Christmas Tree!

The tree is up!!!  The first words out of my boys' mouths in the morning are now "Turn Christmas tree lights on, PLEASE?!!!"  I love Christmas time!

Thanksgiving and Christmas in MN!

On Friday morning, we headed to Burnsville, MN to celebrate Thanksgiving and an early Christmas with the Hughsons!  After some fun at Aunt Jen's house, we headed to our hotel Friday night so the kids could swim.  They all had a blast!

After two days with no naps, a five hour car trip, playing at Aunt Jen's house, and swimming, we didn't have to work too hard to get the boys to fall asleep on Friday night!!!  (Unfortuantely, they did not stay asleep... 4:30 am is just way too early to be up for the day, especially in a hotel room!)

We headed back over to the Hughson's on Saturday morning and the boys were pleasantly surprised that they had some Christmas presents to open!

After presents, we had dinner and took some family pictures!

After a very fun day, we got back in the van to travel home on Saturday evening.  We weren't even out of town yet before Conner was asleep, still clutching his new Christmas plate, courtesy of Aunt Jen!

We had an awesome celebration!   Thanks Hughsons for the great weekend!  We are really ready for Christmas now!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving day at Aunt Peggy's and Uncle Brian's house was very fun, especially since the weather was so nice!  The boys spent the day outside running around and climbing trees with Uncle Josh!  They had so much fun! 

ConMan!

BenBen!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving crafts!

We (I) decided that we needed a good Thanksgiving craft on Wednesday so we (I) thought that we could make some place mats for our Thanksgiving dinner.  Ben, of course, colored maybe one picture and then went on to build a road of crayons because in Ben's world, Mom's activity just wasn't entertaining enough.  Conner focused for quite a bit longer and colored some very nice Thanksgiving pictures for Mom to laminate!

Mickey's Christmas Carol!

The boys cuddled up to watch Mickey's Christmas Carol last night.... why can't they be this cute all the time?!

Foundation!

The house is more than a hole in the ground!!!  We have a foundation!

Paint with Water...

Simple, effective, entertaining, and not very messy... "Paint with Water" books are always a good time for all of us... especially if it is a Curious George paint with water book!

Happy Birthday Marley!

We were able to go to Bettendorf to celebrate my niece's birthday this weekend!  I cannot believe our little Marley is 2, but she is (well, she soon will be!)  The boys were ecstatic to spend the whole weekend at Nana and Gramps' house AND that they got to be with Marley all weekend too!  We had such a great time!  I love watching our kids together...  we all enjoyed some leaf time, a little birthday celebration for Miss Marley, playing outside, and we even fit in some adult partying time too, which is quite essential to a successful weekend!  Happy Birthday Marley!!!

Uncle Josh's new motorcyle was pretty exciting! 

Hole in the Ground...

I hope I can keep getting some pictures of our house site often... It is going to be really fun to watch this thing go up and know that it will be ours!  For now it is still a big hole in the ground....

A Ground-Breaking Anniversary!

10 years ago today...

10 years later...  today they broke ground on our new house... 

It all seems very fitting for us!  We have learned so much in 10 years.  We have persevered, we have rejoiced, we have cried, we have laughed, we have braved, we have experienced, we have recovered, we have endured, we have survived some of the worst circumstances I could have ever imagined only to come out celebrating on the other side, but most of all we have loved!  What a blessing it is today to drive by our soon-to-be new house with our two sons... with Conner crying because he thinks our house has been moved and Ben yelling excitedly that a tractor is going to build our house!  Happy 10 years, my love...

Run Down the Hill...

Yet another showing today had us out looking for something to do, so we decided to spend the time at the park near our house.  The boys discovered the hill at the park today, and quickly realized how much fun it was to run down the hill until they eventually lost control and fell down at the bottom!  They also discovered that it was pretty fun to just roll down the hill too.  Maybe not the best activity, but their giggles were infectious and I hated to make them stop!  Their jeans paid the price...

Conner and Ben enjoyed the swings after all of their running and falling down...  We LOVE the park!