12 Days of Christmas

We have this little wooden Christmas house that has doors on it that you can open and put little notes inside of it- and it has the 25 days of Christmas on the little doors. Anthony and I actually purchased the house before we had kids because I found it on sale, and at that time, I knew that one day I would want to use it for some kind of Christmas countdown thing for my kids. Well that time has come!! Although we didn't do all 25 days- we did the 12 days leading up to Christmas this year. Levi loved it so much, that I can only assume that next year we will attempt to do something fun for each of the 25 days. It was really fun-the first thing Levi would do each morning was to go straight to the house and pull the piece of paper out, bring it to me, and ask "what does it say for today???" It'll be a fun family tradition that we will look forward to every year!

These pictures are NOT in any order (it takes way too long to do that for some reason on this blog- and as you know, my time is limited!) And I didn't get pictures for everything that we did--but here are some of them :)

Get a new Christmas book and read it.

Go to Southern Lights at the Kentucky Horse Park- this marked our 3rd year of doing this...this year was crazy-we went in 60 degree weather!

Go out to eat and look at Christmas Lights. We ate at Bob Evan's and drove to a house in Lexington that has been featured in Country Living. This is our 3rd year of this tradition as well!

Get a new ornament and hang it on the tree. Levi got a Lightening Mcqueen one and Colt got a Mickey Mouse one. Both ornaments were broken at some point before Christmas, lol!

Wrap your brother's Christmas gift!

Deliver Scentsy Buddies to the Children's hospital!

Deliver Christmas goodies to our freinds and neighbors

Call Grandma and Grandpa and sing them a Christmas carol- Levi choose Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer:)

Make Christmas cookies :)

On the 24th- we got to do a lot of fun traditions- so that piece of paper was BIG and had lots of things listed on it--Levi even said when he pulled it out--Holy cow- that's lots of stuff today!!

I will do my next post of our Christmas Eve :)

Happy New Year 2012!!!

Happy 2012!!!!!

I've never been one to make a New Years resolution. I do however set goals for myself for the upcoming year. One of those goals is to better update this blog page! We'll see how long this actually lasts- but the great thing about a goal and not a resolution, is that goals really can't be broken, but I will strive to do my best!

On Christmas Eve this year, our family was challenged with "what gifts will you give to Jesus this year" So with that- we have come up with our family bible verse for the year 2012. "And do not forget to do good and to share with others for such sacrifices, God is pleased" Hebrews 13:16.

As our family looks forward to this upcoming year- we look back at 2011 and see the joys and the struggles that we have gone through. I'm just so thankful that God is never finished with us. I am excited to see what is in store in 2012 for our family- and for the lessons we will learn about ourselves and each other.

Here are a few pictures until I get more time to post more :)

On New Years Eve this year, my entire family came to vist us. (see picture above) Even though it was just for a few short hours- it was so great to have them here and for all of us to be together.

My time is up- Colt is waking up and I've gotta go fix lunch for all 3 of the boys!

Air Force Museum

While in Ohio- We took Levi to the Air Force Museum- otherwise known as the Air FOREST Museum to Levi. My dad came too!

on our way!

whose kid is this?!

TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!

Showing us how to hold the guns....

Because we had just been to the air show and saw the Stealth fly over, Levi immediately spotted this one and informed us all it was a stealth bomber.

The "space shuttles"

We took a break and ate some lunch before heading out to the base to see the Presidential display of planes.

riding the bus to the real base- they were super strict about taking people out to the hanger....we had to fill out forms and get bracelets and it was a big deal.

Papa and Levi about to board Air Force One!

This is the plane that flew Kennedy's body back after he was assassinated and it was also the plane that Roosevelt was sworn in on. This also was Bill Clinton's plane- GAG.

Levi in front of a "flying saucer" He's showing me his alien face ;)

We had a great day with my dad- and Levi really enjoyed the planes. The best part may have been afterwards when the world radio plane competition was going on....we got to watch team Italy fly and it was unbelievable. These weren't just miniature planes- they were about 7-8 feet long and ran on REAL JET FUEL and they did all the tricks a real jet does!

Thanks to my Dad for going with us and thanks to my Mom who stayed home with COLT! No way we could have taken him!

