January 24-25, 2009

Sam turned 2 on January 25. Can you believe it? I can't! We had his birthday party on Saturday, but unfortunately Uncle Cory, Aunt Catherine and Joshua couldn't make it because Joshua was sick. We had a small crowd but had a good time anyway.

Here is Sam helping to bake his birthday cake.

The finished product

I don't know what it was about it - but Sam was totally convinced that he had to open the big gift from Grandma first. When we told him it was time to open gifts he jumped to the bottom of the pile to get that one. He didn't want anything to do with anything else until after that one.

Happy Birthday Sam!

Punching balloons for all the kids! They are always a hit!

The next day was Sam's actual birthday - so he got to open more presents that we gave him.

The biggest hit was the new Car Wash Lightning McQueen Tent that Paul bought him

Complete with Lightning McQueen sleeping bag that Grandma gave him the night before and every home needs a phone right? So we have a new Elmo Cell Phone to talk on.

I have been watching for new beds for the girls for quite some time. Allison was outgrowing her toddler bed. I finally found some I liked that matched their dressers. So, Sunday afternoon we began the huge tasks of switching all the beds around. Gabrielle had been sleeping on the other portion of Nicholas's bunk beds....so we needed to move that back into the boys room to put up her new bed. We didn't want to put the bunk beds back together because I didn't want Sam crawling up their all the time. So on his 2nd birthday Sam also got his first BIG BOY bed (he's been in a toddler bed for 6 months or so) He adjusted to it very well and didn't give us a hard time about it at all. For the first time, in 6 1/2 years we don't have any cribs OR toddler beds in our house.

Sam's new Big Boy Bed

Nicholas got new bedding for his bed.
Everyone else was getting a new bed, so we wanted him to feel included too.
Wall-E
(I surprised him with it so he was super excited and could hardly
wait for me to finish washing the sheets and put them on).

Gabrielle's new bed. There are 3 storage drawers underneath.
She had gotten the comforter for her birthday.

Allison's new bed and new comforter set.

And of course, the car wash had to go into the boys room.

December 24, 2008 Christmas Eve 2008

After a very snowy trip to the grocery store in the morning, I returned to find some very anxious children. They know we usually open their stockings a little bit at a time throughout the day and they had been waiting patiently.

Their first present was one I hadn't wrapped - GIANT COLORING BOOKS and crayons. What I didn't realize when I bought them was they were actually GIANT MURALS. What a perfect gift to have given them - it kept the older two occupied for 2-3 hours. WOW!.

They also each got a book, a small toy (Nicholas got a small lego set, the girls got mini my little ponies, and Sam got matchbox cars), and a few pieces of candy and candy canes.

After dinner, they exchanged the gifts they had purchased for each other (they drew names).

Christmas is getting more fun every year, as the kids get older and more understanding of what is going on.