Winter Program at school

Symeon had his winter program at school and it was so sweet.  In the beginning of December when we mentioned a winter program at school and the Christmas program at Church he informed us that he would not be doing any programs this year.  I tried to dig into why since he has loved being a part of the programs in the past but he just said he did not want to do them this year. I said okay and we moved on honestly whatever he wanted to do was fine with us.

In both Sunday School and Preschool they began practicing the songs they would sing and we would sing them at home be he still insisted that he would not be in any programs.  Finally last week he told Shawn that he was "considering" being in the programs but he would let us know.  We both laughed at the use of considering  but if you know him I am pretty sure he was going over it in his mind deciding what he was going to do.  Finally this past week he let us that he had decided to be in the programs.  I must confess I wasn't sure he was going to go through with either one the day of the shows but that was fine too.  Well it was a bumpy ride at church but in the end he participated in both his programs and loved it. 

Here are a few pictures from his school program.  I am going to do a church post later because it is a bit of a longer story. 

His preschool class sang two songs and show stealer was Snowey Pokey put your mitten in, put your hat in, put your scarf in etc.  There was a lot of yelling snowey pokey with  was a hit. 

 Here was Symeon's biggest fan waiting for the show to begin

 At this point it was like herding cats but they were so cute.  Symeon is on the right with the green hat Oma made him and his soccer scarf.  

 How cute are they

 I think he finally saw spotted us in the audience

 Here's Snowey Pokey put your scarf in

Here's my sweet guy post performance.  He did such a good job and really enjoyed himself which was the most important thing.  Whenever I catch a picture of him with his beautiful dark brown eyes looking black I am reminded of him as a baby.  People use to always be amazed at how dark his eyes were from birth and  against his pale white skin it is striking just like his Daddy's eyes. 

Ahhhhhh

This is how I feel right now. I am sure it is because I am getting about 5-6 hours of sleep a night and my days are full from the moment I wake up until the moment I pass out.  The holidays are always a busy time but this year we added some December stuff that is exhausting yet fun.  I don't mean ahhhhh I am unhappy just ahhhh life is fun, tiring, exciting, challenging, joyful, worrisome, and one wild ride some days.  Ahhhhhhh I love it!

On top of our normal Christmas activities and travels we bought a house so I am managing contractors galore, paint colors one of which I hated on the walls and had to make an emergency switch, $$$ signs everywhere with bids on things that need to be repaired, we also have school winter programs and parties, the Church Christmas program, and oh yes our health insurance which we purchase independently went through the roof and now I am shopping for  new coverage and filing out forms and answering questions about Symeon's 4 ER visits this year.  I am also packing for our 2 week trip back East and doing all our Christmas shopping.  I am baking cheese cakes and hosting a Christmas book club.  We are doing crafts and putting up our tree.  We are hanging out with dear friends and finally baking homemade bread for Symeon's teacher's for Christmas.    In the midst of all this stuff called life I am finding so many moments of profound joy, gratefulness, peace, and sacredness in this holiday season.

As I am typing Shawn has Silent Night Holy Night playing in the background and I am overwhelmed with a profound sense of expecting the Christ child into the world.  Every day the kids and I are reading the story of Mary and Joseph expecting the baby Jesus, we are opening our advent calendar, and we are moving Mary on the donkey pregnant with the baby Jesus closer to his birth.  To quote my beautiful baby girl in this season of busyness and profound meaning "Mama I love being happy"  you got it Babes sing it from the mountain tops I love being happy too.   


Here we are enjoying some of life during this advent season.

Putting up our Christmas Tree

 

 The official light tester

 We let the kids put the ornaments where ever they wanted until we realized there was a small problem then we gave them some direction and some chairs to stand on to do the rest.  I actually thought we should just leave it because I loved it to be honest.  

 Babes contemplating her ornament placement

 The exact spot decided but she doesn't seem sure of the placement.  I see this face quite often.  

 Daddy and Marin putting the topper on, this is our fun flashy tree next year we are going back to our memory tree when we are able to have a big tree to fit all our ornaments.  

 Symeon getting a boost from Mom.  I am pretty sure every year I am wearing an old sweatshirt and sweat pants with my hair uncombed not my usual attire but for some reason it is my choice of attire during decorating which maybe it had to do with the snow falling outside and the chilly house. 

Later in the day we went sledding and it was a hit.  Symeon went down a few times with us and then he wanted to go by himself and he flew.  It was so much fun.  Babes enjoyed it as well but she also loved eating all the new snow.  As you can see in the top picture she is examining her glove to see where the best eating is to occur.  

 A nice lady walking by took a picture of us all which is always a treat.  We were pretty cold at this point but we loved it and are looking forward to some more snow after Christmas.  Symeon wants to ski but we think we are going to wait until next year for lessons.  

Baking cookies with our friend one afternoon.

Christmas crafts

We enjoyed another snow day this week doing some Christmas crafts.  My Mom sends the kids this great magazine with lots of craft ideas for all different age groups needless to say we love it and we are looking forward to a few more crafts this holiday season. 

 Working on painting our 3D tree

 Snowflakes out of Q-tips glue and glitter.  I had high hopes of making seven, one for each window, but after we finished the first two we decided that 2 was perfect. 

