Polar Express at the Eau Claire Children's Theater

 We got tickets to see Santa Claus and hear a reader's theater rendition of Polar Express at the Children's Theater this holiday season. The invitation asked children to come in their pajamas so my kids quickly donned their Christmas pj's for the big event. 

Of course we had to snap a goofy picture too!

We arrived just in time for cookies and hot chocolate - always a favorite. :)

Next up - writing letters to Santa. 

Lucy and Romy were good older siblings and took the time to write out a letter for Leo as well. Leo absolutely loves the remote, so a toy remote for Christmas is a very accurate request! Haha!

This happy guy enjoyed watching the scene - lots of elves, train stuff, Christmas trees - he was excited for the sensory overload! As you can see, I wore my pajamas too.

Roman wrote out his wish list for Santa.

He loves all things Roman these days so he asked for a play 'Roman set' - a pretend Colosseum, gladiators, etc.

We dropped everything in the mail!

We watched the toy trains.

Leo got to scoot around Santa's big chair.

I just love my 2 L's!

Here we are, waiting for the reader's theater to begin.

The performance was really cute and they handed out little bells to all of the kids afterwards.

We met Mrs. Claus.

And we got to sit in the Big guy's lap! Just look at Leo watching that white beard -- I promise that no tears were shed!

Merry Christmas to all!

After the show we headed to the Classic Garage for lunch (Roman's favorite) and stopped for a quick picture at this old timey fire truck.

What a fun way to kick off the holiday season!

Early December Happenings

Here is a glimpse of life for our crew in early December! Roman absolutely loves Home Alone so he was over the moon with these Christmas jammies - as an added bonus he is matching with his Dad. :) The shirt says Merry Christmas Ya Filthy Animal and the bottoms have Kevin McCallister with his screaming face. Can't get any better than that! 

We tried to play outside in the snow every day after school. Love those rosy, red cheeks!

I went up North on a work trip and when I asked Dan for a status update he sent me the following picture! Hahaha! Leo loves his big sister's furry hat. 

The kiddos stayed after school and participated in a PTA sponsored Christmas crafting event. They were so excited to gift us with holiday crafts.

Speaking of crafts/art projects - Lucy made this precious clay sculpture of her Grandpa Great. She painted his little glasses and gave him the best red sweater! I just love this little guy.

In December we wore our holiday jammies all over the place including the library! ;)

Lucy went to her friend Autumn's birthday party at High Rollers! Isn't it crazy how tall these kids get when they put on roller skates? This girl is going to be taller than me before I know it!

Lucy helped me make some Christmas cookies - we love this sugar cookie recipe because it includes a box of vanilla pudding so lots of awesome vanilla flavor! Of course we cover them in sprinkles too!

Leo continued to work on pulling himself up whenever he had the opportunity! 

I had to include a pic of this Scholastic News worksheet from Lucy. Ever since she was a little girl, Lucy has transposed the K and the F in the work breakfast. Even today she says BreaFKast instead of BreaKFast. It is so cute that I have a hard time correcting her! I always want to remember how she says it. Please note what Lucy does first thing in the morning: 'I get dressed and eat breafkissed.' Awww!

Roman got a new Christmas shirt this year, it says What's Crackin? and he thinks it is so funny.

All of the children were in swimming lessons this fall/early winter. Roman is doing such a great job on the diving board this season. I took a few pictures of him from the viewing area - look at the diving board to see our boy getting ready to jump!

The big kids' Sunday school classes had a Christmas program so they were all dressed up and I made them take a little picture by our Christmas tree downstairs. Love these kids of mine so much!

Here are the kiddos saying their lines at church.

Finally - had to take a few pics of this big guy, right on the cusp of turning 1!! So grateful that he is experiencing the holidays outside of my belly this year. ;)

Happy December!

Leo @ 11 months old

Right around Thanksgiving time, our little Leon turned 11 months old! In this picture, he has a tiny bruise on his forehead which is pretty accurate considering he is just starting to cruise around and has taken a few tumbles! 

Leo loves to snuggle, read, exclaim oooooh! and wow!, eat with his 4 teeth, and attempt to keep up with the big kids. He is the biggest joy!

Since it was getting close to the holiday season we were able to dig out a pair of Christmas jammies that Roman wore when he was about ~16 months old. They managed to fit our current 11 month old pretty well! HoHoHo!

And here is a throwback to Christmas 2014! 

Awwwww!

Thanksgiving - Part 2

We arrived back to Eau Claire just in time to celebrate Thanksgiving Part 2 with the Storm crew! It was snowing outside so we snuggled in to watch the Macy's Parade.

 

Our Fargo family arrived safely!

We snapped some family pictures with Grandma Nola and Grandpa Ken. We are so thankful for our grandparents!

Roman loves his Abominable Snowman sweater! 

We cooked all day and, that afternoon, Dan carved the turkey.

You can't top a turkey shaped butter on the tablescape!

The big kids sat on the counter. I am a sucker for all things Peanuts so of course we have Snoopy and Woodstock Thanksgiving plates/cups at our house. ;)

We had the best meal!

Love this family of mine so much!! 

After a huge meal, we sent everyone outside to play.

It was one of the first snowfalls of the season.

Lucy and James made some sweet snow angels.

Lucy loves her baby cousin Neal! 

Some of the adults headed out for some fresh air as well.

Some of us had the rough task of staying inside with armfuls of babies! These two boys are so squishy and cute.

In addition to Thanksgiving celebrations, we took some time to commemorate Miss Lucy's golden birthday + recognize the early December birthdays for Carissa and Brad.

Look at this beautiful cake that Amelia made for the occasion! 

The candles were blown out and presents were opened. :)

We hope that Brad, Carissa & Lucy have an awesome year!

We took a few more pictures with the grands. We had to get some photos with all of the kiddos! The littlest boys look pretty sober but everyone really was having a fun holiday. ;)

All of the family time and delicious food wore this guy right out!

Roman and James quickly put on their matching dragon jammies and had a wrestling match.

We couldn't have Thanksgiving vacation without some serious gameplaying! We always enjoy a little Rummikub. 

The next day we zipped over to the Christmas tree lot to grab an Xmas tree!

Lucy helped pick out the perfect one. 

We also spent some time getting into the holiday spirit by visiting Hobby Lobby for a few items. Roman pretended to be a miniature Santa Claus.

Back at the ranch, this happy baby showed off his chompers to his Grandpa and Dad while the rest of us headed to ...

Frozen 2! This was highly anticipated by the big kids and it did not let us down! Both Lucy and Roman really enjoyed the movie. The original Frozen film came out in 2013 when these two were too small to go to movies in the theater so it was fun to see this one on the big screen.

We did some Christmas decorating to wrap up our long weekend. Lucy and Roman were so excited to find and hang up their favorite ornaments. (As a side note, how cute are my Chippewa Valley travel posters in the back ground? We have one for the Chippewa River State Trail, one for the Eau Claire River and another for Lake Altoona Beach - 3 of our favorite places around here!)

We also found some of our Christmas shirts!

Leo wasn't able to help with the tree this season but he did assist with the manger scene magnets!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!