Christmas 2012

What a week!                                               My mom got these for the boys for Christmas!

Last Saturday (the 22nd) was my family's Christmas get together at my cousin's house.  Of course I didn't take any pictures....I did a hot cocoa bar for the kids like I did last year! They love it and I think it's so fun!

 

that morning during Silas's 6 months pics!

 

 

Christmas Eve we went to Mike's parents house for lunch.  No pictures of course :) The kids had fun and got some nice presents and we headed home to get ready for Santa to come! ELi fell asleep before we got home about 5:30pm and stayed asleep when we got in.  I woke him up about 8pm and put some Christmas pj's on him cause I wanted him to look cute in the morning (priorities!) He stayed awake for a few minutes and picked a cookie for Santa and even let me get a picture of all 3 of them!

                                                                         can you tell Eli just woke up? :)

 

 

 





 



Mike won "The World's Largest Stocking" from a local hardware store!  It was full of random toys.  I wanted to wait until after Christmas to give it to the boys so it wouldn't overshadow the presents we actually bought for the boys but Mike really wanted it to be part of Christmas morning so we put it out.  We did wait to open it up though.  We haven't even opened most of the toys in there and will probably donate a lot of them.  Their favorite is a Zhu Zhu pet! Geez that thing is annoying;)
Of course they liked the presents we actually got and Silas had a lot of fun trying to unwrap presents.  He only got a few- 2 new toys and some dishes for when he starts eating, but it was still a lot of fun!

                                                           Eli is in that fake smile stage...

                                                             STill can't get over his eyes! :)

                                                  This game has caused so many problems I'm starting to hate it! I've discovered we are not a game family!

My mom and sister came over late morning (after we ate homemade sourdough coffee cake!) and we opened presents and ate a late lnch together.

We spent the rest of the week just hanging out at home mostly- Mike took the week off.  Rowan and Eli spent a night at my moms, Mike and I ran to Arthur one morning, Rowan went to a friends house for dinner one night...Saturday Mike's parents came for lunch because his brother and his wife were visiting from Texas. They stayed the night here so we could all hang out.  I made sugar cookie's the day before so I whipped up some icing and we all decorated them! We didn't get many cookies made this year due to Eli being sick but the boys (and Mike!) love decorating cookies so I knew we'd still have to do it.

 

Sunday Mike's brother and wife left around lunch time to head back to his parent's house.  Before they left some other friends who live in PA stopped for a short visit.  They have a little boy a few months younger than Eli and they have a blast together! They ate lunch with us and the kidsplayed for a few hours before they had to head back.  It was a lot of fun to see everyone, but We felt like we'd been entertaining non-stop for a week- well Mike did he really does all the cooking when we have people over! So it was nice to just sit and relax last night and today!

What a week!

Sunday- Eli still felt pretty crappy and had a fever. We decided to still have my mom come over to do their annual gingerbread house. An hour before she got here Rowan had a fever and both boys were napping! They still did it though






They really love doing this!



Monday- both kids were feign great and fever free! Still had to stay home because of the 24hr fever free rule at school. We went to Walmart to get a few things and get the stir crazy kids out of the house!

Tuesday- back to school day! Woohoo! I was so ready to get stuff done for Christmas! Eli got up and seemed a little off still and he asked to stay home :( I figured he needed another day to rest. We had to take Silas for his 6 month appt and by the time we got back Eli's fever was up again!

Wednesday- Eli still has a fever. We had to go in for my dentist appt. mike stayed in the car with Eli and Silas. They had donuts! Since Eli hardly ate all week we were bribing him with whatever! Sonic slushie to help him get fluids :)



Thursday- still a fever and another night up a lot. Starting to wonder if he'll ever get over this awful virus! Towards the afternoon his fever was gone and he was starting to act crazy - I mean normal ;)

Friday- still no fever and he didn't wake up at all last night! I'm still exhausted from the whole week though. We kept him home just to give him a little more time to get better - he didn't go all week! I'm sad he missed this week and the fun things they did. But he didn't know about them so he doesn't care.

Today he went to play in the snow for a bit!



So glad he's back to normal!

'Tis the Season....

....For everyone to be sick?

