Gears

Karsten was feeling better today and much to Liam's joy, he wanted to play!

Not a great start

We're not off to a healthy start for 2014.  Only nine days in and Karsten has a stomach bug.  Poor little guy was worn out.  Luckily, it started on Wednesday night and by Friday, he was feeling better.  Unfortunately, I caught the bug on Saturday - luckily, Liam and Scott escaped it!  Let's hope we're helathy from here on out!

Family pictures

While I'm catching up on blogging, I realized that I never posted the great family pictures we had taken with Scott's family over Thanksgiving.  We lucked into nice weather - the temps were in the upper 50's and no rain.  We were lucky!

We started with the family picture because that can be the hardest to wrangle everyone!  Our boys are not smiling, but they're looking at the camera.  But other than that, I think this turned out great!


The other 'must have' picture was grandma and grandpa with their grandsons.  We got some smiles out of this one - thank goodness no one took a picture of us jumping around like fools behind the photographer.


There's some good smiles!


I think I need Trent and Taylor to come to all of our photo sessions and help get the boys to smile - they did a great job!


Our boys tried to get Trent and Taylor to smile.


Then the boys got a break and they ran around while there were a few 'grown up' pictures.


How cute are they?  I can't believe they're so grown up - I feel like they were just our boys ages!


These boys are pretty cute too.


I think this is one of my favorites from the session.


These four are going to have lots of fun growing up together - lots of adventures, lots of secrets, lots of memories!


One more of grandma and grandpa with the boys!


The boys had fun playing on the merry go round.


Love those smiles!


Great family picture!


Great smile from Taylor!


We wanted to get a picture of Liam and Karsten on Scott's old tractor.  The boys had other ideas that did not include looking at the camera and smiling.


Liam found a stick and was way more interested in digging holes in the sand than having his picture taken.


We got Karsten to smile but Liam still wanted to dig in the sand and not look at the camera?


Why couldn't my boys pose like this - adorable!


He looks so grown up!


When we were done, the boys found this big pile of leaves and jumped in.


The photographer also captured this sweet moment when we were 'done' with our session.

Decorating Find

One of my goals for Christmas break was to get caught up on a stack of magazines. Sometimes magazines stress me out - I just can't keep up with them!  I was reading Better Homes & Gardens and saw these adorable photo mats from Indie Mats.

I've been trying to figure out what to put on this bare wall for a while, and this seemed like the perfect solution.  When I checked out their site and found a black and white chevron frame, I was sold!


Here is the finished product - I wish the frames were a tad big bigger, but I think they work well.  It was so easy to hang them, I just taped my picture to the back of the mat, applied the sticky squares (think 3M removable adhesive), then stuck them to the wall.  I was even able to apply them lightly to check alignment before I pushed hard to stick them to the wall.  Success!

They have some artwork frames that I think we 'need' to display the boys artwork!  I also love all of the bright colors - decisions, decisions!

Organized

For Christmas, I told Jenn that I would like a label maker.  I'm a bit obsessive about having things labeled at our house, and I thought a label maker may look nicer than scotch tape and my sharpie marker.  She went one better - I got a label maker AND chalkboard labels.

My first labeling task was all of our dry baking goods.  I think I entertained Scott because I was so excited to label everything.  But, comon' - doesn't this look great!  It makes me very happy.


It also prompted me to clean out our spice cabinet so I could put bulk spices in better containers and label them.  We had so many expired seasonings in our pantry, we were shocked!  It also lead to a fridge clean out where we ditched a bunch of expired condiments. Organizing makes me happy - want me to label anything for you?!

Girl's Date!

Each year around the holidays, Jenn and I try to take a day to shop, have lunch and just have a girls day.  It was a freezing cold day, but that didn't stop us from having a productive shopping day.

Happy New Year

It's New Year's Eve which means it's time for our annual celebration with Jenn's family.  The boys were so excited to see Eden and Elam that they were waiting at the window watching for them to arrive.


Last year we didn't coordinate our food very well and we ended up with a TON of food.  We enjoyed all of it but decided that better coordination was needed this year.  We went with appetizers and pulled pork - it was all delicious!


Karsten and Eden think they're so cool sitting in the desks while Liam and Elam have to sit at the table with the grownups.  I'm not sure how much longer this setup will work - next year we may have to have grown ups in the dining room and kiddos at the kitchen table.


I don't think Elam minded sitting with the grown-ups!


And as long as Liam had food, he was a happy guy!


Before we opened presents, we wanted a group shot of the kids.


And this pic proves that all of these photos are not torture for them.


Finally, it was present time!  Eden was excited to open her rainbow loom and was ready to start crafting!


Karsten was thrilled with the Bucky, Jake's ship.


Elam was ready to watch his new Lego movies!


And, since Jenn is the mother of two and knows all about sharing, she also got Liam a ship - he got the Jolly Roger - Captain Hook's ship!


Liam went to bed shortly after presents, but the other kids played together so well that we let them stay up until midnight.  Shortly after we toasted at midnight, we snapped a few pics before everyone was ready for bed.

As you can tell, Karsten was a bit tired.  I also look pretty sleepy; however, I didn't get a pic of Scott and I so this is my only pic with one of my boys.


Jenn's family looks adorable!


Happy New Year!


David was scheduled to work, so Jenn and the kids stayed the night with us.  Jenn made oat crepes for breakfast then the kids played some more.


We watched the Rose Parade, napped a little and relaxed a lot.  It was the perfect way to start 2014.