Speilgaben has arrived woo hoo

This is what arrived today after waiting since October. They were supposed to be here for Christmas, but you can't rush customs.  Oh well my guys didn't care it just extended Christmas for them.

The top box was a wee bit mangled, but all the pieces are fine. 

This is what came in the top box. 

So it took mommy an hour to unwrap everything. And it was so much fun all I could think of the whole time was what will my sweet boys do with all these fun things. 

And once daddy got home they were allowed to open their last Christmas gift and they went at it with a vengeance. 

Mom I love the colors and the circles, these are my favorites. 

Daddy look I can lift this huge barbell I made.  Daddy told him to be careful and not over lift such huge barbells. 

Check this out brother aren't these circles super cool. 

This is my volcano that will spill all over the Earth not another plant brother.  Mwahaahaahaa 

Mom I lost my main support, I need more support.  Argggggh 

The bad guys are trying to get rid of my fleet mom.  (Some squares and half circles were added to the board.)  They are trapping the guys.  (More squares and half circles.)  They are going to be attacked by more bad guy fleets.  (Even more squares and circles.)  Wait how did you guys get in here?  (Ahhh the diamonds have been added.)  This side is good, that side is bad.  They are going over all my fleets all the bad guys are trying to get me.  (The circles have been added.)  I have beat the bad guys mom.  (The circles and diamonds have been put away.)  I have now turned them all into good guys.  (The rest are put away)

Hope you all had as much fun over Christmas as we've had.

God Bless you and your family.

Gretchen

Merry Christmas

My fabulous hubbie decided that we could go surprise the MN grandparents so my oldest and youngest spent the drive like this hee hee hee.  Ok not really since my hubbie is driving.

Daddy is wonderful because this was a quick trip, as in we were there less than 24 hours, and the trip there is 7 hours both ways.  Not a big deal when we were younger and with healthy children, Buggie was still feeling sick to his stomach and hadn't eaten for 3 days.

 Well it was worth it and this was the picture to prove grandma loved her surprise.  It was really nice to see my mommy and boys so very happy to be back together.

 Ice skating on Grammies back porch on Christmas day can it get any better.

Feeding the birds on Christmas day.

More feeding of the birds, gotta make sure they get their present too. 

Are we really all done, awwwww I want to do more with the birds Grammie. 

Woohoo time to play in the snow, why don't we have snow at home, we need snow at home mom. 

 

Christmas at Grandma and Grandpas house, and yes we got to play with Grandpas train, until Bobo fell on the track and everyone was asked to go take a break. 

We were attached to cuzzie most of the day, totally love her he does.

Cuzzie outside fun in the snow, let the snow ball fight begin. 

Mom is the new target, I started running after this shot.

We were in uncles lap when we weren't with cuzzie.

Grandma giving Great grandma's toast.  "Here's to the prettiest, here's to the wittiest, here's to me."

Opening presents, woohoo finally the waiting is over.

Daddy taking pictures of mommy taking pictures of family. 

Sugar and brain games is there anything better for a little boy.

Grandma and Grandpa, don't tell him we got a pic haa haa haa. 

Cuzzie and his man bun, yes we all really do need help.

Cuzzie playtime with Grandma and Grammie does it get any better.

See he just could not let go of her and cried when they had to go back up North.

One last snowball fight, but the best one because it's with Grandpa right before we started our way back to NE.

Bye bye Grammie, Grandma and Grandpa it was fun but daddy has to work in the morning.

And they are out until 8 am the next day.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.

God Bless

Gretchen

Our 25 Books of Christmas

In our house we have a tradition of wrapping 25 Christmas books up for the boys to unwrap every day of December.  This year mommy went a little nuts and instead of using the bazillion Christmas books we already have I decided to get a bunch of new ones.  Hee hee hee sometimes mommy needs to give herself a present and new books for the boys always fulfills that one, with Daddy Geeks approval of course.  Not only did he approve, he decided I needed a new place to put all of the books that I have collected or my mom has gotten for us, so he got me a library, which was delivered the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.  My Library is a 8.5ftx45ft by 9.5ft tall cargo container, I will do a different post on it's delivery and the fun that went along with that.