We are homeowners

Well after about 6 months of looking and put in offers on 4 other houses we closed on our own house this week.  It was a weird experience to give someone that much money and then have them give us a house a bit surreal for us.  Today we took the kids over to the house to see it empty and let them run around.  I found it interesting that when I walked around the house when it belonged to someone else I saw all the beauty and when I walked through after we bought it I thought gosh there is a lot that needs to be done.  I guess things needing to be done is part of the package when you buy a 100 year old house.  I think projects in process is probably something I am going to have to get used to in our new home.  I was also overwhelmed with a profound sense of gratefulness as I stepped into our home.  We were able to find the type of house I wanted that was big enough for our family and for Shawn's office and in the neighborhood we really wanted to live in.

Our new home is walking distance to lots of stuff, two of the big parks in our city, closer to downtown,  near a bus line and most important near a bike lane.  It has a great yard with room for a garden and 5 bedrooms for lots of guests. 

Here are a few pictures of our newest home.  I don't like to say to our first home because all of the other places we have lived have been home although we didn't own them but I am looking forward to putting our touch on this place in a way we never have in any of our other homes. 

 Home sweet home

 Marin was a little distracted on the walk up eating snow

 Symeon walked right up to the door and was ready to go inside

 Here they are getting our first key out of the lockbox

 Here they are looking for our first and only key after it fell

 Hanging up our jackets for the first time.  Obviously the previous owners had a kid since there were coat hooks just their size.  

 Checking out the sunroom

 Babes breaking in our new house with a dramatic scene over a box

 Babes found the perfect seat

Finally playing a little tag in our new family room

There are a few things we want to have done before we move in so we will probably wait until after the new year which is fine since I am dreading packing up and moving again although we are hoping this will be it for awhile. 

Babes and Blueberries

Babes loves blueberries and she especially loves them frozen.  She asks for them about 5 times a day and I will often find her in the freezer getting herself a snack during the day.  It is always easy to know if she indulged herself filling her sweet pudgy toddler hands with frozen blueberries and then loading them into her mouth as fast as possible.  Here is how I found her the other day she pretty much gives herself away and when I asked her is she had any blueberries she just smiled.


 

Literally caught blue handed

Babes and Her Buddy

We have some good friends who have a little boy Symeon's age and a baby about 6 months.  Well needless to say Babes loves this baby so much. When ever she sees him she spends time saying hi to him and talking to him.  I am pretty sure the love for one another is mutual.  Here she is spending some time with him at our house.  She read him some books and then she just chatted with him which he loved and he even responded which was so sweet. 

Here they are holding hands which was so sweet and then I realized Marin was trying to pull him up so he could go with her to the play room.  I had to remind her that babies do not walk and so she sat down and read him some more books.  She loves babies!

Angry Birds

Symeon really likes the Angry Bird game and although in general I don't buy theme clothes I could not resist when I saw this tee shirt.  When I took it out of the bag he was jumping around squealing with excitement and as soon as it is clean he wants in back on.  I had another motive for buying this tee shirt and it has worked.  Symeon hates long sleeve tee shirts and I figured he would love the shirt so much he would wear it regardless of the sleeve length and then hopefully learn to tolerate long sleeves and overall it has been successful.  He will at least tolerate long sleeves on really cold days although he still prefers short sleeves and fast shorts just like his Dadddy.

Shawn found him trying to get a good look at himself in his new shirt.

Yes he is standing in the sink and I am pretty sure he likes what he sees.  The next day when he wore it to school his teacher told him right away that she loves his shirt and she also loved Angry Birds.  Symeon gave her the biggest smile and although he already loved her I could tell she went up a few notches in his book. 

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful holiday with great friends.  We flew to Houston on Thanksgiving morning which was nice.  Since being thankful can happen any day and tickets are much  much cheaper on Thanksgiving day than Wednesday night we decided to fly on Thursday.  It was wonderful no lines although very full planes.  We arrived in Texas to beautiful weather and decided we would have Turkey the following day.  We spent the afternoon at the playground and catching up.  Michael and Denise are doing well in Texas settling in and making home.  We miss them greatly in Denver but they seem to be where God wants them at this time in life which was good to see.

Friday was ate good food but  not to much which was nice then we just hung out together.  Saturday we spent the day at the Children's museum which was awesome we all had a good time.  Sunday we relaxed went out for great Mexican, shopped a bit, and played a bunch and Monday we flew back to Denver.  It was a great trip and a blessed time with friends.

The only travel bump was the Super Shuttle ride back to Denver.  I had to give it to this guy straight in front of a crowd of people which takes a lot for me to do but after standing outside in the cold for 20 minutes with two kids, car seats, and suitcases in the middle of busy traffic and he allowed several other people to load the van rather than us I was frustrated.  We told him we were leaving to get a cab and he put us right on the van well I voiced my discontentment with his customer service.  On the drive home we were chuckling a bit and then we dropped off a person right near our house which made it even funnier.  He was already driving right past our house but wasn't going to take us?  I am not sure we will Super Shuttle home any more after this experience but we will see it all worked out in the end.

 Cooking dinner while the guys work out

 Snuggling with Aunt Niecer

 One of several fits she laid down and refused to walk, Really?!

 Symeon surrounded by love

 Symeon and Marin showing Aunt Niecer how to play Angry Bird

 This is just one of Marin's pictures from the weekend.  I love her beautiful blue eyes!

Hanging out at the Children's museum

 Marin surrounded by love!

Waiting for the train ride at the mall

 Choo choo