Christmas Morning!

Isn't she so excited about sweet baby Jesus?  She was so surprised Christmas morning to find a baby in the manger she immediately picked him up and carried him around.  It really tickled me cause we have done this for years now, but never had a little girl.  It was so precious... I love hearing her say "baby Jesus!!"  Don't the rest of us look pretty miserable?  We are.  I'm about a million degrees and check out what the kids insisted we have....

Yes, a fire!!!  They said it didn't feel like Christmas morning without a fire.  Never mind that it was in the 70s outside and I was cooking around 103 degrees.  :)  And yes, that is still a baby's first Christmas stocking.  Think I will get around to sewing hers this year?  Eek, I'm not sure. 

Noah passed out the gifts and everyone got to work.  They wanted stockings first, so Annie immediately had to have  a snack!

Noah loved everything he got.  He was super pleased with his ladybug dream light and also loved his cargo plane (the big box).  Somehow we didn't get a pick of it all assembled!

Wyatt's favorite gift was his vet set. And the digital light designer thing is really cool!  We all had fun playing with it.

Annie loved her new doll. But I think her favorite gift is this ladybug rolly car thing.  It is just perfect for a two year old!! It works really well in our house, too, since we hardly have any carpet.  She has had to fight with the boys for it, though.  They are too funny rolling about on it - they look huge!!

It is a good thing she shared with Wyatt, cause she really loves his vet set and wants him to constantly share with her.  Later in the afternoon we heard somebody rustling about in the cat food and then this is what we found.

How adorable is that?!  Even though we were sick it was a really nice day.  Josh usually sleeps so I have to do all the toy assembling myself, but he was home so it was really lovely!

Christmas Eve

So this year was just a total bummer as far as Christmas goes.  We started getting sick the Saturday before, and so did my dad.  There was just no way we could all get together Christmas Eve like we normally do, so we had to change things up a bit.  At this point it was just Noah and myself who were sick, and maybe this was Wyatt's first day with a low fever.  Three days later we found out we all had strep!!  It has to be the worst strep ever cause we all had fevers over 105.  Noah J also had pink eye and a terrible ear infection, and then passed the pink eye on to the rest of the kids by the end of the week.  NOT the most ideal Christmas!    Everybody felt so horribly sick they weren't even that disappointed.  Poor Joshua had to take care of sick people his entire 2 weeks off.  Not exactly what we had pictured!  We tried to go look at Christmas lights this night but the kids were so miserable Noah was begging to go home and go to sleep. :(

So Christmas Eve we decided to let the kids open their jammies and 1 gift, since they didn't get to open gifts at my parents house.  I sewed them and was really pleased with how they came out.  The boys really love ties, so they were tickled with them.  Annie screamed "necklace!!!" about hers.  :)

Each of them picked out one gift, and it is so funny that they really wanted to open the gifts they got each other.  I guess they couldn't keep them secret one night longer!

Annie was thrilled with her zhu zhu puppy.  She loves zhu zhu pets and I saw these puppies on clearance and knew they would be a huge hit with her.  And yes, I know we need to do something about her hair.  But I am telling you those are not bangs!  That is growing straight forward from the back of her head. If I lift that hair up you can see she is just now getting the hair the should be bangs growing in.  It is a constant struggle!!

Isn't this the sweetest?  They were just so appreciative of each other for getting thoughtful gifts.  Wyatt gave Noah a Spiderman 4 wheeler thing and a glove that makes noise.  Noah gave Wyatt Guess Who, since the boy loves games so much.

And of course they left out cookies and milk for Santa, along with some carrots for the reindeer.  At the last second Noah ran and got some paper to leave Santa a little note.  He cracks us up!

And to finish the night we read our last story from our Christmas storybook Advent calendar.  Don't I look miserable?  Its cause I was!!  And then thankfully off to bed!  Although it wasn't the best nights sleep... Noah was so into the horrible fever he didn't sleep well and came out crying multiple times cause he was scared Santa wouldn't come to our house cause he was awake.  It was the saddest thing ever!!

