All things Christmas...

First off, a huge congratulations to our dear friends Jen & Isaac, on the birth of their beautiful baby girl, Charlotte Mae!!

She was born first thing in the morning and Jeff and I went to visit her that evening! I totally forgot what it was like to hold a newborn. She was only 8 hours old and already so beautiful and peaceful!! I'm in love with her:)

Jeff and I walked out of the hospital and I said to him, "doesn't it make you want to have another one?" and he said "not at all!"...what?!?! I don't know if it is materal instinct or what, but I could totally have another one after seeing her. Of course, that is not going to happen and I am perfectly content with our little family!

Last week, we got hit with another cold...surprise, surprise, it's sickness season! It hasn't been too bad and we are on the mend now, just in time for Christmas:)

I can't believe it's Christmas in less than a week! I think I'm ready. Jeff and I are hosting Christmas Eve and Christmas Day for our families this year. It's just our family and all the grandparents, none of our siblings are home for Christmas(well, Eric and Traci will be here after Christmas!). I've never done a Turkey before, so we'll see how it turns out!

Megan had her last day of school before the holidays on Friday and she had a great time! They had a "Ho-down" dance party in the gym in the morning. I took Gabby and Marty to watch and dance too. Gabby was a little unsure of all the kids, but Marty loved it and wanted to dance with all the kids! It was so cute:)

Megan had a busy last week of school...decorating gingerbread houses, Christmas crafts, visits from Santa, dance party and Christmas party! She also had to say good-bye to her teacher. She was a little sad about her teacher leaving a few nights ago, but we talk about her a lot and she seems to understand. She's now looking forward to meeting her new teacher in the New Year.

Going out sledding at the school hill...

This week, Gabby decided to give herself a little haircut!! I remember a few years ago when Megan did the same thing! I didn't think I had any scissors around that Gabby could get at. I was on the phone the other morning and it was really quiet in the house...then Gabby came out of the bedroom and she had white cream all over her face. Then I went into the bedroom and saw a pile of hair on the floor. I asked Gabby what this was and she said "I cut my hair!". It actually isn't too bad, Megan's self cut was way worse.

Megan and Gabby had their Christmas concert at church this morning! They sang a couple of Christmas songs. It was adorable!! Then they had a Christmas party and got to decorate sugar cookies and make Christmas crafts!

As I sit here and write this, it is snowing like crazy outside and really starting to look a lot like Christmas! May we remember the true reason we celebrate Christmas...thank you Jesus that you came as a baby, for US!! There is no great gift we could receive...

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Missing teeth and Christmas concerts!

Again it's been weeks since I wrote anything!! So I'll try to recap the happenings around here lately!

Last week was Jeff's mom's birthday(yes that is 3 birthdays in a few weeks in our families!). We went out for dinner and then mom and dad came back to our house for birthday cake and a game of Ticket to Ride! I am so thankful to such an incredible mother-in-law. Thank you for always being so loving and supportive to our family. We all love you so much:)

Little drummer boy! Serious concentration...

Megan lost her first tooth this week! It has been wiggly for a few weeks now, but a few days before she lost it, it got REALLY wiggly. She lost the tooth at school and brought it home in a little plastic bag. She was so excited for the tooth fairy to come. Apparently, the thing to do these days is to leave a glass of water by your bed and when the tooth fairy comes, she drops her fairy dust into the water and that is the color of your fairy! Megs fairy was blue...she loved it!
I still can't believe we have a daughter old enough to be loosing teeth. I still remember her getting those first tiny teeth at 8 months old!

Before...(just the night before she lost the tooth!)

