Holidays in Review

So as promised, the holidays in review.  AKA, the world's longest blog post.  Here goes...

We begin with fabulous lunch with my girl friends and a couple of cute babies.  Followed a few weeks later with a party with all the kiddos at Mel's.  So fun- if you missed it, you missed out, and we missed you.

Christmas in the North land.  We had such a fun time. Here are the munchkins on Christmas Eve.

We owe all our Christmas morning bounty to Zach's quick thinking.  Because we weren't home he left this note for Santa before we went to bed.  He dictated part to me, "There is people here named..." and then he wrote in all of our names.  Thanks Zach, you saved the day and we scored tons of presents!!!  Thanks also to Santa, Grandma, and Uncle Jim cuz they hooked us up!  Luckily I got a new camera- well two to be exact... watch the pictures magically improve...

On to New Years (sadly no great pics because sadly no great party!)  Which was followed by my thirty-somethingth birthday- wahoo!  I'm not going to lie, my best gift was that the kids went back to school that day.  But, we also took them bowling that night.  We haven't been in years and it was a kick to watch the kids in action.  The above pic is of our shoes next to Sam's tiny little bowling shoes- they were so cute!  

So I kind of have a thing about germs and bowling is the absolute yuckiest- sticking your fingers into those tiny holes that everyone stuck their yucky fingers in.  Blech!  So poor Miss Sarah had to be confined to her car seat/ germ free force field while we bowled and then we all exited the building and washed our hands really good before she could be touched.  Lucky for us she didn't mind a bit.  She's such a good natured little lady. 

Kade is really coordinated and really competitive and REALLY wanted to win.  I'm not too coordinated or competitive, but I did win.  Score one for the smug birthday girl!

Moving right along... This is a picture of the popsicle aftermath of Sam's ear tubes and tonsils/adenoid outing.  Holy Moly!  That was a lot of work.  10 days of a sick, sick 2 year old, no sleep, watching Buzz and Woody for hours and hours and hours, he wanted me to hold him but he didn't want me to hold the baby at the same time.  Yikes!  Popsicles were the highlight- I told Zach if he could get Sam to eat one he could eat one so he kept them coming- the above wrapper pile happened within about an hour or two.  We wouldn't have survived without my mom- she saved us.  Now Sam's feeling better AND he can hear!!!  His speech has improved so much in the last few weeks.  It's been so funny to hear all the things that are on his mind, some recent favorites, "Go T-Boyds!", "That my boogah- mmm, pretty good!"(gross), "Hi Zach-o-man!", "My name is Sammy Kay".  He couldn't even say his name 3 weeks ago, and now he can.  And he can also say some other naughty words he heard his brothers say, oh well.

Then the Z-man turned 5!  He wanted cupcakes for breakfast, hot dogs and mac and cheese for lunch, and cake with strawberry frosting and rainbow sprinkles for dinner.  Check, check, check!  That was easy.

But what he wanted the very most was to have a birthday party with his cousins, just like last year- except this year he wanted a Lego birthday instead of a T-bird birthday.  Luckily his SLC cousins had a break from school so we celebrated with a combined party for the 3 January babies.  Zach was thrilled, he declared it "the best birthday ever."   

I know this looks like a 57, but really it's the 3 cupcakes for Zach the Lego maniac and for his favorite girls turning 5 and 7.

And that, my friends, wraps up the month of January. And I've now blogged TWICE- in one month!  Wahoo!