Christmas Randoms...

This was the first year in a while that I didn't take a whole lot of Christmas pictures!  It wasn't intentional, it's just we kept so busy that I didn't even realize it!  We had some of my family in town this year and we spent a majority of the holiday outside playing in the snow and sledding.  It was so cold that it would have been miserable to have my hand out of my glove snapping pictures so I opted to leave the camera at home and just have fun.  Between all of us, we did get together some on our cell phones, but I need to get those loaded on the computer.  So for now I just have a handful from Christmas morning and a few from Noah's Christmas program at Preschool.  

Better late than never!

 Ella with her very special new American Girl doll!  This was her most treasured gift this year!

 Noah had been eyeing this castle for many months leading up to Christmas so he was *thrilled* that Santa brought it!  Between us and all the Grandparents, he was able to collect all of the accessories and men to go with it and spends many hours a week playing with it!

   Noah got to be Joseph this year.  It was adorable and they gave us all quite the show with many laughs!

 This one is blurry, but it had to be posted.  For the last song, they came around and took the kids costumes off so that the parents could get some pictures of them in their regular clothes.  WELL, when Noah's teacher pulled his off, we got quite the surprise!  Apparently he had taken a trip to the potty and couldn't get his pants buckled...but since he had the costume over top, no one noticed...until of course he was left standing there on stage with his little Superman undies hanging out!!  No worries though.  Daddy quickly sprang into action and got him all situated.  Can't wait to tell his Senior Prom date about this one ;)

Christmas Tree!

Hopefully over the next day or so I can finally catch up all of our pictures on here from December.  I'm not even going to worry about November :/ I'll just catch up this month and try to keep up from there.  We'll see.  Don't hold your breath though!! 

For the past five years, we have always bought our Christmas Tree at the same tree farm in NC.  We have always loved being able to look back at pictures of the kids in front of the same sign each year growing a little bit bigger and bigger.  The first year we took Ella, we were just carrying her around in the baby bjorn!  So needless to say, we felt a little lost trying to make new traditions for tree hunting here in Wisconsin.  Thanks to several suggestions from friends, we found the best place to go!  It was wonderful and don't tell our old place....but this one was way better and totally replaced it just fine.  They had a huge selection of beautiful trees!  In some spots you just saw trees as far as you could see! We chose the perfect one (which took forever now that the kids are old enough to insist on which ones just aren't "good" enough), cut it down, and caught a hay ride back to the front of the farm.  There we had hot chocolate while the tree was given a good shake and wrapped up to take home.  It was great and every year we just seem to have more and more fun with the kids as they get older and can participate more.  It always feels so nice once all of the Christmas stuff is out and the house feels so festive!  I just love this time of year!!

My Little Loves!

Let's pretend I posted this last week ;) 

We had an early morning on Valentines Day since I had somewhere to be at 8:45 and the kids had to ride to school with a friend.  Can you tell we aren't early morning people?!?  I mean, we are usually up by 7-7:30....but we are NOT 6:00 kinda people.  We have been so spoiled with preschool starting at 9.  What a wake up call we have coming next year when Ella starts "real" school hours.  Yuck.

Noey was not in the best of moods.  But I can't resist these big brown eyes!  Love.

 I think even Princess was confused on why exactly we were all awake?

 This year, the kids and I were feeling really adventurous and decided to make Valentines instead of buying them.  We had a lot of fun searching Pinterest for inspiration.  Ella's said:

"You're O'FISH-ally my Valentine" 

 and Noah's said: "You ROCK Valentine"  which is so very Noah.

 Both of the kids had really cute parties at preschool.  I only have pics to post from Noah's since I forgot my camera battery in the car for Ella's.  I know.  Mommy fail.  I have some on my phone I just need to upload, but for now I will just share a couple from Noah's class.

Hope everyone enjoyed their Valentine's Day though!! We certainly did!  

1 John 4:19 "We love because He first loved us.