Christmas time is here...

Our house is fully decorated for Christmas. First time I've had it done by December 1st since we've had kids. Feels good to have it all done, I remember a time when it'd take me up to 2 weeks to get all the decorations up, but that was when I was working full time too and my time at home was very limited.

Our tree in our dining room

I just love our stockings that my mom made last year!

Tree on our front porch

Our house is lit once again! Kevin spent the afternoon putting the lights on the house. We never got to it last winter.

Silly kids

Adeline was keeping Stella entertained last night while Kevin was making dinner and I was cleaning out the dishwasher. Yes, Adeline is wearing a bee costume and yes Stella is riding in a doll stroller. But hey, it kept them busy!

Paul is always building things with his TRIO blocks and I know I've said it before, but I love seeing what he creates with these things. This is by FAR the BEST gift he's ever received. He can keep busy for hours with them. He informed us last night that he wants more TRIO's for Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving.

I had high hopes of taking more pictures yesterday, but didn't do it. Here are the very few I got. Stella was napping when we were eating dinner and woke up just as we were finishing up, so I didn't get any pictures of her yesterday. We didn't even get a family picture!

Amelia made her pilgrim costume at school on Monday, they wore them at school on Tuesday and she wanted to wear it for Thanksgiving, so she wore it most of the day!

The table I set before our guests arrived.

Cheesy Paul

Adeline needed to wear her Jessie costume because Amelia was wearing her Pilgrim costume. She proceeded to fall asleep at the dinner table!

We hope each and every one of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Because we sure did!

How to cook a turkey...

Here is Amelia's how to cook a turkey from school this year. I love reading these things and can't wait to see the paper this week and read all of her classmates "How to cook a turkey" directions. Plus I thought my Granny would get a kick out of this too!

Paul's Cowboy

A couple weeks ago, Paul was drawing pictures and he drew this cowboy, sometimes I wish I could get inside his brain and find out what's going on in there. He amazes me every day!

Paul is FIVE!

My baby boy turned 5 last Tuesday, can you believe it?! I can't believe how much he's changed in 5 years, he's becoming such a "grown-up" or as my dad use to refer to himself as a kid a "junior adult", somedays you'd think he's 15 the way he talks and goes into detail about things. We sure do love that kid. This post is very picture heavy, some pictures are from his actual birthday and the mini-celebration with just our family and the others are from his Surprise Birthday party. Yes, you read that correctly, surprise party for a five year old. That was Paul's request! About we returned home from Brainerd after my aunt's funeral, we were discussing his birthday and what he wanted to do for it and he said he wanted a surprise party. Gene told him the only surprise would be if we didn't have a party for him. I told my mom about this and she said we had to make it work. I lined up for Grandma Mary to take him Friday night, Papa Ron was gone golfing in Missouri so Paul thought he was going to take care of Grandma while Papa was gone. It all worked out well and I think he was truly surprised!

Patiently  waiting for his birthday cupcakes after his steak dinner.

Blowing out his candle.

Good cupcakes!

Even Stella enjoyed the cupcakes. Her and I split one but she stole most of mine too!

Not sure what she's doing!

Sleepy Amelia.

Opening his gift from Uncle Gene

Super excited

Ben 10 "watch"

Surprise! Met at the door by all the kids

Trying to figure out what's going on.

Still not sure why all the kids are here.

All the kids (except Hazel and Jilly) in their Halloween Costumes

Our adorable niece Jilly and her daddy Brandon.

Transformers cupcake cake!

Grandma Carrie's Guitar Rice Krispy Bars

Time for Gifts!

Thank you everyone who helped to make Pauly's birthday special!

clouds

I snapped this picture on my cell phone this morning out of my dining room window, hence why you see the reflection of the dining room light. I thought the clouds were just beautiful and couldn't resist snapping a picture, but they were gone before I could grab my camera to get a decent shot outside, so the cell phone picture will have to do. I thought they almost looked like angel wings.