Christmas Eve with the Williams Families

Christmas eve we were able to get together with Steve's side of the family (minus his parents). We had a good time opening gifts, eating sweets, drinking coffee and playing cards.

Some of the cousins being silly.

Andrew carrying Allison and so proud of himself.

Levi and Trina waiting to open gifts.

The Week Before Christmas

Are you in for the long haul. Here it is the week after Christmas and have I got some photos for you! We were happy to have Steve home for the whole week of Christmas, and as a bonus the last 2 days the week before that because of the snow! It was nice to have all 5 of us home for that long and it was hard to see Steve go back to work yesterday. I'm glad that school doesn't start until next week though. It would have been even harder jumping right back into all routines so suddenly!

We had a great week getting ready for Christmas. There was baking with the kids, last minute shopping, playing in the snow and then of course getting together with family. Here are some pics highlighting our week.

Collin made peppermint bark all by himself and did a great job!

Brian and I had fun cutting out the cookies.

The boys lasted through about 3 cookies and then left the rest for Steve to finish!

Allison has started climbing. She even tries to climb onto the coffee table but luckily it is too tall for her yet.

This is what we woke up to in the garage one morning. Yep, snowing in the garage!

Brian playing with one of his birthday toys.

Collin also playing with one of his birthday toys.

Our camera was having issues, so you'll just have to trust me that the boys are sledding here. Brian is coming down the hill, and Collin is walking back up.

Christmas program

This year both boys were able to participate in the Christmas program at church. They were very excited, especially Collin as he had a speaking part. He got to be a wiseman. It was a lot of fun to watch, and kept us laughing so hard (especially the preschoolers!).

Here is Collin with another wiseman. The 3rd wiseman was sick so they had to have a substitute.

This is the preschool program. Brian is in the back row. He somehow was able to sneak up to the stage before all the other kids. He wanted to be up there first!

Here he is doing the motions to Away in a Manger.

Here you can see the boys starting to lose it. Why did they put the boys together? They tried to separate them, and Brian ended up laying down so of course everyone laughed. It was all he could talk about for a week. He would say "remember when I layed down on stage and everyone laughed? That was great!" What a ham!

Here is Collin as a wiseman.

They are singing We Three Kings.

They are being interviewed by the news while they visit King Herod. It was a really cute program and they did such a great job.

I believe this actually catches me up on my blogging! FINALLY! Now let's see how long it takes me to post about Christmas! Ha ha. Just in case it takes awhile I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Must be nice in Vermont this time of year, all that snow.

Snow, snow, snow, snow, SNOW! Yes, I'll admit it I have White Christmas on my mind. I'm thinking I may have to watch it tonight after work. How can I help it with Christmas in just 4 days and tons of snow in our yard!! I LOVE IT!!!! Did I mention that I LOVE IT??

The kids have had lots of fun playing in the snow, and with new snow boots and snow pants for all we are set. I don't think I need to say a whole lot as the pictures say it all. I will however share my frustrations with our camera. We took the kids sledding at Collin's school where they have a nice sledding hill, and the camera apparently decided it was too cold to take pictures. So the kids going down the hill, Brian and I going flying off the sled, and Allison in her marshmallow-man snow suit will have to be memories we keep in our mind instead of being able to share with you all. Needless to say I was less than happy.

Here is a pic of Brian's gingerbread house he made on a preschool field trip. They went to one of the elementary schools and each preschooler had an elementary student helping them build it. He had lots of fun, and wanted to eat his house really bad. Eventually he did (gross!) but he loved it.

This was Collin's winter concert at school. I think it may have been the last evening activity before everything was cancelled because of the snow.

This is before school which was an hour late on Wednesday. Apparently the sled wasn't working very well, so he solved that problem.

This is just a few hours later. Notice how much more snow we have? Fun!!

I had fun decorating the window a couple weeks ago, and had to get a picture of that plus the "real" snow on the outside.

Collin eating the snow.


Snow mustache insteade of a milk mustache.

Allison watching her brothers play in the snow and trying to get out there too.

Collin face planting in the snow!

Allison's First Birthday!

