch in awe!

Playing dress-up!

We reorganized Anna's closet before we left on Thursday for dinner. Now she can find all of her dressup stuff! Like it? I think it looks a little "Punky Brewster" like!

Our Thanksgiving Blessings!

Happy Thanksgiving! Like the Don King hair style we have going for Luke????




We went to grandma and grandpa Rottier's house for Thanksgiving today. It was alot of fun! (and a lot of good food!)