Christmas Eve

This was the eve of Christmas Eve, decorating cookies for Santa. They were so good!

Then the kids spent some time playing in the snow.

Now we are at Christmas Eve. The kids traditionally open gifts from each other on Christmas Eve after church. They talked me into letting them open a gift after lunch so they had time to play with it.

Maddi was so happy that Cade let her give him a hug and vice versa. Cade gave Maddi Imagine Teacher for DS and Maddi gave Cade Carnival Games for DS. Emalyn gave them ICarly for DS to share.

Maddi and Cade gave Emalyn a pony. Emalyn wasn't sure what to do with it, so Maddi was happy to show her.

One happy little girl on her little pony. We are now going to call 2010 the year of the pony. Emalyn wants to ride that pony all the time. The pony sings this really catchy and annoying song and Emalyn wants it played over and over.

Brett and the kids were watching a movie and I was thinking about taking a little nappy but all of a sudden I was the bottom layer of a girl sandwhich. Maddi came to snuggle on me and then Emalyn couldn't stand it and wanted to be with us too.

Emalyn skipped her afternoon nap and we went to church. We weren't sure how she'd do since she didn't nap, but she was an angel! She sat on my lap and sang and ate raisins and froot loops and was so good. It was a quick service with lots of singing and she loves music, so it was just right for her. Then we went to eat dinner at Olive Garden, but we couldn't even get up to the front to get our name on the waiting list. We tried to go to Red Robin, but they were closed and so was pretty much everything in our little village of Oswego. We ended up at Famous Dave's and it was extremely slow but was very good. Then we came home to play for a bit.....

.....take some more pictures....

...and more pictures....

...and love on each other...

....and Emalyn still won't get off her pony.

This time of the year we are reminded of God's blessings and miracles and we have one of those blessing and miracles with us. All of our children are, but Emalyn was such a big surprise blessing. I never knew I wanted her or needed her, but everyday I realize how well she completes our family and I thank God for his blessings and miracles.

Now they are all in their pjs and getting ready for Santa and guess who's back for a pony ride?

She is getting so big!

I love seeing Cade as a big brother!

Maddi has always been a good big sister to Cade but she is an awesome big sister to Emalyn too! These 3 kiddos are my greatest blessings!

A very lucky and loved little sister!

And she loves them too!

The kids opened the rest of their presents from family.

Cade was very happy to read up on Pokemon in his book from Omie.

Maddi was quite excited to get a puppy pillow pet from Omie!

That Maddi girl loves dogs, doesn't matter in what form. I forgot to get pictures of the cookies and milk for Santa and the MANY carrots for the reindeer. Then it was off to bed so Santa could come!

Some Christmas Traditions

Some traditions our family does over the Christmas holidays include:

*Making a gingerbread house.

I usually let a grandparent do this with the kids but this year we forgot to do it when Omie was here at Thanksgiving and we won't have any other visitors this year. I wanted to wait for Brett to get home from work to help but he was stuck in traffic (gotta love Chicago traffic), so I braved it with the kids alone. I have a history of not reading directions and not being patient enough and my walls usually crumble on the gingerbread house. I didn't know it at the time, but I bought the best gingerbread house kit ever! It has a tray with holes to put the gingerbread pieces in so it can't fall down. The icing is even premade, all you have to do is knead it and cut off the tip. I will always buy this kit from now on....except I bought it on clearance at the end of the year last year and I'm not sure where I bought it!

The kids love making their gingerbread house each year. Oh yeah, they love eating the candy too!


*Another tradition we have done for many years is putting the "clapper" on the tree.

Emalyn has learned to walk by the tree and start clapping. She sees us do this to turn the lights on or off. I'm not sure if she knows we do it because of the lights or if she thinks you just clap when you walk by a Christmas tree. So funny!

Maddi and Emalyn clapping.

And now admiring the lights. Emalyn has been really good with the tree. Occasionally she'll gently touch an ornament but for the most part she just looks at the tree.

*Cody, the elf.

He watches the kids all day and then reports back to the North Pole each night. When he returns he hides in a different spot. He finds some fun places to hide such as this. He took a cross off the wall and hung himself on the nail.

* We always go to cookies with Santa at the clubhouse.

Emalyn was fine talking to Santa when Maddi was standing holding her but as soon as they turned around for a picture, she started screaming. I have a picture of each of the kids screaming in Santa's lap so it's perfect!

Maddi's favorite part is the craft making ornaments.