This year Thanksgiving meant even more as we were able to celebrate Allison's first birthday. The year went by so fast and I can't believe that our baby girl is 1. Where does the time go? She is such a sweetheart and I am so thankful to have her in our family. She is such a joy to us and is definitely a daddy's girl. It is great to see her big smile when Daddy comes in the door, and she will often get off of my lap just to go cuddle with her daddy. She also loves her brothers so much and they tend to keep her laughing. Now that she is walking she tries to keep up with them as she runs through the house following them.

Since her birthday was on Thanksgiving this year we were able to celebrate with family and had everyone over for dessert. I made a butterfly cake for her cake, and it was fun to watch her devour her peice. She has a sweet tooth for sure! She enjoyed pulling the tissue paper out of her presents and I have a feeling Christmas is going to be fun with her this year.

Brian's Big 5!

Really, I am going to catch up this time. I promise. Both boys are at school, Allison is asleep, and the house can wait. So I will start with Brian's birthday.

Yep, it's official he is FIVE!! Wow where does the time go. With his birthday being the day before both Thanksgiving AND Allison's birthday I tried to think ahead and plan ahead. Quit laughing, I am perfectly capable of planning ahead. Okay, I admit it I did put thought into it ahead of time but when it came down to it I had to hope I could find invitations at Rite Aide and get them filled out and to the preschool in time to pick Brian up. Which I did. The only problem was I had to change his birthday theme because the only invitations I could find were pirate invitations. Luckily Brian was fine going from Iron Man to Pirates of the Carribbean theme. His birthday party was planned for the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Figuring many kids would be out of town I went out on a limb and invited his whole preschool class. Steve was a little nervous and told me I better be prepared to entertain the whole class, but I knew better. There were only 4 who rsvp'd, and 1 of those ended up being sick so it was a small group, but still lots of fun.

The kids had fun coloring pirate pages while we were waiting for all the guests to arrive, then I took them into the kitchen one by one so they could make their own pizza. I had the dough rolled out into personal sizes s for them and they got to put on all their toppings. While the pizza was baking I sent them on a treasure hunt. I was hoping for good weather so we could do this outside, but with it being the end of November knew it was a long shot. Sure enough it rained all day so the hunt was inside. I made a treasure map with cold coffee and crumpled it up so it looked authentic. They had 4 places to find and at each place there was a pile of gold coins waiting for them. Then the end of the treasuer hunt at the waterfall (Brian's blue sleeping bag coming down over the bunkbed ladder) was where the treasure was hidden. Instead of goodie bags I found these small cardboard treasure chests that my Mom and cousin filled with gold coins, a telescope, balloons, and a glow in the dark bracelet. The kids were so excited and immediately went to the living room to check out there booty.

By this time the pizza's were ready and they got to eat the pizza they made. Then of course presents and birthday cake. I was very pleased with the cake. I bought a cake set that had little figures of Jack Sparrow and Will Turner as well as railing and a ship steering wheel. Brian wanted me to make octopus legs coming up from under the ship. It actually turned out pretty good.

This was Brian's first birthday party where he was able to invite friends and not just family so he was especially excited. He had been asking us EVERY DAY since July if it was his birthday. No, I am not exaggerating. We were so happy for it to come so he would stop asking. Although he is already talking about what theme he will have next year!

Catching Up

I know, I know it's been a long time since I've posted and you know it isn't because I don't have anything going on because well, I've had 2 birthdays, 3 birthday parties and Thanksgiving in all that time. Well actually just last week all that happened, but you get my drift. I'm finding it harder and harder to find the quantity of time needed to both keep up on all y'all's blogs as well as blog myself. So today was spent reading and catching up in between normal mommy stuff and tonight I get to post.

So, where do I start? I guess I'll start with Brian's birthday. It's hard to believe that my little guy is 5! Where did the time go? It seemed like not that long ago he was 3. I was even thinking on Sunday when he was not quite sitting quietly during the Sunday school class where the church decided it would be a great idea to put all the families together to learn about the advent candles and why we light them and teaching at an adult level so the kids are not only getting nothing out of it, neither are the parents, I was thinking what do they expect from a 4 yr old I mean really that's barely over 3. Then I realized that he is 5 and that is quite a bit older than 3!!

Okay so maybe I will get to finish this post tomorrow. I've just been interrupted by the kidlets. We'll try part II later.