Sibling love!

Oh my, this just made me melt into a thousand little puddles all over the floor.  Without being prompted, Wyatt got everything out to help Annie do her Valentines.  And then he sat with her on the couch and helped her to write her name on all 30 of them.  Seriously.  I about died.  Part of it could have been from fear from a 5 year old and a 2 year old with a permanent  marker on the couch. But mostly it was from cuteness. 

He was so adorable cause he had her put her hand on his arm and then said every letter he was writing to make her feel like she was a part of it.  Then he let her put the lollipop in the first hole and he would do the second hole.  They had a whole system. 

We got Annie's valentines at the store a month ago, and it was a good thing we had them so long cause it took her the whole four weeks to wrap her head around the idea of giving the candy away!  ;)  I kept telling her she was going to give them to her friends but she just clutched them to her chest and said "my kitty candy!"  I'm happy to report that she did readily give them away when the time came!


Since we homeschool the kids are rarely apart from each other.  I usually have all three of them, or none of them.  But this night Josh took Noah to scouts and I stayed behind with the babies.  I'm certain that if Noah was home they never would have sat for nearly an hour on the couch together working on a project like this.  It was really a sweet night and has made me think about staying home with just the 2 of them during scouts more often. 

Blue and Gold Banquet!

 I think it would  be safe to say my boy is officially in love with scouting.  Most things he does for a little while, or just one season, and while he enjoys it, he doesn't want to continue.  But that is not the case with scouts!  He has told us he wants to be in scouts till he earns every single, badge, beltloop, and pin.  :)  Please swoon over his little toothless smile with me!

We weren't sure what to expect for the blue and gold banquet, since we are new to this scouting thing, but all the kids had a blast.  We were served dinner, so it was automatically a winner in my book.  The rest of the gang enjoyed it too. There was a dessert decorating contest, which we knew we simply MUST enter.  It was nice that they had a child decorated category and a family decorated category.  Noah and I brainstormed about what we should make and we decided on wolves, since that is what level he is at.

Aren't they adorable??!  I have to take absolutely no credit for them.  I followed the directions in this book I got for Christmas years ago.   It had directions for werewolves so we used that with gray icing and used a grass tip instead of what they recommended.  Noah was tickled pink with them!  I was so happy we were able to bring something he was really proud of.  AND they won for best family decorated and he got a Sonic giftcard, so that only sweetened the deal for him.  :)

They also had an awards ceremony and he got some new beltloops, some badges, and even a ribbon.  I was pleased about the ribbon cause earlier in the week he was lamenting about how he's never won a ribbon and it seems so wonderful. LOL

The biggest news scouting wise is that Josh will be his new den leader.  The original one is moving, the replacement had to quit because he will be traveling so much with his work schedule, and nobody else stepped up.  So Josh reluctantly took the job.  He is such a great dad and is actively involved in every scout meeting, but he really didn't want to have to plan it all.  Luckily he is married to a gal who loves planning!  I have already got the rest of the year all laid out.  Woo hoo!

A nightgown!

This was a big moment for me!  My little girl's first night in a nightgown instead of jammies!!  And to make it even better her baby matched.  Its easy to see how tickled she is with the whole situation.  :)

Brothers

There isn't much to say about this photo other than it makes me so happy.  This was about 4 weeks into our 5 week period of not leaving the house during the great strep/flu/pink eye disaster.  I had noticed how quiet it was so I went looking for the boys and found them on Noah's bed like this.  Just sitting together, playing their games.  I thought it was precious cause they could have been anywhere, but they chose to be together, even if they were doing their own thing. 

Randomness

 I don't quite know what was going on here.  But it made me laugh so much I had to take a picture of it.  I think weeks on end of being home bound really started to mess with our heads!!  :)

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!