We started Advent Sunday November 30, 2014 this year by opening the 6 books above. I went a little overboard with the first night because I wanted to give the Ace Collins books, which we have been reading since Buggies first Christmas from the library. We have been reading Tabitha's Travels pretty diligently, which I'm happy about, Bobo wasn't into it at first  but now even he wants it read every night.  We got Joy to the World:Advent, we did not get into this book at all this year so I have put it aside for next year.  My 7 yr old Buggie loves The Adventure Christmas Children Traditions and read it every day and asked to do something out of it every day.  Now I had a plan and was going to bake, craft and do songs and books every day of December, but due to the whole family getting sick for a week and a half and right now I have my Buggie throwing up most of the day. Well that didn't happen so my new plan is that we will take the next month and do all the things we wanted to do during December and try to do it throughout the new year after all the craziness is over and when the real cold kicks in to visit our neighbors and do community service projects.  The guys don't know about this yet so I will see how it goes.  They are usually the ones who lead and ask where we are going next to help. 

These are all the books that we got each day this year.  Always check and see if Amazon has them first, I bought all mine in October so most of these links are not Amazon.  I bought over 15 books from the same vendor, hippo_books, for $0.01 a book and $3.99 for shipping, which I thought was good, then I asked if they would cut me a discount since I was buying so much from them and they cut my charge from $60 to $30.  Also make sure to check some of my links they may be kindle books.

1. Shooting at Stars: Christmas Truce of 1914

2. An Otis Christmas

3. The Sparkle Box: The Power to Change Christmas

4. The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree: An Appalachian Story

5. This is the Stable

6. Berenstain and the Joy of Giving

7. The Littlest Christmas Tree

8. Danger on a Silent Night Imagination Station

9. Night Before Christmas Picture Puzzles

10. The Christmas Star

11. Who is Coming to Our House?

12. The Legend of St. Nicholas

13. Detective Zack and the Missing Manger Mystery Adventure

14. Christmas Storybook Collection Special Edition

15. Mater Saves Christmas

16. Veggie Tales Yuletide Ice Cube Fair

17. Pioneer Christmas Celebrating Backwoods 1841

18. The Berenstain Bears Get Ready for Christmas

19. Tractor Mac Saves Christmas

20. Little Blue Trucks Christmas

21. Christmas Miracle Jonathan Toomey 

 

22. The Christmas Train: A True Story

23. Humphreys First Christmas

24. A Very Mater Christmas

25. Fear Not Joseph

 

Hopefully this will give you some help or spark your own imagination for a new family tradition.  I hope the Christmas season is living in your hearts and you are passing it along to others.

God Bless.

Gretchen

Sick Again

Ok as I was so happy yesterday about the sickness being gone I then spent the evening with Buggie throwing-up all night and sleeping on the couch, which is where he loves to sleep, being close to mom and dad.

My super spy declared he was on the search for Tics.  He got into it looking all over the house to make sure it was all clear and no evil blood suckers were in the house sneaking up on us.  Our guys love to use their magnifying glass, from friends for Bobo's birthday and their level, which Bobo loves to talk about small, large and medium (part of a song from Leapfrog's Magnificent Museum of Opposites)  along with square, square and rectangle mommy.  Even with the sickness we are still doing a little schoolwork on Volcanos lapbook, for some reason that is just what they are into right now and with reading our 25 books of Christmas presents, where they have gotten a new book each night will do a post on that later today maybe, and reading Tabitha's Travel's for our Advent story.  My guys are big readers, as long as mommy is doing the reading.

Right now this is what my couch looks like, both boys are keeping pretty still not that they are happy about that, but crackers and 7-up keeps them happy.  Little brother is doing fine he just wants to be like brother so crackers and 7-up for him too.  Well mommy gave in to the kid pressure and is now letting them watch some Dragon Riders of Berk.  Hope you day is going well.
God Bless
Gretchen

 

Family fun

While daddy and Buggie did some outside work that he has wanted done, Bobo and I were inside making yummy treats that we've been wanting to do all month, but we've been sick.  Brother made it in for scooping them out and cooking them.  Unfortunately, he didn't follow daddy's directions and was only able to be involved for a few cookie forming mins.

 

 

So much fun then we got to serve them at dinner where everybody enjoyed them, well except mommy who doesn't enjoy chocolate or peanut butter. 

 

Hope you are all having fun with your families as Christmas grows closer.  We are enjoying not being sick anymore and getting some quality daddy and boy outside time.

God Bless friends

Gretchen