Blue and Gold

Reuben had his second Blue and Gold Banquet this year. The theme this year was Knights of God. Reuben dressed up in his Halloween costume, as robin hood and many others dressed up too. There was a magician, lots of games and great food. Fun was had by all!


The Father and Sons were in charge of making a cake for dessert. Ryan and Reuben take this very seriously and did another excellent job. If you look closely you can see the sword in the dragon. I like the "burnt marks from where the dragon had blown fire. Here is a link to their cake from last year. This year everyone really stepped up the game. It was fun to see all the edible masterpieces.

Reuben and two of his besties.

Pre-dinner coloring

Lincoln Turned 4!

I know I say it every year... but it really is hard to believe that my youngest is 4!! Lincoln is such a joy to have in our family. He is such a loving child, he insists on giving kisses frequently and out of the blue will say "Mom, I love you" so often. He can be intense sometimes with his enthusiasm and loves to also wrestle or play with Reuben. He uses the word "ginormous" and other words that I would not expect from a little 4 year old. He is loving preschool and has made some great friends there.

I was debating weather or not to do a party for him this year, since he is still young. In the end I decided to throw a small one with the kids in his primary class at church and a friend from preschool. He chose to have a super hero theme. (special thanks to my friend Rochelle who took all these pictures for me)

I made capes for him and all of his friends. The boys capes were reversible, green on one side with the superman logo but the first letter of their name instead of an "S" and then blue on the other side with Captain America's shield. The girl capes were reversible too, with purple on one side with a crown on it, and pink for the other side with the first letter in their name.

I forgot how the attention span of kids that age is about a zero on a scale of 1-10. We had super hero coloring sheets for them to color that I found online. They played a game where one person hid a super hero monkey while everyone else stood out of sight in the hallway. When they were ready then everyone returned to the room and looked for the monkey. We played a couple of rounds of that.

Then we had cake and ice cream. Lincoln then opened his presents and everyone played. Really a low key party.

Ryan and I had a blast working on Link's cake together the night before the party. Ryan sculpted Captain America and I did the other parts. I think watching those cake shows has paid off a little bit :)

Lincoln told me afterward that his party was the best ever, so I guess it was a success!

Globetrotters, Disney on Ice, and Hugo

For Christmas my grandparents have generously sent a check every year for us to by the kids a gift from them. Last year and this year we have used it to buy each of the kids a ticket to an event. Normally we would not be able to do these things, so it is such a fun surprise! The kids love to see on Christmas day what kind of tickets they receive. This year the boys went to see the Harlem Globetrotters. They loved seeing all the tricks that the players were able to do. Reuben and Lincoln were really excited to get their picture with Too Tall, who is actually shorter than Reuben. Unfortunately our computer has given me problems and lost the photo :(

Kaitlyn's wasn't a surprise this year. I asked her ahead of time if she'd like to go to Disney On Ice or go see Hugo in the "real" theater. (normally we only go to the dollar theater). She picked Hugo, she had read the book last year and was really excited to have the opportunity to see the movie in 3D no less. I was lucky enough to go with her to this. I loved seeing it in 3D. I think the last 3D movie I saw was a Michael Jackson one when I was a kid. Kaitlyn loved the movie and we both enjoyed having one on one time together!

Eve was surprised with Disney On Ice tickets. Eve and I were able to go together to this event. She is my chatter box! She talked my ear off on the car ride there. The show did a brief overview of The Frog Princess, Cinderella and Tangled. Tangled of course was the show stopper. The skaters even twirled up in the air holding onto fabric which looked like Rapunzel's hair. The second half of the show our friends invited us to come sit with them because they were only 5 rows from the ice. During the show I would lean over and say to Eve "isn't that cool" after a couple of times she asked a matter a factually , "Mom, could you please stop asking me questions". It made me smile.

