Procrastination has finally paid off! Since I started blogging in 2008, I’ve been meaning to put each year’s posts into a book. The problem was that I never found an easy (and cute) way to do it. I planned to basically re-created my posts using Shutterfly because I love their albums. BUT…the one time I tested that theory, it took at least 20 minutes to format 1 post plus the estimated cost was astronomical (around $225 even when the books are on sale). I’ve found other sites that will pull all the content off my blog, but the formatting wasn’t the greatest and the books were kind of expensive.

Last night I was poking around and found a relatively new publishing company that works in partnership with Blogger (FINALLY!!!): Blog 2 Print! I tested the posts from 2010 and the book actually looks like my blog – formatting and everything (well…on white pages, not on my cute background or anything). There’s even a table of contents. Best of all, it took like 20 minutes and was, in my opinion, well worth the price of $100-something for a whole year of posts. I’ll be ordering one soon to test it out!!

Update for anyone else who is interested: I was researching new backgrounds when I found another site using the same technology to make the blog books…but with 4 other (cute) covers to choose from Click Here

So I didn’t have much time to post last week because I decided to try and make our family of 5 matching PJ bottoms for Xmas. So…um…in retrospect, I decided that sewing is a lot like giving birth…you don’t remember how painful it is until you try it again. Suffice it to say, the boys have matching PJ bottoms, but Brian and I…have sort of the failures of my attempts (which I think are currently wadded up in the bottom of my sewing bin). I’m not going into details here, but it wasn’t pretty. I spent about 8 hours of time exactly matching my plaid material to the pattern, making adjustments etc etc only to make 1 tiny last minute mistake that pretty much made me throw in the towel (and maybe I collapsed on the floor of the kitchen and had a good cry…maybe)

So now I have some blog catch-up to do!! Big time! Let’s rewind to Friday, December 11th when Auntie Denna and baby Nathan came for a visit!!

It was total love-at-first-sight for the boys. They were all over Nathan (seriously…we had to drag them off the poor kid!) Brady is hiding behind giant sha-sha. Why does Nathan suddenly make my boys look like giants???? Sob sob!

Not the best pic of my cute nephew, but it shows the love….oooooh the love!!!

Auntie Denna and I had fun as well. We went to a neighborhood party on Friday (so fun – Murder Mystery!!) Saturday, Bri took all my boys so we could enjoy some not-often-had sister shopping. Too bad the day was cruddy and raining (but…we emerged triumphant with boots and a sweater each). Sunday, Brian had a Bear’s game and we were scheduled to do “The Holiday Express” which is a trolley ride to see Santa (requires some walking and waiting outside). Unfortunately, it was FREEZING that day with predicted wind-chills in the negative 20ies. I spent most of the day wondering if I was even going to take my crew. Denay was out as soon as we understood how bad it was outside. No need to take a 2-month-old out in the freezing cold!

We (me and the boys) decided to go with the rest of the neighborhood crew. It wasn’t as bad as predicted and we didn’t have to wait in a line like last year (which was for at least 20 minutes). It was in and out of “the North Pole”…the boys had a blast and I was beyond relieved that it went so smoothly. Afterwards, we collected Denna and Tot (Nathan = nater-tot= Tot) and went for pizza at a neighbor’s house…kids all in jammies…awesome!

They had a train set up at the place where we checked in for the Polar Express (a local elementary school gym). Brady LOVED it…he even waved good-bye as we left and said “bye bye schoo schoo!”

Ryan, Brady, Logan, Aiden and Mackenzie:

Heading out to our trolley: Logan & Mackenzie

I had to sit a few rows behind my kids. Here is Brady on the trolley listening to the conductor read “The Polar Express”. They have these movements and sayings that the kids are supposed to repeat and copy. Brady was always a tick behind everyone else…but in such a stinkin cute way!!

