Bubble Beards and Hats

All 3 of the kids love the bubble bath!!!

Playing with new presents

The kids are loving all of their presents. The castle is a hit as you can see Tootie has her cup and "Kiggy" and is laying in there. And J and Tootie are having a ball with their Tag and Tag Jr. J is excited because he read a line in Scooby Doo.

The Puzzle Wizard

OK J insisted I post this and made me take a picture. He loves puzzles and he put this 100 piece puzzle together with absolutely no help and did it in less than an hour today. Now he is working on a 300 piece Bakugan puzzle. He is soooo amazing.

Princess Tootie gets a Castle

Nene and Pop got Toot her first Doll house. It is so adorable to sit and watch her tinker with her dolls and there beds and kitchen chairs. I love it! She also got a Strawberry shortcake house with accessories that she tinkers with for the longest time. Uncle Craig and Aunt Nic got her a princess castle and the only way we could get her to eat was to let her eat in her castle!

Christmas at Nene and Poppie's

We went to Mom and Dad's for the weekend. It was a great time. We got there about noon on Saturday and Mom had my birthday party. All 5 of us, Craig, Nic, Mom, Dad, Gig, Mamma and Pamps were all there. We had a time visiting and laughing at how cute the kids are! We had snow in Indiana but we got to IL and there wasn't any on the ground. I had brought all the snow suits and the kids got new snow boots from Nene and Pop for Christmas.

Well, on Sunday morning I got my wish. We had like 3 inches of snow at Mom and Dad's so Eric drove to the store to get the kids a sled to hook to the back of the 4 wheeler. When he got back, we opened presents. It was a whirlwind for the kids but us adults took our time. After lunch, J and Toot, Eric, and Uncle Craig took the kids sledding.

We got quite a bit of snow, wind, and ice. The roads were bad and it took us about 2hr and 20 min to get home. It took me much much longer to put all the toys away!! Ha Ha!! We got some roudy toys. Nene and Pop got J a Wolverine claw and Hulk punching gloves for Christmas and Uncle Craig and Aunt Nic got J a Bazooka that shoots 25 foam bullets at a time. At least they got Toot a mini foam shooter to fight back! Ha!

The kids were a riot on the sled. It was kind of small so Toot laid on her back and J just laid on top of her so they would both fit. And they wanted to go faster. It was making me nervous and Remy (Craig and Nic's dog) followed close behind and Tootie just sqealed in delight. There little faces were beat red when they came in.

Mamma got the kids each an umbrella just for something to open at my birthday and you would have thought they got the present of the year. They took those suckers everywhere...running into the tree, people, etc, with them. So J took his outside. It was hilarious because Pop told J it was cold outside and J said "Oh yeah, you're right I better take my umbrella". Like that was going to keep him warm

Tootie got a Tinkerbell kit and it had these clip on earrings that she immediately latched onto and I have been putting them on her all day.

Exciting Christmas!!

What a great year it has been for Christmas! Now that Tootie is older she and J were both so excited about Christmas this year. We wanted to go to the 7 pm mass last night but we made an offer on another house and had to go to the realtor's office to sign our offer so by the time we got home it was 6pm and the turkey was ready so then we missed the 7pm mass and boy did I have some grumpy kids by 9pm. So we missed out on church last night which was upsetting but we had a great Christmas together.

Yesterday, Eric had to work, but I cooked all day and had Christmas movies and little activities for the day. We met Eric at 4pm at the realtor's office. Then when we got home we had turkey, dressing, butternut squash, angel biscuits, party salad, peppermint salad (Christmas tradition), mashed potatoes, and Sleigh Ride Punch (which no one like but me...must have been the Cranberry juice!) Then it took me like 1 1/2 to do dishes and clean up the kitchen. I had to clean out my oven. Eric got a 24lb turkey from work and my oven and roaster pan did not quite accomodate. I tried to put a cookie sheet under to catch the drippings but it was so big it still spilled over. It was very smokey so I had to clean out my oven so I could make the cinnamon rolls this morning. Not a fun thing to do on Christmas Eve.

Then we watched "The Grinch" (3 times), "Charlie Brown Christmas", and "The Little Mermaid" And finally had a piece of "White Christmas" cake. New recipe this year and I think it will be another new Christmas tradition.

Finally, we laid out cookies and candy and carrots for Santa. Then we tracked Santa on the Nordac tracker online and the kids were out like lights.

This morning, I had to wake them up at 8:30. They jumped out of bed and ran down stairs. They opened their presents faster than I could keep up. Sophi even enjoyed her first Christmas. She had a ball. We had to keep her out of the trash paper and little scraps. This very minute J is playing his new Leapster game, "Wolverine" which teaches geography. He knew which continent Africa was without me helping him! And Tootie is playing with her new Tag system with her "Dora" and "Kai Lan" book. Soph went down for a well needed nap. But has been trying to cruise on her new princess scooter. Merry Christmas to all!!

The Christmas Tree

Well, we finally got our tree up yesterday. Our tradition has been that the boys go get the tree and us girls decorate it when they get home. We've done this since J was born. So I do believe that this is the biggest tree we have ever had. I actually had to cut the top off so the star would fit. So here is Wolverine and Batgirl with the tree.

You will also notice an awnry little Soph trying her best to get her hands on the tree.

Ahhhhh, "Christmas Vacation" while wrapping presents tonight and I will try to fit in a few sets of tennis on my new Wii that Eric got me (and him, LOL!) for my birthday!!

Sophi sippin on a Capri Sun

Soph found one of J's Capri suns and was sipping away.

Funny Story. I told the kids to get ready for bed after bath time last night and J went and put on appropriate jammies. Toots however, chose a tutu and dress shoes and preferred no diaper!

Well I have the mailing packages ready to go out for Christmas tomorrow and most of my Christmas candy made. Christmas will be here soon!!! This year is so much fun since Tootie is sooo into it.

This Post is for Ryan

Ryan told me the other day that the thing he loves best about my blog and the way I am with the kids is that I let them be little. He loves how they can dress up whenever they want. If J wants to be Superman or Spiderman for the day...SURE!! Here is a pic of the kids after they wanted to dress up yesterday. I did make Tootie put on pants to go outside. J was a racecar driver for the day. And Tootie wore her fairy wings and disco hat to take J to school, to the grocery store, and to the AT&T store. They love to dress up