Fa la la la la cray cray

Oh the craziness that is December. So much celebrating going on. BUt also so much fun. A fun new tradition has been going with lots of families from church to do some caroling at a local retirement center.

And next up was our church's Breakfast With Santa event. We even got there at the same time Santa was running in. :)

This event resulted in a parenting fail and a friendship win. The Santa concept has never really clicked with Will (it is rather bizarre when you think about it), so we talked up meeting Santa and asking for a present. Will said he would ask for a toy tractor. So the morning of BWS, I tell Will that he finally gets to see Santa. His response, "And I get my tractor!"  Yikes. The whole future tense did not compute...time for some expectation management.

The boys had a great time listening to stories from Mrs. Claus, making reindeer food and crafts, decorating cookies, and meeting the big guy himself. And we loved having longtime friends, the A-Team there as well. :)

On the friendship win...Wade wasn't able to come with us, so when I got into the Santa room with just me and the boys and saw the huge line, I wanted to cry. Yes it is hard for most 3 year olds to wait patiently in line. But unfortunately Will takes that to a whole different level. It just doesn't happen. My sweet friend, Ali, figured out what was going on and went and stood in line for us for probably almost 30 minutes, while I walked around with the boys. The result was this:

Pretty sure I cried when I saw these pictures. Couldn't believe how good they turned out. Seriously I told Ali she was my Christmas miracle. No way this would've happened if we had to attempt that line. For her, I'm sure it was no big deal. For me, it was HUGE.

Then it was time for fun class parties up at school!

 Will LOVED the throw a snowball on the tree game. :)

 And some good 'ol Jingle Bells

 Tate's party was a blur of craziness, food, games, and fun.

And one of our favorite family traditions at Christmas time is the night the boys put on Christmas PJs, we get some hot chocolate from Starbucks, and go look at lights. According to all of my Facebook friends, the boys will never forgive me for the PJ choice this year. I think they look adorable. :)

And for much of the time we were looking at lights, we had our own Christmas concert live.


Such a fun season for everyone!

Celebrating 7!

A post is coming soon about the actual seven year old himself, but first off...the celebrations!

Waking up to streamers, balloons, silly string, and donut holes before school="best day ever" already!

His actual birthday was the day & night when the whole city went into panic mode because of the cold front coming thru. Usually this is much ado about nothing, but this time around, it was legit. So instead of going to dinner with grandparents, we stayed at home with pizza and cake just the four of us. Thankfully I had stopped by our favorite cake place earlier in the day. :)

Tate is a funny kid. For as many areas where he has absolutely no fear, this kid is petrified of fire. Even on a birthday candle. But hey, I'm totally good with him being scared of fire. This series of pictures makes me laugh. It is obvious which are the pre-fire, during fire, and post fire moments. :)

It was a sweet laid-back night just the four of us. All of us loved celebrating the Big 7 with this guy. (Note to self, why do I always forget to pictures with Wade & I in them?)

Because of Polar Vortex and the crazy layer of ice, we had to postpone his birthday party a couple of weeks. But finally it was here. This kid is ALL about Legos. So it seemed fitting to have the party at our local Legoland.

If only these pictures could talk. Or maybe not. They do not do justice to the volume level that was going on those two hours.

It was just me and Wade herding this wild crew. Our strategy was one at the front and one at the back at all times. Who knows what was going on in between?  :)

 

Tate is in his crazy, loud, happy place when he is with a big group of friends. :) So fun celebrating him all with some of his favorite people.