Logan on the trolley:

My boys with Santa. This is “the real Santa” says Logan (and he’s AWESOME by the way!! The other cool thing is that each child receives a bell “from Santa’s sleigh” – just like in the book The Polar Express). Logan expressed concern this year that something would happen while Santa was away from his workshop (like bad guys might break in). I reminded him of the elves – they protect the place while Santa visits the boys and girls! Notice the giant cookie in Brady’s hand? Well, when you exit the trolley at the North Pole, Santa’s tent is on the left and, up a bit further on the right, is the coffee and cookie tent. Logan, Aiden and I departed the trolley and went directly to see Santa. I looked around and noticed, in a panic, that Brady was missing. I think we all know where I found him!

After we visited with Santa, it was officially time for cookies and hot chocolate (coffee for mama!)

Brady and Jackson were having a very intense and very hysterical conversation…about what?…I have no idea, but it was cute and I had to take a picture.

Usually there are reindeer in the area you can see behind the kids. I’m sure it was far too cold for them this year. Instead, they had a BIG GIANT bonfire. Here are the kids enjoying the warmth: (starting from the left in his bright orange “traffic cone” coat:) Aiden in mom’s rainbow scarf, Maddie, Logan, Mackenzie, Brady and Jackson.

Brady got mom’s orange scarf :)

Right after these pictures, a trolley arrived and there was no line to get on. We called to all our friends waiting in the coffee hut and RAN to board. It was awesome! We sang songs all the way back. The whole trip (from boarding at the school to arrival back) was about 45 minutes…perfect for a Chicago negative-20-or-something degree day. I was proud of myself for even attempting this trip alone without Brian (who was suffering in the cold watching the Bears get totally slaughtered). The boys loved it and…that’s the most important thing!

I can’t believe what a slacker I’ve been lately! But…we did have a busy week and auntie Denna brought baby Nathan to visit last weekend. I was just about to do a post on that when I realized that I still have pictures on my camera from the night we put up the tree. Unfortunately, they are all pretty blurry. The boys did some cute cuddling thing in front of the fireplace and Brian took about 20 pictures of that, but the rest is garbage.

The run down: went to our typical spot, the Boy Scout’s lot nearby. Purchased tree. Brought tree in house, unwrapped it to find some interesting breaking branches. Oh well. Put on Christmas music. Whipped up a mix of Wild Rice Soup and made grilled cheese sandwiches on sour dough bread (seriously…heaven!!), put the decorations on the tree while we ate, then we watched part of The Nutcracker. Clarification on that last part: we were supposed to put in Elf, which is hysterical and we all love it. BUT…a song came on while we were decorating and I told the boys that it was from the Nutcracker. They wanted to know what in the world the “Nutcracker” was…so I started telling them the story and…whatever…they fixated on the “nutcracker turns into a soldier and fights the rat king” part. They begged us to find it for them to watch. Brian obliged, searching Netflix while shaking his head and saying, “only you could make them think the Nutcracker is cool”.

Can you tell that the tree decorating happened on a Sunday (the 5th actually) …obviously there was a Bear’s game that day given my children’s attire.

While I’m here, I’ll just throw some more stuff up that I was supposed to post like last week!

1. “Help Me I’m Melting”.

Last year, the boys and I got all bundled up to go out and build a snowman. Well, the snow was NOT the right kind of snowball-making stuff, so we made a pile of it, added the details from our “snowman kit” and I said, “look…he’s saying ‘Help Me…I’m Melting!’”

Last week, we had some good snow that was perfect for snowmen. The boys really really wanted to play in it outside Friday morning. Unfortunately, I had to get lunch made and all these other things done before I ran off to the airport to pick up Auntie Denna and Nathan. So…they were left to their own devices in the back yard. Logan came and requested the snow man kit. I felt bad that I couldn’t be out there helping, but they figured it out…they just made another “Help Me I’m Melting” <—seriously…that’s what they named him!

