St. Nick

Celebrating St. Nicholas on his day in Advent brings a bit of fun and festivity into our home. His small treats and surprises help keep the spirit of good St. Nicholas, especially when stories of his goodness and kind deeds are told and ways to express his care for those in need are sought. Saint Nicholas helps us remember Christmas is a feast of love, hope, kindness and generosity. 

 

St. Nick has come!

Stockings are stuffed with treats!

Looks like the kids have bubbles and some toys to play with!

Brianna and Jonah checking out what St. Nick brought!

Micah looking at his candy!

Brianna loves her sock monkey!

Jonah in his hat and showing his Christmas Ornament!

 Each year we get an ornament as well!  This year we had a special ornament!  This ornament reminds us of our little one that we lost that would have been part of our family this Christmas, but now is our angel in heaven. 

For our child that we never met and is in heaven!

Kari's 2011 Christmas Ornament - Glass Angel

Steven's  2011 Christmas Ornament - Snowman

Brianna's 2011 Christmas Ornament - Precious Moment

Jonah's 2011 Christmas Ornament - Cars

 

Micah's 2011 Christmas Ornament - Curious George

 

 

 

Last year our Aunt Robin gave us her Willow Nativity Scene when my Uncle David passed away.  It was missing something and the new addition is the ANGEL!  Isn't it beautiful and such detail!  Advent is a time to prepare and to have some fun along the way.  St. Nick is a great story to read to the kids and the children really enjoy his visit! 

 

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas!!!

This year my mom combined birthday gifts for Brianna and Jonah (whose birthdays are literally 30 days apart) and got us a family pass to the zoo. We are blessed to have a very good zoo where we live, in fact it's considered one of the top zoos in the country. It recently went through some major renovations and is looking incredible! Every year they do an incredible Christmas lights display called The Festival of Lights. The entire zoo is decked out and it also gives you that rare chance to see the nocturnal animals awake and active, which is always really fun! This year they have also switched over all of their lights to LED lights to be more green and the display is completely new, so that was a great surprise! Last night we decided to take advantage of our new passes and kick off the Christmas season by spending a few hours at the festival.

Walking in

Mrs. Frosty the Snowman

Looking at the light display around Swan Lake.

Flamingos are so cool!

Micah with Uncle Josh.

Touching the lights.

Those bats were HUGE!!!

Walking Bear Hill

Trying to point out the bears to the kids. They were black bears so they were kind of hard to find in the dark.

Happy kids (Jonah looks drunk but he wasn't...I promise!!!)

Enjoying some hot chocolate outside the polar espresso.

Looking at the bonobos. They were picking each others fur..it was pretty cute!

What's a trip to the Festival of Lights without a gingerbread man!?!? (And a pose on a gorilla statue!!)

Uncle Josh and Uncle Chris

Mom, Chris and Josh

It was a great night! Merry Christmas!!!

Today we are decorating the house and getting ready for Advent to start tomorrow. That means putting the finishing touches on our Advent fun for this year. I'll post more about it later! Have a great weekend!

Gobble! Gobble!

We are so thankful for our children - the three we have here on earth with us now and our little angel that is with us in spirit always and forever!  We are so blessed! Here are our little turkey's in their Thanksgiving shirts that Nina made for them. She found the idea on our friend Kaysi's craft blog, Keeping it Simple. I believe Kaysi saw it on Pinterest. They turned out adorable!

Crazy Turkey!

Micah Edward

Brianna Michelle

Jonah Michael

We hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving holiday. May your blessings be abundant as we begin this holiday season. And may your belly be full of turkey and pumpkin pie! YUM-O!!

Happy Thanksgiving! I'll be back with regular posting on Monday. It's been a weird month!

Halloween 2011

This year mom was out of town for Halloween so we decided to take the kids over to Steven's grandparents house so they could trick-or-treat with their cousins. It was a great time! Has anyone else realized that trick-or-treating is way shorter than it used to be? It was only 1 1/2 hours where we went! When we were kids I remember trick-or-treating lasting hours! We had time to go home, dump our bags and then go out again. But not anymore! We ended up with WAY more candy than we can eat for months around here, but still, it seems like so much has changed! 

This year our trick-or-treaters consisted of a punk rocker, a Buzz Lightyear and an alien from Toy Story who wouldn't wear his head so ended up looking like a guy from Star Trek the Next Generation! We were joined by a Crayola Crayons Box, a 1950's teen, a 1970's teen, Kissing Kate Barlow from the movie Holes, Big Money and one of Aunt Michelle's friends who wore Micah's alien head! lol  They had a blast. And it was fun to walk around with the kids and enjoy the thrill of Halloween again through their eyes. 

To Infinity and Beyond!

With cousin Jamie

With Aunt Shelly

The whole trick or treating crew...Micah's looking like "You guys are awesome!" lol

"So let me get this straight...I hold out my bucket and they put candy in it? This is the best day EVER!!"

As Oprah would say, that's joy rising right there!

Now that was a successful night!

Hello pretty punk!

With cousin Kristi

Aunt Kathy and her awesome makeup!

The haul..and that's not even all of it! We still have some in a bag on top of the fridge! Like I said, it was a good night!

Hope you all had a great Halloween!