December 7th

December 7th had to be the busiest day during the whole Christmas season.  We started to morning at Ava's school's Birthday Party for Jesus.  

She had a blast and loved seeing her friends Zoe & Emmery.

 Andrew had a basketball game during Ava's party so as soon as the party was over we headed to his game and caught the last 20 minutes.  After the game, we went downtown for our annual girls family tea at the Heathman Hotel.  This year the little girls got to come and they loved it!  They were so good and had the best time drinking their hot chocolate and enjoying all of their little treats.  Elizabeth and Ava were the only other little girls there along with all of the women on Nate's side of the family.

 It was such a fun afternoon and I can't wait to share this tradition with my girl for years to come.

 These two girls were so cute together.  After the tea we went back to my in-laws house for some downtime before the family get together.

 A crazy, busy, fun day!

Sickness, Advent & Chippy returns!

The first week of December was rough!  I was sick for 4 days, barely moved off the couch.  Thankfully Nate was home to help with the kids, but he wasn't feeling great either.  Then Andrew got sick and was out of school for 3 days.  It was a rough week. We still started advent and did more low key activities.

 

They unwrapped all of their Christmas books from past years.  They loved opening all of them!

They also made a Christmas tree with fingerpaint.

My sweet boy starting to get over his sickness.  You can barely see in this picture but his eye was all red from the cold settling in his eye.  Poor guy.

And Ava enjoying some hot chocolate & pancakes while it barely snowed outside.

Chippy arrived during our sickness and the kids were so excited to see him back.  He brought with him some new coloring books and a get well note.  He also had some fun hanging out with Rapunzel, taking a bath in marshmallows & reading to the Ninja Turtle bad guys.

 By the end of the week we were all better and able to go get our tree.  We searched forever in the freezing cold (it was in the 20s and snowed earlier in the morning!) for a tree and found nothing.  It was starting to become not fun so we headed to Al's Garden center and found a tree right away.

 The kids were so cute and really wanted to help me decorate the tree this year.  I gave them all of their ornaments to put on the tree.  All of them ended up in a cluster at the front of the tree.  While they weren't looking I had to move a few around.

December 2-6, 2013

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year was spent at my parents.

 The kids had fun playing games and playing with Leyton.

 These girls love each other so much!

 I, unfortunately, woke up really sick.  My head hurt so bad and I had no energy so I spent most of the day laying on the couch.  I wasn't even able to help my parents much with cooking.  I felt horrible.  The nasty bug hit me for 4 days- fever, barely eating and spending my days sleeping.  And poor Andrew got it just as I got over it.  It was a rough week for our family.

 Papa & Pama got the kids some new Christmas books.

 A little family singing!

 Beyond thankful for these two kiddos!

Basketball season

Basketball season has started and Andrew is loving it!  Daddy is the coach and his two buddies Carter & Emery are on his team.  Practice is only once a week with a game every Saturday which seems like a lot less compared to the twice a week soccer practices.

I think basketball is one of Andrew's favorite sports.  He makes several baskets each game and loves running from one end of the court to the other.  He's a pretty competitive 6 year old!

Ideation

Nate moved into a new office in November.  He worked really hard on making it a contemporary, creative space.  With the help of my dad, they made it look really nice!

There's tons more space and lots of great storage.  They still have some finishing touches, but overall it looks amazing!

I love these floor to ceiling sliding cabinets!

The kids love visiting Daddy at work.

On this particular day, they sat at my dad's desk, put on his glasses and pretended to be papa…it was pretty funny!

My grandpa came by to do a prayer/blessing over Nate's company and new office.

The Ideation team (and Andrew).
November 11th & 15th