After...(I know the pic is blurry, but you can see the tooth missing)

The girls were invited to a friends birthday party last Saturday! Our family was invited to come to the party early and have lunch with them. We had a great time visiting and when the birthday party started all the kids and the dads took the kids toboganning(sp??). My friend and I stayed at her house with our 2 little boys, who were napping! The girls loved sledding down the hill. Jeff was so tired(and so were the girls) when they came back home. Jeff said it was a really good work out for him:)

I took Gabby in to the walk-in clinic on Monday. She has been complaining for a few days that her ears hurt. She is not one to complain...she's one tough girl! She was waking up several times in the night, which is very unlike her, so I knew something was up. The doctor said she had lots of wax and he couldn't see into her ear well, but the one ear looked red. So he put her on antibiotics and she has been great since then. Although, she does not like the antibiotics!! It's banana flavored liquid and she spat it out a couple of times. I think she's used to it now.

We had some friends over for a playdate the other day! Abi and Marty are 5 months apart. They had fun playing together!

Megan had her school Christmas concert last night!! It was SO cute. They had one concert in the afternoon and one in the evening. We went to the evening one, so Jeff could come too. She wanted to have her hair curled for the concert. This is a picture of first thing in the morning and by the time the concert started in the afternoon, most of her curls were gone:(
We just found out this week that Megan's kindergarten teacher will be leaving:( She has been selected for a teacher exchange program, so she will be going to Australia to teacher for an entire year. She is leaving at the end of December. And the teacher from Australia will be coming here to teach our kids for the rest of the year. I thought Megan would be really sad about her teacher leaving, but she seems ok about it. I guess we'll see in the New Year when she gets the new teacher. I'm a little sad because her teacher is so great and Megan has learned so much for her. I just have to trust the new teacher will be just as great!!

We don't have a Christmas party for Jeff's work this year. Instead, his boss gave him a gift certificate to a restaurant! It is a little strange not having any Christmas work parties to go too. But, it's nice because now we can go for dinner any time...such a treat!

And...I'm SO excited because our dear friends are having their baby girl on Monday morning!! They have 2 little boys and are expecting a girl. I am so excited to hold a newborn baby again. I guess I have to live vicariously through my friends with new babies!! Hopefully in my next post, I'll have some pictures to share.

I think that's all I can remember right now!! Hope you all have an enjoyable weekend...

It's been awhile!

Okay, so I'm so far behind on blogging now, I don't even know where to start!! I actually started writing this post about a week ago, so I'll try to recap all the things that have been happening around her lately.

Last Monday was Jeff's 32nd birthday!! We celebrated together with his parents at their house for dinner. His mom made his favorite dinner...homemade spanikopita!! Along with farmer sausage, asparagus, corn on the cob, pita bread and finished the meal off with his favorite dessert, peach pie. He was happy!!

I am so thankful for an amazing husband and daddy to our kids. I could not ask for a better man to spend my life with...I am blessed!! I love you so much Jeff.

That night, Gabby and Marty slept over at Grandma and Papa's house because it's normally
Grandma day on Tuesday, so it just worked out! We brought Megan home with us because it was a school night. Megan was sad to go to bed that night because Gabby wasn't there with her...so cute!! The next morning I helped out in Megan's kindergarten class. I love helping out and watching all the little 5 year olds interact.

We didn't do any gifts for birthdays between the 2 of us this year. Well...we were in Vegas for my birthday, so maybe Vegas was our birthday gifts to each other. The kids made Jeff a cute little birthday card and they were so excited to give it to him.

In other news, I took Gabby to see a speech therapist on Monday. My family doctor thought Gabby's speech was normal for her age, but I just wanted to make sure. She has trouble with some letters like "d" and "r" together...for instance she will say "gress" instead of "dress", or "Geff" instead of "Jeff". Anyways, the therapist thought she was normal for her age and even could say some words ahead of her age, but we are going to work on the letters she has trouble with. The therapist said to just keep saying the words back to her, so that eventually she was say them correctly too. We are going to go back when Gabby is 4 years old, just to see her progress. Gabby was SO well behaved and cooperated well for the speech therapist. I was so proud of her:)

Being silly in the bathtub...