“Help Me’s” hat blew away the other day and we had to dismantle him due to some more severe and FREEZING weather, but he’ll forever be remembered in our hearts and blogs

2. Brady thinks he’s funny wearing my boots:

 

3. Quick Craft Project – Snow Globes (we did this last year in Logan’s class, but I guess it was on Agent Oso the other day so the boys were all crazy about making them. Brady and I had some searching and shopping to do on Monday while the older boys were at school)

supplies: baby food jar, glitter, hot glue gun, something to put inside the globe (last year I found these great holiday erasers that were huge…Brady and I found some stuff at Michael’s), felt to cover the jar lid or pipe cleaners

1. Clean out baby food and remove the label

2. Fill the jar almost to the top with water and add a little glitter

3. Hot glue your object to the inside of the baby food jar. It has to be tall enough to be seen maybe 1/2 up the jar. I actually glued a penguin to a drum to make ours tall enough.

4. Screw lid back on. I tried to hot glue them shut, but it didn’t work so we just hot glued pipe cleaners around the opening.

5. Shake until the glitter gets good and “melded” into the water. voila! (p.s. I totally got this craft from a mom in Logan’s class last year, but she made them when she was a kid – totally cool!)

Where’s Aiden you ask? Playing video games (groan!) He made his later. 

Logan wanted a pipe cleaner at the top of his despite my protests. All the gold on the top of the other one is Brady’s HEAVY handed glitter pouring. Poor penguin was drowning in the stuff!  

Yesterday morning, Logan wanted to have a dance party. Per his request, I put on Kings of Leon. Then…Aiden decided he wanted to jump off the couch onto pillows. I was initially against that idea, but then I was visited by a brief flash of “what my life could be like” 10 years from now…three boys who spend most of their time in their rooms, not running around acting crazy and playing together. I immediately went and set up the pillows for them. It was hysterical so I made a video:

 

Right after I hit “stop” on my camera, Logan bonked his chin. There was a little blood around the already loose bottom 2 teeth. We cleaned him up, had lunch and off he went to school.

That afternoon, he came off of the bus and said, “look mom – I lost my tooth!” Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure when or where he lost it, but it was gone! Remember how I told him he was going to have to wait a minimum of 4 weeks to lose the tooth from the first day he discovered it was slightly wiggling? Well…yesterday was 4 weeks to-the-day! We wrote the tooth fairy and note and she still stopped by!

The school day was short and it just so happened to be our turn to host Tuesday afternoon neighborhood playgroup so all the “big kids” were there too. I wanted to take a picture of Logan and his tooth, but the boys wanted a group shot. Totally cute!

Ok…there’s the missing tooth. The big one underneath is already coming in!! The tooth to the right of the hole is going to fall out any day now as well!!

This past weekend was AWESOME! We had Nana and Papa visiting and Brady’s 3rd birthday party on Saturday. It seemed a little crazier than past parties, but that’s all good…as long as every one had fun! It was a “How to Train Your Dragon” party. The kids first decorated blank shields then ran around the house in teams learning how to be mighty, dragon-fighting Vikings. They all had a draw-string bag with a dragon on it to use for prize-collecting throughout their training drills. After training and other games, we ate pizza, a variety of delicious meatballs a la Brian, fruit and cake…then watched the actual movie How To Train Your Dragon (clarification: most of “us” ate some popcorn, watched part of the movie…apparently tossed the remaining popcorn on the floor and then ran off to play). We found out that Brady super loves the dust buster…and cleaning (good to know!!!!)

Among a handful of AWESOME, fun new toys, Brady got a giant dog from mommy, daddy and brothers. He’s had his eye on this guy for a while. True to Brady form (and the past 3 stuffed dogs he’s received), he named his new friend Sha Sha (again!) I call him “Giant Sha Sha”. The night after the birthday party, sometime around 1am, I heard grunting and crying in the hallway. I sat up in bed and saw little man dragging his giant dog into my room…and then into my bed. He seriously thinks this dog (who is bigger than a 3-year old!) is a cuddly, lovey, small stuffed animal and has been dragging him everywhere!