*We started a new tradition this year with this Christmas Advent book. We used to read a different Christmas book each night and let the kids take turns choosing which book to read. I met the author and illustrator of this book at MOPS this year and loved the idea of it. You read the story of Jesus by reading the story behind door one on December 1st, door 1 and 2 and December 2nd etc. On Christmas day you read the whole story of Jesus from doors 1-25. We have really enjoyed it this year and love the fact that it keeps the real meaning of the season at top of our minds.



We also make my grandmother's roll out cookies and the kids decorate them, but we haven't done them just yet. I am glad that our family has so many fun traditions and hope they continue for many years.

Winter Wonderfest

We made our annual trip to Winter Wonderfest on Sunday. It was a very snowy and windy day, so all though it wasn't ideal driving weather, it was a great day to be inside. Because of the nasty weather, it wasn't as crowded as it normally would be on a weekend. We have taken the kids out of school for a day in the past, but this year we went on a weekend. We told the kids we were having a surprise family fun day on Sunday and poor Cade just couldn't handle the suspense and was going crazy trying to figure out what it was (he gets that from his momma. We don't like surprises). We ended up telling them what we were doing Friday night and they were super excited.

Emalyn couldn't believe her eyes when we walked in. She loves lights and she was going "oooohhh" when she saw them all. I had to crop Maddi out of the picture because she has this bad habit of closing her eyes in pictures.

We took Emalyn to ride the carousel while Maddi and Cade went on the hang glider. She was not so excited about riding the carousel. Ha ha!

As the ride got going she liked it but wasn't so sure about it all at the end of the ride. Silly girl.

Maddi and Cade on their favorite ride, the Hang Glider. Brett went on it with them once and it made him soooo dizzy. I rode it last year and got way dizzy and didn't even attempt it this year. Why do you get so dizzy when you get older?!? (not old, just older)

We took Emalyn to ride the little train. Brett tried and tried to get our picture but it didn't go so well.

The four of us, you can barely see all of us, but we are in there.

While the kids were off riding big kid rides again I took Emalyn to the little baby area. She was checking out who showed up to throw snowballs with everyone....

.....Santa and his elf! She sure kept her distance from them.

Then it was off to climb in the candy cane tunnels. I even climbed in those things with her.

It's so funny to see her crawl now that she is a walking baby.

Another favorite ride that makes you crazy dizzy, the Himalaya. It's so nice that Maddi and Cade have each other to ride things together. What will we do when Emalyn is 8 or 10 and Maddi and Cade are 16 and 18? Hopefully they will come with us to ride with Emalyn. Brett and I will be too old to do this stuff!

Next stop was ice skating. It's a lot of work to get everyone all laced up.

We're ready to hit the ice while Emalyn and Daddy hung out and Emalyn had a bottle.

Maddi was a little nervous on the ice because she forgot to bring gloves. She didn't want to fall and touch the ice bare handed. Luckily she never did fall.

Cade wasn't nervous or timid at all. He did a great job ice skating this year.

We took Emalyn in one of the inflatable obstacle course/slide things.

Woohoo, we made it!

I have no idea what Cade and Emalyn were looking at, but I love their faces. They look so intrigued.

Miss Maddi and I on the ferris wheel. We waited in line for a while. Cade decided the line wasn't worth it so he went to ride the Hang Glider and hung out with Emalyn in the baby area while we waited and then rode the Ferris Wheel.

While we were waiting in line, Santa and his elf came up and asked if they could cut in front of us. They were talking to Maddi and I and they asked her if she's been a good girl and then asked me as well if she's been good. I said she's been a very good girl. Santa asked if she even keeps her room clean, to which I had to reply "maybe she hasn't been THAT good!" That Maddi girl has no sense of organization or cleanliness, but she is a very good girl. I think I'd take well behaved and kind over neat and clean but naughty and rotten. Santa said he'd give Maddi 10 extra points for being honest about not keeping her room clean and 10 more points for letting him cut in line. Santa and his elf were singing Christmas Carols the whole time on the ride and we joined in singing with them. It was fun.

After Winter Wonderfest we walked to the food court at Navy Pier for some lunch. Then we made a visit to Build a Bear. I had bought a Groupon for Build a Bear so the kids helped Emalyn make an animal. Each of us picked an animal we thought Emma would like and we set them on the ground. Then we put her in front of them and let her pick. She chose a puppy! Maddi and Cade aren't into Build a Bear anymore but they were so happy to be there for Emalyn. I love how Cade is loving on his little sister in this picture.

Emalyn's second mom, Maddi, held her through the whole thing.

I like how they have you grab a heart and rub it on your belly so the animal will never be hungry, make a wish and kiss it, etc.

Time to clean it off and once again big brother and sister were happy to help the baby out!

The boys took care of the technical stuff to register Patch while Maddi and I shopped the store to spend the rest of the $20 we had to spend. It was a great day with the family!