Christmas 2013

Christmas came and went in December and it was a great time at our house!  I didn't take many pictures this year as I was busy watching the kids enjoy the season.  I am realizing that they are growing up way too fast and I'm spending way too much time behind the camera and only seeing life through the lens most of the time.  So I'm trying to take a few pictures and enjoy the experience without the camera plastered to my face.

A usual, the kids were thrilled with all of their presents this year.  Here is Zach's haul.  You can see he is moving from little boy to big boy as you his tastes in presents change.  He's into older things now like electric guitars, legos, and board games.

He was so excited to get this purple electric guitar, he wouldn't put it down for at least an hour!

He has also been begging for the Apples to Apples game and was so excited Santa brought it for him!

Here is Hailey's haul.  You can tell where her presents are because you can see quite a bit of pink when you glance in that direction.

She has grown so much the last year or so that her bike was way too small!  So she asked for a new bik and Santa decided she was good enough to get one!  She loves the bright pink, purple, and blue on it!  

She has also been into Lego Friends - legos for girls that are fairly new.  She got a set of Lego Friends and a nail art studio.  If you know her and how much she loves "paint nails" you know she loved this almost as much as anything else she got.

Both the older kids got microphones on stands as well.  They were so excited to have their own band - Zach on guitar and both of them on the microphone.  Jeremiah and I are wishing Santa had thought to bring us earplugs!  But they are having fun with them!

Here are Tate's presents.  You will notice quite a bit of different items this year.  He's getting bigger and you can see he's moving from the baby stage to the little boy stage.

One of this most wanted items was the Elmo train set.  He played and played and played with it and was just so happy to get it.

As he moved from nursery to Primary in January, we knew he would miss the toys at nursery - so we got him a home version of his favorite - the sit and spin.  He has been flying around on this thing ever since!

And of course we had to make sure Tate had his own microphone to sing into as well.  His came with a little boombox that plays songs for him to sing along with.  Needless to say the noise level here has been extremely high.  But all three of them are having fun singing and dancing with their microphones!

We definitely had a wonderful Christmas!  The kids were thrilled with all of their presents and that what makes us happy as parents!  

Random Pictures - A Bit of a Catch-up

I have to admit I'm way behind on blogging and I'm struggling to find time to catch up.  So I'm going to combine a few random pictures from the last few months into on post to save a bit of time on posting each of the separately.

Tate has been into building forts lately.  I'm not sure where this obsession came from, but he's been begging for one almost every day.  He likes to build it over in the corner of the room by the couches.

And we have to use every available blanket to cover every inch of space or he gets very mad!

Of course he loves getting into his little fort and spends quite a bit of time in there.

Nothing like a wink to make your day!

I decided to surprise him by crawling up to the little gap between the couches and surprise him! 

I reached in and tickled him and he laughed and laughed and laughed.  Then reached out to tickle me too!

Back in December, Hailey and her friend Rylee decided to build a snowman and fort out in the front yard.

They got a little ambitious with the size and didn't get more than a couple of rows of snow piled up before time to come in, but it was fun watching them work together to build their snow fort.

Reading time.  One Saturday morning I found the following scene as I went upstairs to put something away.  I'm not sure how much actual reading was going on, but they were sure having a fun time!

Just a few pictures to show some of the fun things going on at our house during the last few months.  Never a dull moment, that's for sure!  :)