Last Post of 2016

Between Halloween and New Years Eve life gets a little crazy. Well, calling life crazy is an understatement. It might be have been crazy before kids but now with three young kids it is like trying to herd a dozen cats all hyped up on catnip while trying to balance on one foot and look like you know what you are doing. But as I sit here and think about the past two months, it went by way too fast. I have tried to be more in the moment with the kids and not take so many photos this past year but its hard though when I realize I don't have a picture of this or that and just have to hope that the memory won't fade. We even went to Ohio for a long weekend a few weeks ago and I have no pictures to show for it. I just need to take a deep breathe and know it was worth it in the moment.

During the holidays, we always try a few new recipes. Now that Madeleine likes to help in the kitchen its more messy but much more fun too.

The start of Thanksgiving break! Everyone was still smiling ;)

James had a school fundraiser at a trampoline park - he had a blast with his school friends.

My Thanksgiving sous chefs!

John told the kids that they had to go catch the turkey for dinner, so they got their nerf guns and spent a good part of the morning hunting turkeys. James was not thrilled when they came back inside and he realized the turkey was already in the oven.

Madeleines picture of our family. Its one of my favorites.

Madeleine made her "throne" to watch TV. She's a ham.

I started outsourcing some duties and Madeleine was excited to take the job.

Baby's first official head bump from trying to pull himself up.

Santa Claus!

This little man LOVES his baths. I truly think they are a highlight of his day.

So because our house isn't busy enough, we adopted a 1 year old border collie mix from the SPCA and named him Dash Flash. He is the sweetest dog with tons of playful energy. We are still working on some manners but he has already come a long way in just 2 weeks.

Dash is full grown and his little 30 lbs makes Duke just look massive. John's brothers call Duke a hippo and now I can see why!

Dash also loves bath time like Matthias. He loves to try and catch the water as Matthias splashes around.

Christmas is not compete without Christmas cookies! We have a tradition with friends where we make our Christmas cookies with friends but this year Madeleine came down with a stomach bug so we had to miss out. The kids were bummed but from a mommy point of view it was sort of nice just to make cookies with just us this year.

Christmas Eve snuggles! It took Duke a few days to warm up to Dash, but now they snuggle and play and its been really good for him to have a friend again. He has really missed having another dog in the house. And since he outweighs Dash by over 70 lbs, he can still hold his own when they play.

So there's this app on my phone where I was able to add in Santa into our picture! I had a friend text it to me on Christmas morning and just changed her name in my phone to Santa Claus so the kids thought that Santa sent them a picture of him delivering their presents from the night before. They got a huge kick out of it.

Here's the picture I was able to add Santa into. Pretty cool, right?

Christmas morning was wonderful, so fun to watch the kids open their presents and play - and then we stayed in our pjs all day and just relaxed and ate too much.

John and I looked back through past Christmas morning pictures, and in every picture for the past three years James is putting together Legos and Madeleine is in a new princess dress. They are consistent!

James got scrabble junior for Christmas and it was a huge hit. We love board games in this house and have played the ones we have to death so it was fun that we got a few new ones for Christmas.

Every year, between Christmas and New Years John has off from work. It is my favorite week of the year. I look forward to it so much every year because it is our family time where we can just be together and do whatever we want or nothing at all. The kids love it just as much as I do and we all take advantage of this week to just recharge as a family before we get back to the schedule of life.

Right now I am watching Ohio State lose to Clemson in the Fiesta Bowl. It is a huge disappointment to us Buckeyes, but probably even more because John, Steve, Stephen and Will are all at the game right now. Whoops!

This is who I spent my last night of 2016 with and I could have asked for a better way to end the year.

This past weekend I took Madeleine and Matthias to Memphis to visit our good friends Brooke and Chad and their two sweet kids. They used to be our neighbors but moved last year to be closer to family. Madeleine and their little girl, Parker, were the best of friends and I think their move was even harder on Madeleine than it was on me. We hopped on a plane for a quick three day trip and it was the best weekend - lots of catching up and laughter.

While we were gone, John and James had an epic boys weekend. They went hiking, played lots of football and ate "men" food (which is basically meat and potatoes with no green vegetables in sight and always ice cream for dessert). They had a blast.

Halloween 2016

For some crazy reason, there was no school for anyone on Halloween. Which means that the kids were up and dressed in their costumes before noon. With a long wait ahead of them.

Thankfully our friends were having a kids party in the middle of the day to try and help entertain them for a couple of hours. There were tons of games and activities for the kids, and of course lots of treats for them!

Poor third kid, I just realized that this is the only picture I took of him on Halloween! He pretty much just hung out in the swing through the whole party and laughed at all the kids running around. And because of all the craziness of the party, he slept through most of trick or treating and then helped John pass out candy for the rest of it. We were going to reuse the dragon costume that we had for James, but it was over 80 degrees here and he would have been way too hot.

Madeleine was of course Cinderella (after going through about a dozen ideas before she finally decided) and loved every minute of being a princess.

James was a ninja, a tough and scary ninja.

The kids had so much fun and of course got way too much candy - but I would say yesterday was a definite success!

James went to the eye doctor and this was his first time getting his eyes dilated! He was a little freaked out that he couldn't really see anything, but then in real 6 year old fashion he embraced it and pretended he was a zombie for the rest of the visit and day.

James and his little group of friends at school made some crazy game up during indoor recess one day, and his teacher was so impressed that she took a picture to send to us. He has really settled into his new school and made the best of the situation.

Madeleine has taken it upon herself to always make sure Matthias has enough toys to play with on the floor. I cant tell if its motherly or just trying to plan ahead start to train him now to only play with his toys and not hers for.

All the public schools and Madeleines preschool didn't have school one day (Poor James did though) so several moms packed up all the kids and took them to IKEA for the day! They have a really fun playroom for the older kids and then after we shopped we got picked the kids up for lunch and ice cream. Very successful no school day for all!

We carpool to James' school with a neighbor - and on the days where it is my turn and John is out of town, Madeleine and Matthias have to go with us. I think Madeleine's face says it all on her thoughts of taking the boys to school.

Teething is the worst. There really isn't much to do about it except lots and lots of frozen blueberries. It is a total mess but it gives him cold yummy relief on those poor gums. He has his two bottom teeth now but his two tops ones are coming too. Hopefully once those pop out, he will get a break before the next bought of teething starts.

On Fridays, we have been meeting a few moms at our local craft beer spor. Yes, I know how that sounds but it is super family friendly and the kids love being able to play. Its right outside our neighborhood and the owner even bought our kids sidewalk chalk so they would feel that they get something there too. Its been a fun little tradition and more and more moms are coming so now there are about a dozen kids on any given Friday afternoon hanging out there!

Just snuggling with his blanket. I tried so hard not to give this one a blanket because the other two are so attached to theirs - but it was either a blanket or me. So he got his blanket.

John had a three week trip (which is also why I haven't posted anything - its been a crazy three weeks) and he came home last week just in time for his birthday. The kids wanted to go all out since they missed him so much. So we made lots of cards and decorations, but the highlight was his birthday cake. John always wants an ice cream cake - so since we couldn't make one of those, the kids shoved as many candles as they could on there. I know it doesn't look like it, but there were close to 30 candles on that cake!

Last Friday, John joined us at the craft bar and brought all the kids frostys. He sure knows how to win them over!

Matthias did not get one, but he got some daddy snuggles while John worked so he was happy!