Last Sunday, it was Family Sunday at church. All the kids stayed in the service. It was so sweet watching all the kids at the front of the church singing there songs. My girls love to sing!! They sang "I've got a River of Life", "Love the Lord your God", "Jesus Loves Me". It melted my heart seeing all 3 of our kids up there singing...well maybe Marty was just standing there looking cute.

On the weekend we celebrated my mom's 60th birthday!! My brother came up for the weekend. We went out as a family on Saturday evening for dinner to a Greek restaurant. And then after dinner my dad blind folded my mom and drove her to our church where 40 of her friends were waiting for her. We had a surprise party for my mom!! It had been a busy week leading up to the party because of getting all the food and making the desserts and decorating...but so fun and worth it. I am truly blessed to have such an amazing mom, who is also one of my closest friends!!

We have had sickness in our house for the past week or so:( Marty started with throwing up on Friday, Gabby started on Sunday, Jeff on Monday and Megan on Tuesday night. So far, I have not felt sick and I am so thankful for that!! Thankfully it seems to only be a 24 hour flu.

I'm reading a story to the girls and Gabby's holding her "barf" bucket...

We had our first big snowfall this week!! The girls wanted to get all bundled and go outside and play. I love the look of the snow, but I do not like the cold temperatures. Yesterday, I walked Megan to school and it is -18 degrees...not fun!!

We also decorated our house for Christmas last weekend. I put the tree up and brought all the boxes upstairs and then I told the kids we could decorate. They were SO excited!!

I think that's all for today. I'll try to update more often so my posts aren't so long...

Photoshoots...

I know it's been a few weeks since I posted, so I'll try to remember all the things we have been up to lately!

I can not believe we are into November already!! I've been trying really hard to get my Christmas shopping done. I'm almost there! The kids are pretty easy to buy for, so that's always nice.

I took a bunch of pictures of the kids in the backyard last week and I didn't realize until after I had taken all the pictures, that the camera was on the wrong setting and the pictures are a little blurry:( But, we had a fun time anyways...

We got some fall family pictures taken by our friends yesterday. I think they turned out pretty good! At least everyone is looking at the camera!

I helped in Megan's classroom one day last week. I made sugar cookies with 3 of the kids(including Megan). We had a great time and the kids were really well behaved. Megan was VIP the day I helped, so I got to see her be her teacher's big helper. It was SO cute! I forgot to bring my camera:(

The kids LOVE to play in daddy's truck...

Megan had a busy week at school last week, she had pumpkin carving, VIP day, Halloween Party!! She had so much fun. She is really loving school. And, she got invited to her first birthday party for one of the girls in her class. She dressed up as a butterfly for her Halloween party on Friday. All the little kids dressed up at school was pretty cute!!

We went over to our cousins place to do some pumpkin carving one evening last week. We didn't end up doing the pumpkins that night, just because we didn't have enough time. But, we did manage to get a picture with all the 2nd cousins together with Great-grandpa!! They are all 5 years old and under...

And....the kids were SO excited to go out trick or treating for Halloween. Megan and Gabby totally get it and love going around our neighbourhood to get treats!! Marty wasn't too sure what was going on, but he had fun just running around in his costume. I couldn't get enough of the kids in their costume...seriously SOOOO cute!!

A monkey, mouse and ladybug...

We are getting good use of this monkey costume. Megan wore it for 2 years, Gabby wore it for 2 years and now Marty will probably wear it for a couple of years!! I just love it!!

On Friday night, Jeff's parents offered to take our kids for a sleepover:) I know I've said it before, but we are SO blessed to have both sets of grandparents in town to help us with our kids. Thank you so much mom and dad V for blessing us in this way! We went out for dinner and then did some Christmas shopping. We slept in the next morning to 8am...without interruptions, it was wonderful! Then we ran a few errands before picking the kids up at lunch time. Then, that same evening, we went to our friends place for a potluck dinner...so fun!!

We had a really fun, but busy weekend!!! Now we just need to rest a bit this week:)