Early December Happenings

Early December ... Tis the season to check the Advent calendar daily. :) 

We have 2 calendars at our house - one has an activity slip for the day and the other has little treats and candies. Lucy is such a huge help in making the magic happen these days. 

Welp - it wouldn't be the holidays without some germs floating around the house. 

Good thing that this little guy is resilient! A Sprite and some television can improve things pretty quickly. 

Unfortunately Leo fell ill the day of the Eau Claire holiday parade. This year he stayed home and watched Christmas movies with his Dad while the rest of the crew braved the cold December evening to watch fireworks and floats.

Roman helped keep me warm! He loved that Santa hat so much and wore it pretty much every day of the December. ;)

The big kids saw Olaf during the firework display and requested a photo. 

It was a fun and festive parade! We loved seeing all of the Santas and twinkle lights. 

The kiddos got a lot of candy! They did a good job of sharing with their baby brother. ;)

Speaking of Leo and candy - we recently took a trip to the dentist to get a filling completed for him. We walked into the office and it had that 'dental' smell. I went to register him and Leo loudly exclaims, ' It smells like cavities in here!' Hahaha!

We kicked off the month with some Elf on the Shelf cereal. 

These two did a lot of holiday baking this season.

They made some cookies at Grammy's house. It is always fun to do some dot to dots and coloring projects while you wait. 

Roman can be spotted in the kitchen every once in a while too. ;)

The Storm fam hosted coffee hour at church in December.

These guys love helping in the church kitchen.

Our littlest helper did a lot of taste testing to ensure that everything was good. ;)

We made the cutest holiday porch pots! Lucy was playing hide and seek while I was trying to document. Haha!

Look at how nice they turned out - a big thanks to Nola for finding so many treasures on the land and at thrift stores to fill these pots. 

Lucy has been racing through all of the Hunger Games books this fall and she finished the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes right in time for the movie to come out. 

She was so excited - it seemed like it was going to be a private showing on a Sunday evening but, guess what, another couple came in at the last minute.

We loved on our pup and the children were thrilled to open up our special doggy Advent calendar each day.

Dan took Leo to his daycare Christmas Party.

He loved all of the fun stations and sensory tables. 

He had a 'Letters' and 'Mail' week to cover the letters L and M. Leo enjoyed being a little mailman and sending a letter to our house. So cute! 

We did some dog sitting for Chester in December while Ken and Nola visited Brad for his birthday. These two pups were happy to share treats from Ranger's advent calendar. ;)

Leo played t-ball at the YMCA Sports Center. He is the sweetest little ball player in all the land.

We made a gingerbread house - this is another plug for buying the pre-made house. The extra money is 100% worth it - there are much fewer tears involved. Hah!

This crew is great at decorating (and picking off all of the treats!).

Here is the finished product.

My Christmas cactus was in full bloom this year - It doesn't always bloom on the same timeline with the holiday so this was a treat! 

Finally - a trip to the boys' happy place - Tropic Waters. Any visit to pick up mealworms for Prince is an adventure to see all of the reptiles, fish and other critters at this pet store. Please note that Roman did wear his Santa hat and begged to get Prince dozens of items for his stocking. 

Love this time of year!

Nutcracker Evening

Lucy had a special night at the end of November - she attended Nutcracker with her mom and Grandma Nola.

First up - we had sushi for dinner at Ninja. Yum!

Just look at this roll - so beautiful and delicious! 

After supper we walked to Pablo for the performance. This was the real deal with Ukrainian ballet dancers. It was a magical show!

It is so special to spend time with my favorite girl. 

The show was just beautiful - Loved every minute.

There were a bunch of themed Christmas trees in the lobby; it was a fundraiser for something. Lucy was a big fan of this Taylor Swift tree. ;)

Cheers to a fun and festive evening!

Thanksgiving 2023

We kicked off Thanksgiving weekend in the best way - Thanksgiving nails! ;) Love these fall colors. 

The cousins got situated with dress up right away! Mr. Leon loves to be Spider at Grandma's house. 

We did food prep and ate snacks. 

The bigs spent some time with their Dad and Grandpa in the deer stand! 

The rest of the crew burned some energy at Carson Park. 

The Storm kids love this park and it is a special treat to go there with cousins. 

Some of us tried something new this year ... the Turkey Trot. Lucy was super excited to run with her Dad.

Here is the whole crew on Thanksgiving morning. 

I was the driver for the event and I had a short window of time to kill between runner drop off and pick up. I was scouring the internet to find anything that might be open on the holiday - I hate that people have to work retail on this day but I did find one store that was open all day long. Good ol' Big Lots. Haha! No better place to spend a spare 45 minutes, right? ;)

Big Lots had lost of treasures like this lil pallete of eyeshadows. Yikes!

We returned to the house with our runners and continued with food prep and crafting. 

Oh yes, we worked on Thanksgiving nails for a couple of the little guys. 

We watched the Thanksgiving Day Parade and forced Ranger to wear our pumpkin pie headband. ;)

Here is our favorite lil pumpkin - sweet and serious Teddy! He is such a cute cruiser. 

These ladies continued with the tradition of making potato dumplings for the family. 

Dan is our resident turkey carver. 

Look at this beautiful spread of food! Yum! So very thankful for family, good health and delicious food this season.

The desserts were pretty wonderful too - the runners got their own personal pumpkin pies at the end of the race. 

So thankful for my little turkeys.

My phone disappeared and, when I found it, I discovered a bunch of sweet phones like these - 

We mad a trip to the dog park. 

The boys burned some energy by working out in Grandpa and Grammy's basement. 

Look at all of these muscles! Haha!

My boys sure love 'their baby'. 

In other weekend news - we decorated Uncle Brad's birthday package.

We admired Neal's missing tooth!

We tried to take some nice family pictures for the holiday season. 

This is a pretty accurate picture of real life. LOL!

We tried to get a nice family pic - too bad we are not all looking at the same camera. Ai yi yi

We needed to work off some of our turkey lunch so we hit the bowling alley.

 

We have quite the bowlers in this crew.

Look at these scores - Neal got over 100! 

The other big winner was yours truly! :) Grandpa Great would be so proud - Haha!

We are always excited to celebrate birthdays for our November and early December people during the Thanksgiving holiday. This year Brad is 41 and Lucy is 12. Love them both! 

Let the Good Times Roll is right! 

Can't wait until Baby Teddy is old enough to join us at the bowling alley. 

Here is the birthday duo with their cakes.

This one is always there for the cake! ;)

Happy Birthday dear Brad and Lucy!

Thanksgiving weekend is always the kickoff to the holiday season. 

The children love the twinkle lights at Irvine Park.

Unfortunately Roman was feeling sick on this evening but the rest of the crew had a nice night walking through the Christmas displays.

Roman was feeling better so we spent some time decorating at home. He loves this little tree in his room - lots of wrestling and Packers ornaments. 

He even made Prince's habitat look festive!

The whole crew worked on the Christmas tree in the basement. 

We just love this magical time of year. 

Speaking of magical - the Nutcrackers came out and took over the Colosseum. Haha!

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving!