Dylan & Matthew's Double Birthday Party

We had an extra cup of coffee and took some Advil and headed out for Dylan and Matthew's combined birthday party yesterday. It was hectic but super fun times. We invited all his cousins, grand parents and two good friends. Matthew's God mother was also there. Thanks to everyone who came and helped us celebrate Dylan's 5th and Matthew's 2nd birthday!

Me with Aunt T, Matthew's God Mother.

Dylan's pre-K friend, Eric with his brother Noah, who goes to day care with Matthew.

Cousin, Griffin shows us his mad drawing skills!

Big cousin Allison. Great work Alli!

Cousin Ryan wanted to draw a XMas Tree, good job!

They had fun in the Face Painting room. Even Grandpa!

This is actually a cupcake cake!

Noah in the ball pit. SO adorable!

When the weather outside is frightful..

Here is our first attempt ever at decorating a gingerbread choo choo train. It was hard to keep Matthew from eating the candy. He was screaming for candy. Dylan did a great job putting the candy on the train. He really did most of the work himself.

Fun project for a very cold, snowy day!

Meeting Santa

Dylan is still very frightened at the thought of meeting Santa. I wonder if it because we threaten him all the time by saying that we'll tell Santa if he does anything naughty. hmmm.

We thought he was very brave to finally sit with him yesterday. He did great in the end. Santa was very sweet and patient with Dylan. 

Joe coaxing Dylan into sitting with Santa. The hand shake.

Dylan is still a tad scared.

Won't make eye contact yet.

Finally got a smile out of him. Matthew and Carson weren't scared at all.

Carson's first Christmas.

Santa told Dylan that he and his brothers are all on the "nice" list. Pheww!

The Countdown Begins!

24 Days till Christmas! Eek!

Here is Dylan opening up the 1st box of his Lego Advent calendar.

The kid loves Legos!

I also got them a Playmobil Advent Calendar. But didn't realize that I had to put it together first. It took me about 45 minutes, but the result was pretty cool.
Instead of opening a little door to find the prize, you open a box a day. Fun!

Here is Carson this morning in his baby robe and jammies. Isn't he adorable! 

13 weeks old now and already in 6-9 month clothes. Chunky boy!! He likes to look at his hands and suck on them so it is hard to get a good photo of his face these days. He is a very smiley baby.
I am off to see a movie. At Kerasotes theaters they run a "Mommy/Daddy Movie Matinee" you can bring screaming kids and no one can complain. Love it!

Christmas Tree!

Lights on the house - check.

Nativity set up - check.

Christmas decorations up - check.

Christmas cards ordered - check.

Gift list - check.

Christmas tree up - check check.

Yay! We are officially ready for Christmas. 

This year we set up a train around the bottom of the Christmas tree for the boys. It falls over sideways at the slightest touch. Now I am constantly telling the boys - no yelling at them DON'T TOUCH THE TRAIN. Try it about 30 times a day. Fun times.

Here they are checking out the train with Joe.

Notice the lack of decorations at the bottom of the tree. Matthew "the destroyer" has sticky fingers.

Of course we had to play our annual Christmas game of find the pickle. Dylan found it straight away. The kid is so smart! He helped us decorate this year. He is becoming my super helper.

We had to trade in the Charlie stocking for a Carson stocking.

Forever a family of five!

Happy holidays everyone.

Thanksgiving!

We celebrated Thanksgiving dinner with Joe's brother Jim at Konvalia's house. Doesn't her dining room look like something at luxurious restaurant?! Her whole house is gorgeous.

Hostess with the mostess!

The boys with Nana B and Grandpa. They couldn't wait for grace. oops.

Trivia games after dinner. We had a lot of laughs. It was a small group gathering this year, as Joe's other siblings were with their spouse's families.

It was Carson's first Thanksgiving, so I had to have a special photo with my little peanut.

Hope you all had a wonderful time with your families, I can't wait to hear all about it!

xoxo

Up in smoke.

We got a new wood burning fireplace insert. Not only will it help reduce our gas bill (hopefully) it is a great tax write-off ($1500 credit from Uncle Sam).

We have wanted a wood burning fireplace since we moved into our house over 4 years ago. A local dealer came out and measured our fireplace and we waited to hear from them about the installation. Well, after trying for two years to get them to call us back we gave up and put our dreams of Christmas by the fire, Thanksgiving by the fire and cold, wet nights by the fire..well on the back burner. I still can't believe that those people never returned our calls. I suppose they didn't need our business.

Then this year we decided to start shopping around for another dealer. Joe found a guy out of Illinois who was willing to work with us. Imagine that, a person in this down economy who actually wants to make a buck. Wow. (Note sarcasm here.)

We thought "Yay! We'll open Christmas presents by the fireplace this year!" And, "Yay, we can roast marshmallows or enjoy a nice glass a wine at the end of the day while roasting our little toesies." We were so excited.

After putting down a cash deposit of a couple thousand dollars (yeah, we're made of money, don't you know? Sarcasm again people.) We couldn't nail down an installation date. The guy started making excuses, giving us the run-around. What is UP with these fireplace people!!?

Finally, Joe gave them an ultimatum. Do the installation or we will cancel and demand our money back. Well, they finally came through after some more miscommunication with the installer. We had the box installed this week.

It still isn't finished. They "happened" to give us the wrong face, so there is a 9-inch gapping hole above the box. ARGH.

Joe lit the first fire and within 30-45 minutes our whole house was filled with smoke. Cough, cough. Smoke even in the basement. Something not right here, right? ARGHH.

Everything in the house smells like smoke. I googled it and it will take quite awhile for the smoke smell in things like curtains and sofas to go away. Oh yay.

To try and kill the au de camp fire smell, I decided to make potato leek soup today. And burn some vanilla candles and soon I am going to wave some poopy diapers around. That should  kill the smell, don't you think? And if there is one thing we have in abundance, it's poopy diapers. Hey, but that is another blog post... 

Happy Birthday Matthew! Terrible Twos!

Our little ray of sunshine is two today! 

He has a smile that melts your heart. Which is a very good thing for him, because man this kid can be a handful! I tell people that he had the "middle child syndrome" from birth, before we were even pregnant with the third child.

Just don't get him upset because he is a marathon crier. He will cry. And cry. And cry. Forever. Then cries some more just because he likes the sound his throat makes when he cries. (I'll post a video of it one day.)

He is very quick and very smart and very much the clown. He loves to make you laugh.  He's a dancin', singin' fool. He totally gets "it" and before you know it, he has you wrapped around his little finger. 





Happy birthday our little messy, one-sock-Matt, Matthew the destroyer, my little love.

**********************

Later in the day, we had a small celebration for him at home. 

The cake I made turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself! Yummy too.

Enjoying the beautiful fall weather!

The boys and I had a another fun day. First off to the library to check out a few DVDs. Matthew was hyper and didn't allow us to peruse any books. Bummer because they had a whole shelf of I Spy books that Dylan was itchin' to look at.

Still, I love their DVD collection, especially for the kids. We will never buy another DVD again!

Then we headed to the "big" park to enjoy the sunshine. It is quite a job keeping up with two kids and a baby at the park. Thankfully, Dylan is very easy and helps me a little with Matthew. Dylan also knows to stay close and not run away, unlike his brother.

Carson does not like anything on his head. Can you tell he is a tad upset?