Christmas morning memories

Wow i can't believe its January 2nd and the holidays are officially over! We had a very busy December with lots of fun memories! Christmas morning....before the unwrapping began i managed to hold them off to get a quick snapshot of our tree & the presents.

Brady is so into Star Wars lego's right now. His pile wasn't very big because his toys are slightly more pricey.

Spending Christmas morning putting Lego's together.

And to compliment my steaming cup of bold coffee for breakfast...

Monkey Bread Yum : )

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Swimming lessons

Parker has completed the 6 week swimming lesson program at the Lampeter YMCA. This was the last night of lessons and the whole night was focused on safety. How to wear a life jacket and how to swim if you fall in the water with your clothes on.

Parker really loves the water, he always looked forward to his swimming lesson nights. They were working on his front & back floats and he is doing better with both.

He can hardly wait for the next 6-week session, he has officially graduated from "eels" to "rays"

Annual Cookie Baking Day

My freezer is officially stocked up with a very nice variety of delicious Christmas cookies. For quite a few years me & the boys have been baking cookies with Carlton's family.

I (with a little help from Parker) baked & decorated 2 big batches of "good cookies" (these have been my very favorite cookie ever since i was little and enjoyed them at my best friend, Josi's-they were kind enough to share the recipe) and brought Creme De Menthe brownies to share, Brady made chocolate chip cookies, Dana takes care of oh approx. 8 or 9 dozen peanut butter blossoms, his cousin-Kara makes "buckeyes" (peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate), his Aunt Sheryl spends hours rolling out sand tarts and brings along amazing Holiday Magic bars. And my mother in law provides a spacious kitchen, lunch, and hours of "babysitting".

It is always an exciting time to spend together and makes those long hours in the kitchen so much more fun!

Fall Funtimes

Fall is such a fun time of the year and usually we take advantage of all the pumpkins around here and each carve our own to display on Halloween, well we just didn't find a night to do pumpkin carving this year but we did make a scarecrow. Its always fun to try something new. The boys seemed to have a good time!

Brady did most of the stuffing and we let him draw the face also. We now have it standing outside the front of our house and everytime i pull in the driveway i have to look twice i think someone is standing in my flower bed!

Thanks to our friends, Steve & Kim for inviting us to your Scarecrow party.

Parker's Pre-K class celebrated Fall with a Harvest Party and allowed them to dress up as well. He went as a train conductor. He is standing beside Darth Vader, who he would really liked to have been this Halloween but i thought he was alittle young for such a scary character. I guess i just don't appreciate Star Wars!


Here we are just about ready to hit the town for Trick or Treat night. Brady is Mr. Incredible and Parker is a Koala Bear.

My cousin, Julie, with her new puppy, Kona, both dressed very well for the occassion!

Brady and Parker with their cousins, Josiah & Jada. Hunter we missed you hope you are feeling better!

I can't believe its November!! It will be Thanksgiving before you know it! Hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful time of year!

Wow Already!

Parker lost his first tooth! We noticed it was loose two days ago and he has wanted it out ever since. I think he just wanted a visit by this tooth fairy his older brother told him about. He was incredibly brave through the whole thing. He was asking me to pull it out, i kept telling him it will fall out when its ready and tonight before bed he asked again. So i got a tissue and it didn't take long and it came out. So tonight is the big night for his first tooth fairy visit : )

You can't really see it tucked in the right corner of the baggie. Its so small so we couldn't just lay it under his pillow.

I wonder what the going rate is for a lost tooth?

Train Ride

Well this afternoon was a BEAUTIFUL afternoon for a train ride. Parker had earned a free ticket to ride on the Strasburg Railroad from a summer reading program so we chose today to cash it in.

He spent most of the 40 minute trip hanging out the window like this :)

He wanted to bring along a favorite book of his. Right now he is really enjoying Mercer Mayer books and this one is called "Just Me And My Mom" In the beginning the two take a train ride into a big busy city. So we kinda did the same thing except i wouldn't exactly describe Paradise as big and busy. It was a great afternoon and fun spending some one on one time!

We read our book several times throughout the ride and the book ends with....We had fun, just me and my mom.