Yes, we are finally “up to” Christmas in my posts (gag). This was a really weird year for Christmas. We traveled to see Denay and my family in San Francisco the week of Christmas while Brian’s parents went to Southern California to spend the holiday with Brian’s little brother. Brian’s older brother and his family went skiing during the holidays so we didn’t have a time to get together with everyone here. In fact, we had to wait until New Year’s Day to have our local gift exchange.

While we knew that Santa would visit the boys in Cali, we (the parents) didn’t want to drag all of their gifts there and back, plus whatever they got for “real” Christmas from my family (airlines frown upon such nonsense and charge too much $$ for checked baggage). So…we decided at some point that we would just have a 5-of-us early Christmas. So there we were, at the indoor soccer facility on December 7th (a Saturday), watching Brady in Pro Academy, and we started talking. The next weekend, we realized, was packed with our annual Polar Express trip with the neighborhood friends and an adult party for Brian and I. We looked at each other and said…well, I guess Christmas is today (not the next day, because the boys can’t stay up late on a “school night”). It’s plain to see that we’re quite the fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants planners…we should have realized all this over-booking earlier, but we didn’t.

At this point, we didn’t even have a tree because we had professional pictures taken of the house the week prior (since we’re selling it and all…sniff sniff). We decided that the boys and I would go buy a tree while Brian went shopping for any gifts we didn’t already have (we had a few, but not all of them). Furthermore, since we had to leave in a week and a 1/2, we decided not to do the BIG tree in the front room that we usually do. We decided instead, to buy a cute little tree and put it right in the family room.

When the boys were done with soccer, we told them the plan. “Today is Christmas!” we said. They were (not surprisingly) OVERJOYED. Presents?!Today?! YES!!! They happily accompanied me to Home Depot (a never-before-visited-tree-destination) and we picked out a little cutie. I literally shoved it into the car through the trunk and away we went. Brian, meanwhile, started hitting the stores! He came back with PERFECT stuff for everyone! He also brought home our Christmas dinner – both the BBQ we love from Sharko’s and Panda Express.

Brian and the boys decorated the tree while I wrapped the gifts. Once everything was done, we made them “go to bed”. I read them the Night Before Christmas, changing some of the words to be “The Night of Houckmas”…I wasn’t that clever, but we all laughed. Brian and I went downstairs and then back up about 5 minutes later to “wake them” for Christmas morning. It was a blast! The boys opened their gifts, played and we all had a laugh. A memory that we won’t forget I’m sure – Christmas on the 7th of December!

Decorating the tree

Brian went out on a limb and bought Brady some snow goggles. He wasn’t sure how he felt about them at the time, but he literally wears them to recess and to walk home every day. They are like his prized possession right now!

A cool bow and arrow set

Logan got one big gift, a small sonos speaker for his room. Now he can play his tunes while he hangs out and every night while he sleeps. 

Drum roll please…the big gift…

“An Xbox One?! Seriously?! How did you even get that?!” <—Logan. Brady: “yeah! Xbox One!” (I’m still obsessing over my new goalie gloves!)

Aiden was so excited, he spiked a stuffed animal that Logan had been holding. I have an awesome video, but YouTube and I aren’t getting along in the blog world lately.

Yeah Houckmas!!!

Brady turned 6 on December 5th. We have been “off” of the whole HUGE birthday party thing for a while. This year, he just wanted some of his favorite friends to come over for a “sports birthday party”. He invited Matt, Cole, Dustin and Jackson. They played football outside, soccer in the basement and Kinect Party on the xbox. Brady went with me to do the shopping for food, decorations and goody bags :)

    

The boys had some snacks when they arrived. The potato chips went faster that my “6” veggie tray, but there was some healthy munching going on :)

 

blurry action shots!

Dinner’s here!

Happy 6th birthday to my sweet sweet special boy!

I was going to make the title “Brian turns old”, but I’m next so I best keep my mouth shut! For Brian’s 40th birthday, I decided I wanted to do a surprise party, but I needed him out of the house. I also wanted him to think the “out of the house” part was the ACTUAL celebration…so it was a 2-part gig and it was complex and it was FUN to plan. In the end, he was surprised and had an AMAZING time. I got tons of hugs that night, many many compliments and a very nice facebook shout-out the next week. By the way, the party was Saturday, October 19th.