Here is Brady at Target about 3 weeks prior to his party – it was love at first sight…so I took a picture with my phone

Is it just me or does this cake really say “Nappy 3rd Birthday?” It was delicious though…all the kids wanted the far right corner…the island = mega frosting!

decorations (it’s hard finding dragon stuff so yes…I did some Asian, no-where-near Viking, lanterns…I thought they were pretty cool though…wondering if I could put them somewhere in the house now)

The girls got down to business on the craft…straight on tummies to decorate the shields

Boys sitting up and sort of decorating shields.

Dads playing Rock Band…

This is one of the games – target practice with golf balls on strings (ladder golf…if anyone knows what that is). We also had a balloon floating in the middle of the basement that they were supposed to hit with a Frisbee. Other games included “Viking, Viking, Dragon” (like Duck Duck Goose), jumping over a wooden dowel at various heights and…

Crawling through the string maze. Mike worked long and hard to fashion this for us. It was in my head…but he made it a reality! There are bells tied on to the strings and the kids had to crawl under the maze without ringing any of the bells. On the side you can’t see, was a pile of eggs (dragon eggs) filled with jelly beans.

When Aiden tested the maze for me earlier in the day, he literally crawled out of his pants! We had 3 groups of kids, led by my awesome friends (the moms), who followed a write-up I made about the Viking training throughout the house.

Cake time! Brady is sitting up in his Pottery Barn chair which is propped up on an actual dining room chair.

I think this is the “happy present time” dance. He also has a little ditty we call “the nakie dance”…I won’t post that here though ;)

Big brother Logan brings in Giant Sha Sha last

Cuddle testing

Ready for the movie!

A brief moment in time when all children were quietly sitting, watching the movie and munching on popcorn.

I guess it was a fun, but exhausting weekend. Brady fell asleep on Sha Sha (who was originally in my lap WITH Brady) during the Bears game on Sunday.

Here are some pics of my party prep crafts: these are the fronts of the draw-string bags I made. I made a stencil out of paper and packing tape (to make them water-proof) and sponge-painted the dragons on material before I sewed them together.

The finished product. These were the goody bags which the kids took around with them through Viking training and filled with little toys and candy.

Tags I made for each training station:

The thank-you cards (similar to the invites…which I won’t post because it’s got all our contact info on them) :)

My first attempt at making chocolates. I seriously did not intend to do this project, but the only dragon candy I could find was a chocolate mold. I called my resident expert, Susan, and she walked me through the whole thing. It took a few tries, but I think they turned out pretty well 

So…HAPPY BIRTHDAY my sweet baby boy. I don’t care if you’re 3 or 33…you’re still my baby!!

The facts:

1. Brady is obsessed with dogs

2. Costco is currently carrying a 4-pack of dog puppets for $8.00

3. Despite the fact that both his birthday and Christmas are coming up, daddy couldn’t make Brady un-hand the Costco dogs when we were there last Friday (“the poor kid never gets anything new”)

4. Brady is sweet and decided to share 1 puppy with each of his brothers (he kept 2…both named Sha Sha just like the dog he got on “good-bye paci day”)

5. The puppy puppets provided hours of entertainment and…also doubled as gloves (see previous post).

6. The boys stole my camera (see picture album at the end of this post)

First off, I somehow suggested that the boys make beds for their puppies out of old shoe boxes. Well…that obviously required pillows and blankets (declared Logan…who then asked if I could sew up some stuff for them). I think I managed to avoid that request until Saturday morning, but I do have like a bolt of white felt left from bowling pin costumes so…I made some quick bedding…which the boys colored.

Here is Aiden coloring his dog’s pillow before we stuffed it with strips of the white felt.

Logan’s finished pillow

Brady stuffing his pillow

Brady asked me to draw Toad from Mario on his pillow. When I was done, he said “it’s Toad dolphin”. I guess I didn’t get the feet quite right.

The boys and my camera (this is about 1/4th of the pictures that they took):