It’s that time of year again – time to print the blog into a book and plop it on the shelf with the others. This will be my 5th book representing 4 and 1/2 years of blogging. So, it’s not really-exciting, world-changing, funny or insightful blogging…but it’s an accomplishment for me. Honestly, I’ve been very stressed out lately about keeping up on all the posts I should be doing (and not doing). I have debated repeatedly about giving up and cutting out the anxiety of falling behind. When I asked Brian about it one night, his answer surprised me. He said that it’s a very special thing for our family and for our boys in the future and that I should by no means stop.

So…here goes 2013 I guess ;) Before I close the chapter on 2012, here is a SLEW (slew!!!!!) of pictures from the Holiday season – purely so that they can be included in my 5th book!

December 10th – In preparation for being “Star of the Week”, Aiden built one of his famous magna-tile creations. I don’t know if I’ve ever posted one of these before although he always asks me to take pictures of them.

I don’t know if I already mentioned this, but Aiden requested that, during his “star week” at school, he have his big brother come read to the class. We picked out about 5 Shel Silverstein poems for Logan to read. Both of them had such a blast! Look at Aiden’s smile! His teacher took these pictures and sent them to me.

My kids are obsessed with this video on youtube (ug). I thought this note in their lunches one day would make them laugh (obviously this was a PBJ day)

Aiden getting ready for Brady’s Christmas concert…early December!

My girlfriend, sitting further down in the auditorium during the concert,  sent me the text message “look at the cool guy strutting out with his hands in his pockets!”

 

I didn’t realize he was gonna be showing some undies ;)

 

Polar Express! We had to wait for like an hour to get on a trolley…totally worth it! Here are the boys in the group playing ball in the hallway of the “train station”.

 

The goody bags I made for Logan’s class. Both Brian and I worked the party – it was so fun!

Decorating cookies :)

See Brian in the background? His first school party – how cute! ;)

 

One night we gave Kona and early Xmas gift – I wrapped it with treats inside so she would tear at the paper. It was pretty entertaining. The gift was a soccer-ball squeaky toy.

One night, the boys built these little forts for themselves in the basement out of floor tiles. They brought down pillows & blankets and wanted to watch a movie. Daddy moved a small TV down there and hooked up his ipad for them. It was adorable.

 

If anyone remembers Drago the lizard, you’ll be sad to hear that he left our house for good on Christmas Eve. Mommy was a bit fed-up being the only one who fed him and we NEVER took him out of his cage. I sold him to a mother who was SO excited because her son had been saving up for a bearded dragon for quite some time – this was his Christmas gift! I’ve received updates and Drago is LOVING his new life. The little boy who owns him now kept the name Drago and lets him ride around on his shoulder (seriously!? he wouldn’t even let us touch him! We were such un-fit lizard parents)! On the day that Drago left, we bought this little tree and put it on the boys’ bedroom dresser where the GIANT terrarium used to be. We bought some decorations for it and…well…look how happy mommy is in this picture! hahahaha  

Reindeer food on Christmas eve!

Christmas-eve tree!

Santa brought Wii-U

  Brady’s favorite gift: flippers for swimming!

Logan requested the entire, 8 book collection of Captain Underpants books (as of this writing, he is on book 6)

Brian found these really cool things called Bitsters for Aiden – you put them together in different ways to create lights, motion and other stuff.

The gifts the boys made in class: an ornament, a calendar and a tile with a thumb-print tree

everyone (except mom) got soccer flip flops (“slides”)

Minecraft Creeper Shirts!

There was one more gift waiting upstairs under the boys’ small tree – the big one from mom and dad! 

minis!

Brady got a build-a-toolbox set from Memaw and Grandpa. Here are Brady and daddy a few days after Christmas putting it together!

Logan (finally!) got soccer goalie gloves

basement action shots!

On Thursday, December 17th, mom’s side of the family arrived for Christmas party 2. We did another big celebration on the 28th. GG and GGpa gave the boys some beautiful books. Logan got his all-time-fav, Edward Toulaine.

Auntie Denna got them all tee-shirts with their favorite Bear’s players.

And then…we actually had some snow! A bit of a (delayed) white Christmas!

Male-bonding time everyone! This is: Ryan with ipad, Aiden with mini, Logan with mini, Daddy with ipad and Papa with phone.

Everyone left Sunday and we hosted the neighborhood New Year’s Eve party Monday night. It was a stashy event!

We forgot our camera, but the morning after New Year’s we decided to skip town. We madly cleaned up after the party, packed a cooler with food, threw some cloths into bags and set out for The Wilderness Water park in the Wisconsin Dells. We even called for our reservation from the road on the way! We spent 2 & 1/2 days there playing in water, playing laser tag, walking on a crazy ropes course (only Aiden and daddy could finish!) and chilling in our room.