Let's Paint Ornaments!

So earlier this month my mom and I hosted an Ornament Painting party and we had such a good time.  Wine, good friends, appetizers and a painting class - what's not to love about that!  The artist is a friend of the family (she used to live two houses down from my parents) and she is so extremely talented, patient and an awesome teacher!  As soon as the class started about 6 of the 8 of us woman immediately freaked out and said "I can't do this" but after a little encouragement and some promising that the ornaments were going to turn out awesome we proceeded to draw and paint.  The class was so much fun and our final ornaments turned out wonderful.  We have decided to make this an annual tradition, already looking forward to next year!

Ornament painting classes aren't only for adults, that's right I also hosted a Kids Ornament Painting Party earlier this month!  The kids had a blast painting their ornaments.  The first ornament was a guided ornament where they put their hand print onto an ornament and then turned their fingers into Snowmen!  It turned out so cute.  The second ornament the kids were allowed to do whatever they want and some of them got quite into it.  Colton did great with his painting and much to my surprise, so did Mason.  Their ornaments turned out beautifully and look great hanging on our tree. 

 

Christmas with the Sand's

Last weekend we headed north to celebrate Christmas with my dad's side of the family.  I love Christmas celebrations with the Sand's as we are a huge family and it is so much fun to cram everyone into the small town fire hall, enjoy our pot luck lunch and then just sit and catch up with everyone.  Of course the guys play endless games of cards, the kids run around like crazy kids and the woman just sit and chat.  Also to stay with tradition we had some special visitors again this year, Santa Clause, Mrs Clause, an elf helper and Rudolph all came to our Christmas celebration this year which made the kids very happy.  It was another awesome get together with family, I look forward to continuing this tradition for many many years to come!  Here are few pictures, I didn't take as many as I usually do as I was just getting over being sick and just wanted to sit and relax.

Now there is one more thing that made this day very special for everyone.  This was our first Christmas celebration without my Grandma and I know I was dreading the thought of celebrating without her.  Well there was a surprise in store for all of us.  The aunts and uncles has decided to take my Grandma's clothes and have them made into bears.  Every Child, Grandchild and Great Grandchild of my Grandma's received a Memory Bear from my Grandma - that is 56 bears in all!  My dad and his siblings (with help from spouses) carefully went through my grandma's clothes and selected what eat bear should be made out of for each grandchild and great grandchild.  Once we were all at the firefall the "tree of bears" was revealed and the tears started to flow.  My Grandma was there with us in her own special way.  We were able to look at the bears to try to figure out which bear might be ours.  Mason found his right away, his bear was made from a train sweatshirt that my grandma used to wear all the time!!  Colton found his next, his has an apple on the shirt to remember the times we picked apples on the farm but more importantly his has a golden cat stitched onto the backside.  My grandma had a cat named Tiger that she made sure she had made arrangements for before she passed and Colton quickly had fallen in love with that cat so that fact that his bear came with a "Tiger" on it was quite perfect.    Then I moved on to find my bear.  My bear was made from the outfit my grandma wore to my wedding!  These bears will be something that my boys and I will cherish for a long time and anytime we are missing Grandma we can find our bear and give her a bear hug!  Here are some pictures of the memory bears which I am so grateful that my dad and his siblings did for us, Thanks to everyone who was involved with this awesome surprise.

 Also I do every year I made sure to get a picture of my boys with their Great Grandpa and this year Grandma was in the picture twice as both boys had their memory bears in hand!

 All of sudden my Grandpa said wait... I need my bear!

 That's right, my Grandpa has his own Memory Bear from his wife of 50+ years!

Love these guys.  Also notice how Grandpa and Colton are pretty much wearing the same shirt... I guess my Grandpa is back in fashion!

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree!

Mason has been asking to put up our Christmas tree since mid November.  He is all about Christmas this year.  We were able to hold him off until after Thanksgiving although it was not easy.  Once we brought out the tree bin on December 1st he went crazy with pure happiness.  We have one of those old fashion trees where you had to fluff and install every branch and string on your own lights so it takes a little while to set up but it is totally worth it once it is done.  Colton had the honors of putting the star on top this year and of course Mason felt left out so he got to straighten the star.  Then my favorite part, watching my boys hang all of the ornaments.  We don't have matching ornaments but instead our tree is filled with ornaments that hold a special memory for us.  Every year we get a new ornament, it started with a "New Home", then a wedding one and then came baby's first Christmas and then another baby's first Christmas and now we get a new family ornament every year.  It is fun to see the ornaments from each year and remember how much our life has changed over the past 14 years that Frankie and I have been together.  We also have some ornaments that were purchased while on our Island Vacation, we bought one every year that we have gone down there.  The rest of the tree is filled with ornaments made by the kids!  Our ornaments have so much sentiment and that is what makes our tree so special to us.  Last week my dad gave us an early Christmas present, a train for around our tree!  Mason is obsessed with this train, he will just lay on his tummy and watch the train go around and around.  It is very sweet.  Now that the tree is up and the rest of the house is decorated we are officially ready for the Christmas Season!

Gingerbread House

I bought this awesome Gingerbread House kit at Menards on Black Friday and the minute Colton saw it insisted on putting it together. I was able to hold him off for almost two days, seriously the kid is persistant.  Well Saturday night my parents were watching the boys while I went to my sister's bridal shower and Colton begged to take the kit with him and to build it with his Pop Pop... I gave in even though I was looking forward to building it (I have never done one before)!  My dad wasn't too excited when Colton walked into the house with the kit but when he realized how excited Colton was he quickly got on board.  My mom was awesome enough to take pictures for me so I could be part of all the fun.  Mason really only wanted to eat the candy and got quite angry when he was told it was not for eating.   After about an hour the Gingerbread House was complete and I have to say they did a pretty awesome job!

Watch out for Turkeys!

My brother brought home some balloons that they had at his work (for Black Friday sales) and my boys think they are the best thing ever!   At least they don't take up much room in my house... ha ha ha ha!

 Seriously, these things are huge... the are as wide as a doorway!

Ever feel like you are being watched? 

Look Mommy, it is a Turkey Horsey! 

Boys, Legos and Trains!

It is days like this that I am so glad that Colton has friends who live so close to us and can come over for play dates at a moments notice!  I am also thankful for the two giant bins of legos that we were given from a friend of the family because her boys grew out of them and the endless number of wooden train tracks.   These three boys have been playing so nicely for quite some time now (without electronics to entertain them believe it or not) and I was actually able to get some cleaning down and even sneak in a quick blog post!  Happy Black Friday!

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a very relaxing Thanksgiving with family which is the exactly the way I want it to be forever!  We enjoyed an amazing meal (my favorite meal ever), a game of Mexican Train Dominoes, ate more pie than I care to admit, skyped with the grandparents in Vegas and of course shared some great laughs.  Mason spent his morning decorating Grandma's tree with Daddy and his cousin Jaclyn.  Mason is all about Christmas decorations so he was thrilled to see Grandma's tree set up and ready for him to decorate!

I have so much to be thankful for again this year and I feel truly blessed to just be living the life I have been given!

 Mason and Auntie Jaclyn took a two nap on the couch together... so cute!

 The boys ended their night with a sleep over at Grandma Lori's house with their cousins so we could do some early morning Black Friday Shopping.  I decided to boycott any store that opened on Thanksgiving day which took the employees away from their families so all  our Christmas gifts this year will be coming from Menards, Fleet Farm and Home Depot!