Merry Merry!

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas.  Our Christmas was loud, chaotic, exhausting and tons of fun!  Pictures to come soon, but for now, we are working on finishing touches to prepare for Will's birthday.  My little man turns FIVE tomorrow.  I cannot believe he is going to be 5.  In keeping with tradition, we will keep things low key tomorrow with family gifts and his official "party" being the second weekend in January.  Daddy is in the garage as I type this attempting to put together the Spiderman bike that we are giving to Will for his birthday. (Big disadvantage to having a birthday right after Christmas is that things tend to sell out if Mommy isn't thinking ahead of time, so we had to get a bike that was all in pieces rather than the one already put together in the store.  Ellis claims it looked easy...but after him being in the garage for 45 minutes and not much to show for it ... I am now not so sure!)

Breakfast with Santa

Will was thrilled to meet Santa this past weekend at the Breakfast with Santa event at our church.  He proudly jumped on his lap and said that he wanted a Green Lantern watch.  (??? Afraid that will not make it on Santa's sleigh!) 

The girls did not handle it so well.  Although thrilled to see Santa and anxious to run up and see him.  Once Catie and Carter realized they were supposed to get that close to Santa, they lost it.

Carter could not handle being on Santa's lap...

And Catie never even made it off the floor that she had flung herself on, crying hysterically....

Perhaps they will like Santa a little more next year?  :-)

Our New Home!

Its official - as of last Thursday, we now have a new home!  Its a home for us to grow into and, hopefully, stay in to raise our children.  It had many of the things we were looking for slowly over the last 5 months or so (a traditional floor plan, 4 bedrooms and a playroom for the kids).  We were in no rush to buy, but this one had so much of the features that we wanted.  Ellis and I are not crazy about the pool (in fact, we almost passed on the house because of it), but I know the kids will love it, particularly as they get a little older.  We'll be putting in a big (probably not attractive) child-proof fence around it until the kids are all older.

We will not be doing much until after Christmas (the season is busy enough!), and plan to get a few things done in the new house before we move in.  Right now, the goal is to move in early February!  We took the kids and my parents to see it for the first time today.  The kids ran and ran and ran around that house, and Will has asked if we can move his playset by the pool so that the slide ends in the pool.  Hee! (He has such a creative mind.)  I look forward to making it our "own" --- I do NOT look forward to actually moving though.  Yikes!

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Its Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas at our house, but I just don't have any pictures of it to show.  My little camera just broke and our big camera's flash doesn't work right unless I put this massive detachable flash on it, which I am not good at, so the ability to take quick pictures is not really there.  But we have all the decorations up at the house, which Will was super excited to help me with this year.  All the kids went with us to pick a tree this year and thank goodness we bumped into Bapa and Grandma there because it was a little tricky concentrating on a good tree with all 3 kids tearing off into different directions.  All of them loved running amongst the Christmas trees.  Will helped me put the ornaments on the tree this year, which was really fun to have his help and see his excitement as I showed him each ornament and where it came from, etc.  I gave the girls ornaments that would not break so they could "help" decorate too.   Mommy & Daddy went to a Christmas tour of homes through our church while Will made gingerbread houses and the girls hung out at home with Faith.  Will went to a Polar Express party last weekend sponsored by the PTO at his day care and had a blast with Christmas activities, watching the movie and drinking hot cocoa and eating a cookie in his PJs. Mommy volunteered to help at the event....whew! 40+ kids of various ages?? It was crazy! 

So things are in full Christmas swing and I can proudly admit that Santa is ahead of the game this year and pretty much ready for Christmas.  Hooray!  I was determined to try and make this Christmas season a little less stressful....particularly because we have a HUGE change in our family's lives coming up soon.  More to come on that.....!

** Ellis pointed out to me that folks might think I'm pregnant with the way I ended that post.  So - to avoid any rumors - No, I am not.  I guess you might describe the change more like just a big change rather than a HUGE change in comparison of that kind of news.  Anyway, more to come after things are finalized...