Sleepovers and Gingerbread Houses

Is anyone else feeling that it's suddenly holiday crunch time?  We don't have anywhere to go until Christmas Eve, but I'm already thinking...I need to make this to take here, and pack that to have ready for there...I'm going to try to have everything baked, packed and ready so that we can actually enjoy the holiday instead of having a stressed out crabby mommy, but as I say that I think crap, I haven't wrapped a thing yet!  Hmm...we'll live, I just need to stay focused and check things off my list one day at a time :)  Getting a little sleep wouldn't hurt either.

The boys have had some exciting times this past week.  Bo had his cousins spend the night for the first time, helped me bake sugar cookies, and built gingerbread houses with a friend.  Here are the pictures to prove it :)

Alot of the frosting ended up in Bo's mouth. What a surprise!

Cruz and his cousin Josie

Movie time! They watched Jumanji, and as you can see, Bo was frightened. He had nightmares all night.

Jaden read the book NO David! to the boys.

And then daddy read it.  It's our favorite b/c it only has about 2 words per page :)

This boy is going to be a professional baker by the time he's ten, he helps his mom so much in the kitchen!

Cruz even got in on the action.  Notice Bo being ornery.  He kept trying to make Mickey's footprints in the dough.  This is why we didn't hand any cookies out to friends or neighbors.  Who knows where Mickey's feet have been!?!

Sweet Baby Boy

This sweet baby boy has gotten off his schedule. He is now taking two one hour naps during the day, then a short 30-45 minute nap in the evening.  And then he thinks it's fun to stay up until midnight. 

Yawn.

The Holidays

This year for Thanksgiving we attempted to spend time with both sides of our family.  We got up early and headed west to visit Kelly's family for lunch, then made it back home to spend time with my family just before dark.  Being back "before dark" was key because I wanted to get a few family pictures.  I'm thinking family photos will become a tradition for us on Thanksgiving Day.  We were able to get some good pictures last year when I had just got my new camera...literally, that day.

Here are a few of last year's family pictures.

And this is the best we could do this year.

Here is one of the whole clan with my parents and brothers and sisters.

And here are a few from Thanksgiving Day 2009.

We had to lay Cruz down on the front door mat while we ate lunch.  He didn't seem to mind :)

The boys with Kelly's sister Steph and their Grandma.

This was the party going on when we made it back to my side of the family.

Cruz and his Ga-Ga

I'm really not fond of this picture of me, but I thought the picture was a funny one of me and my sisters.  We were searching the Black Friday ads for our shopping adventure the next morning.  Something must've been pretty funny.?.

Here we are a little more posey...

My sisters and I with the babies and our grandma and grandpa.

Thanksgiving was fun this year, but surprisingly Kelly and I were still hungry when we got home that night! That's just sad...

Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, I know two little boys who are patiently awaiting Christmas....

Girls Weekend

My mom, sisters, and I decided to make a new tradition of taking a trip to Kansas City one weekend each year to do some shopping.  This year my sister and I had new babies and are still nursing so we were planning on bringing the babes, but my sis got out of it by having her hubby feed the babe formula for a day.  Kelly and Bo were headed back to Kelly's home town to go hunting, so Cruz was along for the ride.  He couldn't have been a better shopper!  Thank goodness!  Sorry mom, Em, and Kels...I know you're gonna LOVE these pics, but they are good memories that I have to document. :)

Here is Kelsey, mom and Cruz at American Eagle.

We made lots of purchases, but had to get out of the mall pretty quick, you can definitely tell the holiday season is beginning.  After 7 1/2 hours of shopping we checked into our hotel, which happened to be the same one Emmy and Heath had stayed at last December.  We took our shoes off and had a few drinks to relax before we went out to eat.  Kelsey insisted we get "dolled up" before going out.

Here is Kelsey teasing Emmy's hair while mom takes note.

And the finished product.

Aww...Kels, you're so darn cute.

We were ready to head to the restaruant around 9 P.M.  We had a short detour on the way due to the lack of our directional skills and made it to Carraba's around 9:30 P.M.  We were tired and hungry by then!! (And maybe a little tipsy too...ahem.) 

Here we are drinking our wine and waiting for our food.

Cruz slept like a champ throughout the night. I was worried he would keep everyone up, but I think the poor little guy was worn out from all the shopping we did.  The next day it was pouring outside and we were suppose to go to the outdoor mall...oh yes, and did I mention we were driving a truck?!?  We had to hit up Wal-Mart before anything so we could wrap our luggage and purchases in trash bags before we went anywhere.  Oh...if I had only gotten pictures of mom and Emmy transferring all of our stuff into trash bags in the back of the truck in the pouring rain in the middle of Wally World parking lot!!!  It was a hoot, to say the least! 

After eating at IHOP and the trash bag ordeal we were tempted to hit the road home, but Emmy had spotted a shoe warehouse on our detour to the restaurant the night before so we figured we could at least do a little shoe shopping before heading home.  We could've spent all day and thousands of dollars at the shoe store, but Cruzie wasn't having it so we decided to give the outdoor mall a drive by then head home.  Oh how the kiddos and husbands at home were excited to see us when we returned!  Can't wait til next year when we can go minus any children and maybe hit up a few casinos for our evening out....hmm, we'd better not plan on doing any shopping on our second day if we're going gambling girls!!

12 Weeks Old

Our chunky little man is 12 weeks old today.  Wow how time flies!  Thank goodness I opted out of going back to work...the chubby boy is really starting to be alot of fun these days.  He is an endless gabber and I swear the kid will have a complete conversation with you if you let him.  He's not quite rolling over yet, but he swings his legs around and can turn a complete circle while lying on his back.  And the boy loves sucking/chewing on his fingers or fist, whatever he can fit into his mouth.  I see tons of fun times ahead with this little guy!  Now if I can only convince him to sleep through the night...

A Daily Occurrence

Yes, he has to have his undies on when he builds his forts, or as he would call them, "nests".

Halloween '09

This Halloween was a little less stressful compared to last year.  For some reason last year we didn't have a costume ready for Bo until it was time to hit the streets.  I told myself that that would never happen again.  So this year we had costumes and candy ready weeks before the big day.  Bo wanted to be a dinosaur, but the costume at the Halloween store was a tad too small.  Grandma Kaiser said she had some old costumes from a neighbor of hers, so we held off on the dino costume and settled for Scooby Doo.  I didn't think Bo even knew who Scooby was at first because he just called it a dog costume, but eventually he started saying, "Scooby Dooby Doo!"  It all worked out!

Little Cruzie was a froggy.  I found his costume at Wal-Mart for $8!  He was not feeling so well so the festivities didn't last long for him.

We met up with a few of our friends to take a picture with all the kiddos. Here they are from 2006 to 2009.  We've added a few kids since then....too bad Cruz was under the weather, he didn't get to make it to join the group for his first Halloween.

Bo wasn't too enthused this year for the group photo.  He was ready to meet up with his cousins.  He was all smiles once we got to his best bud Landon's house. Here are all the cousins, including the little ones. We had a giraffe, a marine dog, a pink cheetah, Scooby, a bride, and a froggy.

The kids were unsure about going door to door. Which is shocking because Bo is such a candy lover.  They made one of us adults go up to each door with them.  And surprise surprise, they wanted to eat each piece of candy they got right away.

After filling our buckets, we went home to hand out candy at our house.  About the time tricker treaters started to dwindle, we got a call from Papa informing us that he had shot a deer.  So we headed out to their house to check it out.  This was Bo's first deer up close and he wasn't too sure what to think about it.