Sunday night

Alan and I are a bunch of cool cats let me tell you. Our Sunday nights are full of excitement. lol

Alan in his turtle jammies tackling the kitchen. I love the deer in the headlights look he has going here.

Clean dishes!

Meanwhile I am doing something crafty with my cricut to make a gift for someone. I would love to show what I made but I don't want her to see it before she gets it. So you will have to wait! :)

Sundays are generally busy with church and nap and my parents house that I didn't take any pics during that time. Next week I will have to try and get more interesting photos. :)

Home Depot

Today we had a wonderful family day. I learned a few months ago that Home Depot does a Kids workshop. Back when I saw it they advertised it for 3 and up. So today we decided to go see what it was about. We had so much fun. The kids got an apron and a kit to make a birdhouse. Alan and I helped the kids hammer their birdhouses together.

Levi actually took the instructions when it wasn't his turn to hammer and figured out which piece he would need next. We have a little smarty pants on our hands!

The boys absolutely loved hammering with real hammers and nails. Paige lost interest as we went but she still had fun. I think the amount of people there had her wary as well. A Boy Scout troop was there with us as well as a bunch of other kids!

My proud kiddos showing off their birdhouses they built!

After we finished building them we painted! Believe it or not but they did great and did not get any paint on their white shirts. However I unknowingly leaned up against the table getting paint on my jeans. Hopefully it comes out.....if not I now have a new pair of work pants!

Their finished masterpieces!

They also received a pin and a certificate of achievement. It was so much fun! Next month is a Valentine box. I can't wait!

After Home Depot we took the kids to Mr. B's which is a coffee shop with an indoor playground. Perfect for cold days. While the kids played with Alan watching I left to go get these...

That's right. It is almost Girl Scout cookie time! Yum! Now I just need to resist all of these. Haha.

My usual Saturdays consist of laundry and cleaning since Alan is home to watch the kids and I can get more done. I am so happy we decided to do something fun instead. The laundry can wait.

Friday night

A normal Friday night consists of Alan usually having a gig. This month he has most of his weekends off. Which means we get to have movie nights. Tonight Kristen and Shawn came over for dinner and a movie. They bought Alan the movie Ted for Christmas so we watched that. It was funny but very odd. I will just leave it at that. My picture for today is of Kristen and Shawn and how our movie evenings usually end. :)

Shawn likes to nap on our couch. lol

Today Nathan had his first cleaning done at the dentist. He did a great job! I was so proud of him and the hygienist and the dentist were both very impressed with how well he behaved and listened. What a big boy!

Dinner is served

One of my new years resolutions is to cook better meals for our family. I was getting tired of 4pm rolling around every day and the same question would come up every day. What's for dinner? Depending on the day and my mood we would go for simple and easy or what will the kids actually eat so we can enjoy dinner.

Well that needed to change. So I will now be meal planning for the week on Saturday or Sunday and then grocery shopping for food for the week. So far this week has been going great. I even got Alan to eat leftovers tonight! Now that is an accomplishment in and of itself!

Last night I made chicken noodle soup from scratch. It was delicious! I didn't use all of the chicken in the soup though. So tonight I made chicken and gravy over biscuits. Alan is really into making breads and things so he made the biscuits and I made the rest. The kids are horrible eaters when it come to dinner time. I am tired of it. The past 2 nights they had something that went with dinner that they like but only a little of it. If they want more of that item they must try something else from their plate. So far the only one who has done this is Levi. But He ate chicken noodle soup last night and chicken and gravy and corn tonight. I call that a win in my book!

My photo for today is our dinner. The cranberry sauce is the one thing on their plate that all 3 ate. Paige ate a biscuit or two that hadn't touched chicken and Levi ate biscuits, some chicken, and some corn.

Mmmm makes me want some more! Hopefully I will keep up with this resolution and all 3 kids will be eating new things in no time! Tomorrow night is cheesy ham and potato casserole. Yummy!

Day 2!

Woo hoo I got 2 days in a row! I am on a roll! Hahaha. I wasn't sure what I was going to photograph today. I don't want to do every photo of my kids (even though they are my favorite subjects). Eventually I will find something else to photograph but today the picture presented itself.