Farmers Market

wow- these pictures are old- taken at the farmers market in Sidney Ohio while we were at my parents house visiting this summer!

Anthony and Levi walked over to the SPOT...a little hamburger joint that George W Bush stopped at and ate during his presidency. Theres a plaque of his picture and what he ordered right outside the resteraunt- kind of cool!

Ohio Trip- Air Show

So we spent a little over a week at my parents house this month and while there we got to do a lot of different things. I will try to post about most of the things we did. The trip started off with sick kids....big surprise! Whenever we have ANYTHING planned, especially big trips, someone gets sick. Colt came down with a cold before we left and he had been cutting a few molar teeth and then the MORNING of us leaving, Levi wakes up and says, MY THROAT hurts. Later that night at my parents house, he threw up. Nice. lol. It was also super hot while we were there....I think we were under a heat advisery at least 6 of the 8 days. And anyone who knows my parents house, knows they don't have central air! Growing up, we had a swimming pool so we basically lived in that all day long. I guess as I've gotten older, I've gotten more spoiled and so the heat is hard for me to deal with!!! It was still nice being with my parents, getting to do fun things and having some help with our crazy boys!

So on the Saturday we were there, we went to the Dayton Air Show. It was hot so we took my parents tent. We didnt' think to nail in down.....more about that later ;)

So instead of paying admission to get inside the gate, we parked in a field beside the airport and watched from the outside. There were probably another 100 or so people who did this as well. It was much easier this way with the kids!

To try to keep Colt cool, I dumped water on him and in his stroller ledge thing..he enjoyed playing with it for a while.

Once the planes started flying, the boys were excited!

So before the Thunderbirds started flying there was about a 45 min. break, so Anthony, Levi and my mom went back in the field to fly Levi's thunderbird kite. The Thunderbirds were the main attraction that we wanted to see..at this point we had been in the field for over 2 hours, but we were wanting to wait it out. It became a great day to fly a kit because the wind started picking up.....

...which takes us back to our tent that wasn't staked down in the ground. So Im sitting in my chair playing with Colt when all of a sudden a HUGE gust of wind comes and picks up our tent. I JUMP up to try and grab it but it starts to flip. Did I forget to mention that we were only about 50 feet from a 4 lane road?! So I start freaking out that it's going to go into the road and cause an accident, so I decide to just let it go (not that I could have stopped it anyway). So instead of it hitting a car on the roadway, the tent PLOWS into the mini van right next to us. I run over, and start screaming for Anthony and Mom to come help me, but they can't hear me. About 4 other people come running over to help me get the tent back- I was so embarrassed because EVERYONE in the field saw what happened, lol! (it took a while to get the tent down becasue the wind was still blowing and wanted to take us up like a hot air balloon, lol) As we were taking it down, I mentioned to the lady who owned the van-"I hope it didn't scratch your van" She said, Oh, it already has scratches on it so Im not worried" Only then as we lowered the tent did I realize the 3 inch dent the tent put in the van!!!! We felt horrible- by this time Anthony and Mom came back up to help with everything (as Levi was crying becuase he wanted to fly his kite some more!)

We debated leaving and just going home after that, but we were only about 15 min. from the Thunderbirds flying. Colt was screaming, Levi was tired and hot- so we drove around until they cried themselves to sleep. So we pulled back into the field and Mom, Anthony and I watched the Thunderbirds by ourselves while they slept. It was TOTALLY worth it, lol!!! Okay, here's the rest of the pictures.....

The STEALTH!

Colt really enjoyed watching the planes- the loud jets were really cool and he kept pointing at them!

I guess they were too loud for Levi. His favorite thing was the commercial planes taking off from the runway right in front of us.

Pointing at more airplanes!

Trying to stay cool.

An old bi-plane and a newer jet flying side by side--PAST and PRESENT.

So we had a good time- stressful at times- super fun at times and the THunderbirds were SWEET! The lady whose van our tent hit was really REALLY nice about it and as of now hasnt turned it in to her insurance. She mentioned not even doing anything about it. Just in case, I took a picture on my iphone for proof, lol! You never know ;)

I've got a TON of more pictures to post, so I will do my best to stay on top of it :) However it is August now, so that means I gotta get Colt's scrapbook pages of LAST August done! CRAP!