Our First Raingutter Regatta

First of all, I can hardly stop myself from referring to this as a regatta gala, ala Rachel from Friends.  I must have practiced "raingutter regatta" in my head a hundred times.  :)  Second, isn't he just adorable?!  There is not much cuter than a little boy in a cub scouts uniform.  We just joined this year and he really loves it.  For those of you that don't know this is an event most packs have each year.  They give each boy a kit for a boat and then they come race them against each other in a rain gutter filled with water.  Noah immediately declared he wanted his to be a pirate ship with cannons.  I was not sure how that would work out but Josh had the great idea to cut the mast that we didn't use to turn into cannons.  Check out how adorable it came out!

Noah helped cut it, sand it, and painted it.  He even did the shopping at Hobby Lobby for the paint and stickers.  It was fun to do something together with just him.  We used these instructions to alter it to a catamaran design and it was so fast!  He was pretty nervous about racing it but he did great.

He actually won 18 races, tied 1, and lost 1.  I think that is an amazing record for your first time!!  Of course Wyatt had an excellent time too, playing with Melissa.  They are so adorable playing together each Tuesday.  She even packs him snacks!  :) 

He even got to race the ship once before we left!

And Annie did was Annie always does..... runs around and is as troublesome as possible!

Now I guess we have to look forward to the car race thing next!

Baby muffin turns 2!!

Can you even believe our little girl is two??!  Hard for me to believe as well.  This year has flown by!  She was super cute saying two and trying to show her fingers.  We had to bend them into place for her cause she couldn't do it alone.  If she does it herself she puts up her index finger on both hands and them holds them together to show 2... it's so cute I should have gotten a pic of that! :)  We celebrated with a trip to her favorite place in the world, Chuck E. Cheese!!

She was ready to go play immediately!  I made these coin pouches for each of the kids (that we also did not photograph) and you can see Annie's in the picture.  She really loved having her little purse full of coins.

Her favorite ride by far is the racing horse... she truly screams the entire time she is on it.  I think she is halfway scared, halfway happy and doesn't know what to do other than scream at the top of her lungs. 

Our closest friends came to celebrate our little girl and we are so thankful for all of them!  Wyatt told me he was really sad Annie doesn't have any friends and I listed off all the people that are his friends that are also hers.  He did not seemed pleased with that answer.  :)  I told him as she gets older she will have more girl friends that are her age. LOL :)

After playing we had pizza and cupcakes. It took quite a few blows for her to get both the candles out, but she had some help from her bubba for that!  She hardly ate any but did use the candle as a spoon to get off the icing.  :)  Check out the adorable sprinkle 2's that I totally store from Corrie's blog! 

After this she flipped out crying and we could not figure out what was wrong, but then it came very clear.  She wanted her Richard!!  She hardly knows him, but he is for sure her first crush!  Do you see how she clings to him?  Once she realized he was there she did not want to get out of his arms.  We seriously had to pull her off of him.  She will pass up Daddy, Grandpa, Grandma, and Granny to head straight for Richard.  I have never seen anything like it!!

Then it was time to open presents and she was THRILLED with each and every one.  Of course they all had to be taken to Richard so he could see what she got.  :)   She wore those boots and pushed her cart with her baby around for the rest of the night.  She SCREAMED when we got to the car and she couldn't have the shopping cart in her lap.  She has certainly hit the terrible twos!!

But the party still wasn't over!  She had another present from us once we got home and she was tickled pink with it.  You see she immediately fed her baby and put her monkey to sleep!  :)  And there was another huge surprise before bed....

Her own kitchen!!  My parents are such troopers and came over and put the whole thing together at 10:30 at night!  I am really not sure who likes it more, Annie or the boys.  Wyatt must have cooked me a dozen meals today!!  It is in his room until we move Annie to a big girl bed and have more space in her tiny room (which we're planning on doing after Christmas).

SO, it was an excellent birthday for Annie, even though it was technically two days early.  Don't tell her!!  Can't wait to see what the next year holds!!