 Alan and I got a rare night out together last night. We went out to dinner and then the mall to use some gift certificates. We ended our night at Barnes and Noble. The kids got a gift card for their birthday and I wanted to look at some books for them. We ended up getting a few books. 2 of them were Christmas at 50% off. Score!

After work today while I was cooking dinner I look out into the living room and see this.....

Alan reading a book and all 3 kids actually sitting still for it! Although I must admit they are getting better at sitting through books....however there is usually someone pushing or poking or running away. I love that they are all snuggled together on the couch reading stories. And who cares if Christmas is over. Rudolph is still a great story!

Happy New Year!

It is officially 2013! We had a great year 2012 and I hope 2013 brings as much fun and happiness as 2012 did. To jump start 2013 I decided to take on a challenge. A 365 challenge where I take a picture every day of 2013. Taking the pictures won't be a problem with me I don't think but I also want to post them on the blog. I hope that will keep me on my toes and keep the blog up and running!

So for my first picture in 2013 I took a picture of the kids getting ready to play their new cootie board game they got from Aunt Stephanie. They got a bunch of board games for Christmas and they are having a blast playing games. We play a game or 4 every day!

Here they are patiently waiting to play. It took me a while to free all the little plastic pieces from their plastic homes but here it is all set up and ready to go! It is different then the cootie I used to play as a kid. There are 4 different eyes, ears/hats, mouths, and feet! When I played they were all the same just the color of the bug was different. They are cute. We played the right way to start but then they started to get a little impatient and just wanted to build their bugs so after every roll, no matter what number they got, they picked a piece. Eventually I am sure we will play the right way all the way through but we are getting used to board games and taking turns so I think we had a good first game!

Our finished bugs! Yay!

And now we play with our bugs. I love that they are now old enough for board games. I love to play board games so this is right up my ally. We still have many more games we have to try. They tend to keep going back to the first couple that we have played. Their absolute favorite game right now is  Jake and the Neverland Pirates game Who shook Hook. It is really and they love to play it!

Our first day of 2013 is going great so far. I hope it will be a great year. Happy New Year! :)

It's December!

24 more days till Christmas! Not only is Christmas my absolute favorite holiday, from the lights to the music and everything else in between, this year the kids are really getting into it and very excited. We have been talking about Santa and lights and all the fun things to come. We got them their first Advent calenders this year.

Of course the are Disney. :) They have the kids new found love in them as well. Chocolate.

Paige having a taste of her chocolate.

Mommy helping Levi open his first day.

He is excited to see what is inside!

Nathan looking to see what is on his chocolate.

I am not sure they quite understand the concept of the advent calender yet. I hope that by the time Christmas is here they will understand. We shall see.

Later in the afternoon, after nap, we decided to go to Perkasie's tree lighting ceremony. They make a big to do with lights ad live music and all sorts of places to shop and such. The kids were very excited to see Santa come. He comes in to light the tree.

Alan and the kids in front of the unlit tree. Paige was trying to crouch down like Daddy.

 While walking around we found some plastic Santa's and snowmen. I asked the kids if they wanted to get their picture taken. Alan decided to take a picture of me with the kids when someone asked if we wanted them to take a picture for us. They did a great job! We have so few of the 5 of us together. I am so happy we got this picture.

We scoped out and got the perfect spot to see Santa arrive as well as the tree being lit. Here we are waiting for him to come!

Santa is here! He came to town on a cherry picker! They had everyone sing Santa Claus is coming to town. It was really neat hearing everyone sing all together.

Getting ready to light the tree.

Going up!

 Counting down to light the tree.

Hooray! The tree is lit!

After lighting the tree Santa Threw candy canes for everyone to catch. The family next to us were old hats at this and were smart and brought their own. They were very nice and gave some to use so that our kids could get some too.

Paige with her candy cane.

When we got home we decided some hot chocolate to warm us up.

With marshmallows!

Levi enjoying his hot chocolate.

Nathan likes it!

Paige thinks it's good!

A perfect way to end our night. Let's hope the rest of December is just as good! :)