Part I: “Mission Birthday Part II”. When Denay and I turned 26, Brian and her then-boyfriend Zach sent us on “Mission Birthday” around our Chicago  neighborhood complete with cleverly-written notes in envelopes. Brian and I worked together at that point and I got a bunch of stuff dumped on my desk that morning with instructions not to contact him for the rest of the day and to only open the envelopes when told to do so. Well, for his birthday mission, I put together about 10 envelopes with weird labels on them like “17” (our anniversary day), “22” (his birthday date), “554” our house number etc. There were really only 4 stops on his journey, but I wanted him to think there were more. Most of the envelopes contained pictures I printed out relating to the various numbers (shot of us at our wedding, a picture of the boys, etc) He sort of caught on the morning of his party and thought maybe something was up (Brady accidentally told him they were sleeping at a friend’s house down the street that night). Brady told me daddy was “asking questions” so I played it as cool as I could. We went to Logan’s soccer game early that afternoon and he was under the impression that Aiden’s soccer game was cancelled (I’m the team manager and used our club’s website to send HIM and only him a message saying the other team had a conflict). My friend Anne “asked if Aiden could have a playdate” with her son, but she really took them both to their game later that day. Even the coach was in on it and said something to Brian like, “kinda sucks that Aiden’s game was cancelled today”. Oh…he was SO confused later replaying that one in his mind!

So anyway, I knew he thought something was up, so I snuck the envelopes into the car before Logan’s soccer game along with a tee-shirt I had made for him to wear. On the way home from Logan’s game, he kept throwing things out on purpose like, “maybe let’s go get a slurpie? I’m hungry…should we stop for lunch? We have nothing for dinner, let’s run by Meijers”. I kept telling him to hurry it up cause I had to pee (which was true). I finally told him to pull into a parking lot along the route homeward (he was like, “you’re peeing HERE?!”). When we pulled in, I reached behind his seat and said, “I have bad news for all of you”. I pointed at Logan, “YOU are not getting a slurpie”. I pointed to Brian, “and YOU are not going to the store or getting something to eat because you will be busy for the rest of the day…take these envelopes, open the one on top and switch seats with me because I’m driving now”. He was SO excited – big ol’ ear-to-ear grin!! Back at the house, we had like 20 minutes to kill so I sort of filled him in on the details he needed to know…and then the limo pulled up with all his buddies from the neighborhood and his friend from college inside.

The theme of Brian’s invitations was “USDA Prime – Aged 40 Years” so I got him this shirt that had the USDA Prime logo on the front and THAT on the back. Here is Logan saying, “have fun…see you…tomorrow”. 

Our awesome friend Joel had helped me plan out the whole route. I had pre-ordered wings from one of Brian’s favorite places and they were waiting to be picked up at the first stop. The second stop was a “bring your own food” craft brew place called World of Beers. The next stop was an actual brewery called Solemn Oath. I had everything PERFECTLY timed out…I knew how long the drive was from place to place and gave them a time limit for each stop. Brian was instructed to text me at various times so I could tell him which envelope to open next. The final stop was our house. My note said something like, “the boys want to see the amazing car you’re in and you need more supplies for the rest of the night”. Everyone hid quietly in the kitchen while the boys greeted daddy at the door. Once Brian was inside (and had NO view of everything in store because I made sure he couldn’t see it), Logan said, “mommy, daddy’s here” and I yelled “oh! hey honey…come into the kitchen”…then BAM…he rounded the corner and everyone yelled “surprise”. He started laughing and then turned around and hid in the hallway for a minute. I went over to hug him and he was just SO happy. Totally made all the planning and work WORTH IT!

While the boys were out, I set up the house with the help of my friend Jen and a bunch of the neighborhood kids.

After set up, Jen drove to a nearby BBQ joint and picked up our order. I made a few things like mini corn bread muffins and Brian’s mom made tons of m-n-m mix. She also did a LOT of shopping for me…food, drinks etc. which I hid in various places like Jen’s garage, the crawl space and a closet in the playroom upstairs.

Vodka & lemonade bar

Fuzzy picture, but this was a sign with instructions for a beer exchange. The invitations asked that everyone bring a unique 6-pack of beer. I had planned for 2 of each kind to be tasted at the party and then everyone was supposed to take home a mixed 4 pack. I even bought these cool 4-beer boxes. We didn’t get much of it tasted and only about 1/2 the people took the beer at the end. We still have tons in the fridge outside (but Brian is enjoying the variety!)

All the guests also brought pictures. By the end of the night, these stings were full of Brian at various ages. It was so fun to look through them all!

The beer tasting area…before anyone arrived :) The wine glasses were mason jars with chalk labels on them. :) I made the CHEERS sign by cutting stencils with my Zing and then painted them on burlap cut in the shape of flags.

Friends!!!! I have an AWESOME video that I can’t get to work…and I’ve had this particular post open on my computer for 2 weeks trying to make it happen…so I officially give up! too bad, because it’s of Brian walking in…and seeing everyone…laughing…and then walking back out again.

Jens’ husband left early so Pete posed with her first before posing with his actual wife :)

All in all, I was SO SO super happy with how everything turned out. I planned this party in secret for over 6 months! I was just happy that I kept it all under wraps until the big day. This is one I think we’ll all never forget!