Goodbye 2012!

For New Year's Eve we made our annual pudding parfaits! Yumm!
Then we hung out and watched The countdown on tv. The kids love to dance to the music.

I tried to get everyone to take a nap earlier so we could stay up late. Rowan was the only one who didn't nap and he ended up falling asleep before the NY ball drop at 11. I tried to wake him up for it but he was out! Eli stayed up for it for the first time ever but fell asleep just a few minutes later.
Mike also made some bacon wrapped poppers for us! Oh so good!

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!

The Beach

A few weeks ago (or months) we went camping and spent the day at the beach. Rowan had never been to the beach before and he was in love!

Eli looks like he's just chillin in the sand- but he had no fear at all in the water!














We spent ALL day at the beach, Eli was obviously tired, but I was still surprised when I put him in the stroller and he went to sleep!! He's not even strapped in- which should tell you how tired he was, otherwise he would have been climbing back out.





Rowan could have spent all day sitting in the waves, hopefully soon he can go to the ocean!






We ended up meeting up with my cousin and his 2 kids at the beach, they came back to our campsite and cooked out with us and later my aunt and uncle came out for some smores!

Rowan is just about 3 weeks younger than Ethan, this was the best picture I could get. Of course everytime I tried one of them would move!

Mike got Rowan a light to put on his head, he wore it in the tent when we were getting ready for bed and to read- him and Eli both thought it was pretty neat. I found it annoying since he would shine it right in my face every few minutes...









Waking up happy in the tent!

The boys had a lot of fun playing in the gravel of our parking spot, Rowan would make roads and scoop it with who else, but Scoop! Eli would shovel it into the bucket, I couldn't believe how entertained they were with rocks!

Attention Locals: Updated

Updating to add the website, in case anyone's interested. Check it out here.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do you live in the Champaign-Urbana area? Are you looking for something to do this coming Friday night? How about checking out the School of Art + Design Master of Fine Arts Exhibition.

Sounds exciting doesn't it? Why do I care? In case you didn't know, my husband is in his 3rd and final year in the MFA program, so he will have work on display at the exhibit. So if you're wondering just what he really does (I know I am...) come check it out, you know you're curious.

The opening is Friday April 24th from 5-7pm, the show is up until May 3rd, but there may be food out during the opening (don't hold me to that, it may be a lie) so you should just come to that. Besides if you come to the opening then we'll actually see that you came and you'll get extra points for that! :)

So yeah, Friday night at the Krannert ART Museum from 5-7pm. There are two different Krannert's make sure you come to the right one. So come check out some art, I know at least some of it is pretty cool, I can't vouch for the other people's stuff though.

The Great Outdoors

Rowan caught in the wind

Eli- not knowing what to think of the wind

Sitting still on the grass

Why can't they all just look and smile?

Who needs snow to sled? Sandbox lid works just fine!

Mike picking spinach (yum yu m!!)





One of the reasons I love him- eating freshly picked spinach (and loving it)!