Merry Christmas, everyone!!!!

Santa's Train

Tale of 3 Trees

birthday celebrations

making cookies at grandma's

Last Saturday morning, we ventured out to Grandma's house after being cooped up for the week.

We made lots of cookies - some were very thick and others paper thin. 

The boys loved it!!!

  

  

  

  

  

Day 11 - Santa

Christmas 2006

Uncle Dick as Santa with Morgan and Brendan

(the twins were so terrified of Santa that there's no picture of them w/ Santa.)

Day 10 - Another Snow Day!!!!

Happy 8th Birthday Brendan

Another year has gone by, making Brendan a year older.  He is now 8 year olds.  WOW!!!! 

And he didn't have a very great start to his day...it's a snow day.  And most kids would be thrilled to stay home, watch TV and play with their toys, but not Brendan.  He LOVES school and it's his birthday.  Last night Mike and Brendan went to Krispy Kreme's for  his birthday treat...and now we have 3 dozen donuts sitting on the kitchen counter and 3 younger brothers who are drooling over them.

Enough said about that.  Brendan is a great kid!

He, for the most part, loves his brothers.  

He's got great friends - some of them are even girls!!!

He loves school and doesn't mind doing his homework 

He loves to read - right now his favorite is Magic Tree House

He gotten into Pokemon cards and anything to do with Pokemon.

He loves to play the Wii with his friends and with Mike. 

Brendan, we are so proud of you!!!  

We pray that God will continue to be at the center of your life. 

Happy Birthday!!!

Day 9 Brendan's birthdays past

In honor of Brendan's birthday today,  I thought I would share pictures of all his birthday cakes so far.  Some I made, more that I orders and I guess last year I was just plain lazy

This year I have my work cut out for me...he wants a pikachu cake.

Day 8 - A blast from the Past

The twins with Great Grama Skip.

Dec 7 - Happy Birthday Morgan

Happy 8th Birthday Morgan!!!

We hope you had a great birthday.

Day 6 - Snow!!!!

Dec 5 - It's Snowtime!

Day 3 - each of the boys first christmas

Brendan's first Christmas  - he was 2 weeks old

Luc & Austin's first Christmas.  They were 9 1/2 months old

Connor's first Christmas - He was 3 months old

Day 2 - Christmases Past

Dec 1

Well, it's been a while since I last blogged.  It's not that we haven't been busy doing things...maybe it's been that we're so busy that I haven't had time to blog.  


I've decided that I'm going to do much better in December...in fact I'm going to blog every day.  WOW!!!!  I know that's going to be hard.  It will probably just be a picture from Christmas' past. 

  

I'm going to start off with these pictures of Brendan's first Christmas.  He was only about 2 weeks old at Christmas . 

Flashback Friday

This past week while I finally got all my pictures in one place, I came across this photo of the twins.

Can you figure out who's who?

We're thankful for...

 

Is this what Christmas is really about?

With the start of November, came the first of many ads in the newspaper, enticing kids to want every toy available to mankind.  Last Sunday, Toys R Us's Biggest Big Book Ever came in the GR Press and the boys have been drooling over the book all week.  I told each of them to get three different colored makers out and circle the things that they really wanted.  It was quite humerous, to say the least.  

First let's start with Brendan's circled items

Not so bad, I can see way he would want each of these items, some of them he has actually wanted for a long time, but Mike and I just didn't think he was old enough for these items in previous years.  A few days later, he narrowed it down to one item...the Nerf Cannon.

Austin's list of circled items was a little bit longer

 

 

Here's a few that we thought were a little comical.  First Austin said he really, really wants Geo Trax....even though we have tons of them already at home and he doesn't pay any attention to them.

Next, all the boys think they need guitars, even Connor.  But Austin's going to be the rocker of the group.

Third, Austin is wishing for the FREE $10 gift card.  He doesn't really care anything about the fact that you have to spend over $100 on an ipod to get the gift card.  He just wants the GC

Oh, Luc....where do I even begin.  I didn't know that you wanted so many things, but that you also have such expensive taste.  Do we really deprive you that much???

Is the treehouse the Dad built you not enough that now you need 3 more playsets?

I'm beginning to wonder if you think our backyard should look like a park.

And here's where your expensive taste start coming into play...do you really need the $80 easel, when your brother picked out a prefect good one for $35

  

So what's your pleasure, do you really just want play guitar like all your brothers or are you going to venture out and play the drums instead.  (We are going to have a rockin' band some day...)

As parents we want to give our children everything, right? but do we have get a loan to do so?  Do we really need to max out our credit cards just to show them that we love them?  Believe me, our boys will NOT be getting +/- $7000.00 worth of toys that they are wished for, and that doesn't even include anything Connor wants.  

I guess this would be a good time for us for to sit down with our boys and teach them how to be content with what they have and not be greedy and covet  what they see in magazines and on TV.   We seem to get so wrapped up into what we want to Christmas that we forget about Christmas is really all about.  Is there something that your family does each year to show your kids that they will more blessed when they give than when they receive?