All of the Disney princesses came out at the end dressed in white and gold to welcome Rapunzel to the princess club. It was very magical. Eve was waving to all of them the whole time :)

Christmas 2011

So, we haven't fallen off the face of the earth over here. Just keeping busy. Looking back I didn't really take any pictures of Christmas Eve and Christmas this year. It was a nice relaxing Christmas. Christmas Eve we spent just as our small little family. We had our traditional steak and potatoes dinner, with Dickens Pudding for dessert. I think Reuben was the only one, of the kids, that enjoyed the steak and no one except Ryan and I enjoyed the dessert, but hopefully the rest will learn to like it as the years go on. To me it isn't Christmas Eve without the food traditions. My mother is such a wonderful cook and all of us looked forward to her special holiday meal traditions. After dinner we had the kids open some pajama pants that I had sewn. Then the kids schemed and talked Ryan and I into letting them open their present from each other. (We put all of our names in a hat on Thanksgiving and draw out a name of someone else in the family, the kids love this.) Ryan and I decided it wouldn't be the end of the world if we gave in and that it was actually a good idea because this way the gift from the family member wouldn't get lost in the chaos of opening presents in the morning. It ended up being wonderful! We all played the game Reuben received and Lincoln could not stand to part with his squinkies from that moment on, the girls loved their hand picked presents too. After some cookies were put out for Santa it was off to bed.

Lincoln saw me working on these pajamas and just had to have super hero pajama pants just like Reuben's, luckily I had enough to be able to make both of them.

Here's the gang holding their presents that they purchased for each other in the family.

Christmas started with opening of presents and then going to church. It turned out to be a relaxing afternoon followed by dinner at our dear friend's house.

My Boys

This has nothing to do with Christmas, but I just had to include this picture.
Most mornings are spent like this. The kids finish waking up in front of the t.v. More often than not Lincoln will snuggle up the Reuben or at least sit right next to him. They truly are such good friends or as Lincoln likes to say "best bubby". We have fantasized of someday owning our own home and having more bedrooms and space. The cute part is Reuben still always says he wants to share a room with Lincoln. Don't get me wrong they do have their moments when they would like to play without the other, but I know they really do love each other. As a mother moments like these just melt my heart.

Gingerbread Houses Throught the Years

Making a gingerbread house at Christmas time has become a tradition in our house. Ryan and I both love to make these. So I think a competition might be in order one of these years. Boys vs. Girls old school style :)

2011

2010

2009
We took a little break...

2008

2007
(That is not Lincoln next to me. I am 7 months pregnant with him in this picture. Can you tell they are brothers?)

2006

My wonderful mother at my childhood home

2005

We were still living in married student housing

Nutcracker

On Friday the girls and I went to see the Nutcracker. We went with a couple of Evie's friends and their Moms. Kaitlyn brought her best friend, Lauren. It was such a fun night, just us girls.

Grace and Eve
(Grace and her Mom gave all the girls a locket. They were a huge hit!)

We are so lucky to live near such beautiful theaters. We were in the last row of the top balcony but it wasn't too shabby for are awesome deal we got on the tickets :)

Kaitlyn and Lauren
(it was hard to take normal pictures in the theater because it was dark in the room and the flash was blinding us)

All of the little girls

Brutus

Evie's kindergarten teacher is so creative and lets each child in their class have a turn being "lucky buckeye" for a week. They have a special activity that they get to do every day such as; making a poster, bringing in pictures, show and tell, estimation station (where they can put whatever they want into a plastic bag and the class guesses how many items are in the bag), and bringing Brutus home for the weekend. In case you don't live in Ohio, Brutus is Ohio State's mascot, he is a buckeye. On Monday the "lucky buckeye" gets to share what they did with Brutus over the weekend. Here are some pictures of Eve with Brutus.

We love to go to our church's historical sites every year at Christmas time. They put on a phenomenal display of nativities. This year there were over 600! There is no charge to go and you don't have to be a member of our church. Eve took Brutus with us and Evie dressed up like an angel.


Riding in the car with our Brutus and Brutus from school.