                                                            picture not from today

Rowan was home from school on Thursday because he'd been up getting sick all night.  Of course he was fine all day Thursday.  Eli was really quiet when he got off the bus Friday- too quiet! As soon as we got inside he laid down on the couch ( well, after eating a piece of the candy his bus driver gave him).  I felt his head and knew he had a fever :( Since Rowan had been throwing up I was sure that's what Eli had. I limited his food the rest of the afternoon just in case, he didn't care anyway.  He dozed a little and got to watch cartoons. He ate a giant bowl of applesauce for dinner and then fell asleep for several hours.  Of course he woke up at10pm full of energy ;/  His fever was down and I was hoping he was on the mend.  He finally went to sleep before midnight and woke up at 5am thirsty with his fever back up.

                                               they both have big beautiful eyes!

All day today his fever has gone up and down.  It's gotten scary high! And he's had a few baths- he did not like that! and has had some medicine.  I've heard this fever thing is going around so I'm not too worried but he hasn't had a fever in forever.  Rowan used to get these high fevers when he was 1-2yrs but it was a lot easier to deal with when I only had one child to take care! He's resting again and fever was back down.  He's been eating a little and will drink everytime I tell him to- good thing because I really don't want him to get dehydrated...

Now we just try to keep Silas from getting sick!

I've been trying to start making Christmas cookies but everytime I plan it someone gets sick!  I'm starting to feel like we'll never get ready for Christmas!

Now Rowan is laying in bed (at 6pm) claiming he "watched too much tv today" Oh my! Will it ever end?

Singing and Snowflakes

Rowan's schools Christmas concert was today! The zoom on my real camera broke so I took this pic with my phone. It was really good! Mike got off early to go and my mom met us there as well.


I really like our school. I know not everything is the way I'd like it but I'm pretty happy right now with it.
I feel like we are finally getting to know people in the community too. Even Eli saw several friends from preschool and we sat by his bus driver!



We came home and had hot cocoa and made snowflakes to hang up!



Mike hates it when I want to do this kind of stuff but he probably spent more time than the rest of us ;)



Eli got a little crazy with the glitter glue so his will probably need a few days to dry!









Silas was pretty in to it to!

After we were done Rowan randomly threw up... Not sure why. But hoping it was a one time thing. No fever and he was acting fine. I still sent him to bed early though. Oh and now I don't quite feel right :/ really hoping I don't get sick!

Christmas at the lake

Homer Lake, the local forest preserve had some Christmas activities for kids yesterday. They had several stations set up to make little gifts or ornaments. You could also wrap them if you wanted!



My kids favorite was making a bird feeder! They let the kids hang them behind the nature center- that seemed much less messy than taking it home so we did that ;)






Eli noticed something...
Rowan ran into a few friends from school so he was excited! They also had hot cocoa! It was really nice, I wish we were a little closer to them so we could go there more often. We went on a short hike after they were done.






We came home and watched Home Alone! I haven't seen it in years and the boys never had. They loved it!! Rowan asked if we could watch it every year :)
We ate homemade chocolate ice cream in the homemade waffle cones Mike made



I love this time of year :)

Spring in December

The high today was supposed to be 70. 70!! It's December 3rd!! I thought we should do something to enjoy the weather since it could be the last nice day. After Eli got home we decided to go to Homer Lake Nature Playscape. Eli had wanted to go the other day and we didn't so I knew he'd be excited!






We had such a good time. We were the only people there and Eli loved it!









Silas was mostly dozing in the stroller after a morning of no nap.









We love this park. It really is a lot of fun!






We picked Rowan up at school and decided to go back to the same park with some friends!
After playing for an hour it was starting to get a little cooler and the sun was setting so we headed in town.



I had packed some sandwiches for supper and the boys ate in the car. We picked Mike up and went to Culvers for ice cream! Yeah for leftover ice cream coupons!



They always want to get waffle cones and we never do because they are so big. We decided to get them today since it was basically their dinner ;) and maybe the last warm day of the year! They made such a mess with those cones but they did enjoy them :)



It was also Silas's first time to sit in a highchair at a restaurant! He's not quite ready for it so we'll avoid it until he can sit up better but he enjoyed it!