Merry Almost Christmas!!

Soooo....It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around our house!

I love this time of year (minus the freezing cold weather:)) We have been busy decorating, wrapping, hibernating, and spending tons of time with good friends.

If you didn't already know this, Caleb LOVES music. He is really good at memorizing the tunes to tons of different songs- here he is playing Uncle Thomas' guitar with daddy. We have, however, hidden the recorder until further notice- not to squelch his budding musical talent, but to preserve our sanity....you will thank us next time you come over!
Caleb has been frequenting the doctor's office lately for a lingering ear infection :( He plays and acts like normal, just has a cough at night time- we though it was allergies for a long time, and I finally took him in, only to be told he probably had an ear infection the whole time...another bad mom moment! So he is on his second antibiotic (we have issues with antibiotics because he is allergic to ammoxicillan). So I definitely spent my whole day Tuesday trying to find this antibiotic that nobody carries...with two kids in the icy/snowy weather...we had a full day of running around, going to the pharmacy, going back to the pharmacy a second time, 4 phone calls to the doctor's office, one wrong prescription, one ooey-gooey lollipop mess, and 2 meltdowns. All in all, a normal day for us...haha.

Here is Caleb playing "doctor". He tells daddy to "come here" and "lay down" and then he gives him shots! Caleb is loving preschool and his teachers are so great! He is coming home with the cutest little projects and is surprising us with all he is learning. He will now point out many letters in the alphabet and counts to eleven (but he forgets "5" every time...). The other morning before work, he brought me a book with a picture of a stop sign in it and pointed to the sign and said "Octogon". It was so cute!

I thought I would share some of his latest creations:
I can't quite bring myself to throw away these precious works of art, so I have been saving them, and I decided to use them to wrap my Christmas presents this year:
Here is Ellie in her new sweater...made with love by Aunt Ann!! So impressive :)
Our friends Zach and Anna came for a visit last weekend! (YAY!) and the kids had fun playing with Everett (2) and Adeline (2 mon). The boys played hard and Caleb was sad to see Everett go! He had fun doing boy things like jumping off the ottoman, farming with Everett, and playing ball. We definitely saw their little personalities come out this time and I cannot count how many times the word "MINE!" was yelled! haha...
We took them to see Santa at Bass Pro on Saturday, and it was awesome! Caleb's favorite part was riding all the ATV's (I think that is what they are called....obviously this will be Dan's department) He wanted to "ride" every single one, and this one is is favorite:He and Everett liked watching the trains and cars (this pic was taken right before C threw a fit because he wanted to TOUCH the train):
And the big Santa moment:
Ellie did awesome- she kept trying to pull his beard! Caleb, on the other hand, was not a big fan. The pic they gave us is hilarious! He is screaming- It's classic.

Ellie was way overstimulated by the "north pole" experience..haha
On Sat. night, we had a little Community Group Christmas party at our house- we had 12 adults and 6 kids at the house- it was SO fun!! The noise was pretty intense.....

Here are the girls! I can't wait for all the fun to come:
(Adeline and Ellie)(and Emmie!)
And the boys, rowdy as ever ( I am so amazed at the differences between the girls and boys, even at this young age!!)
Caleb and Avalie loving on each other:
Going in for a kiss :)Meanwhile we had a gift exchange. Here are some of the highlights:
And, in case you are wondering, the Elvis stocking sang and lit up with little blinking lights:
Jessie was truly excited about her big remote....she even schemed with George in order to get it back after Phil stole it :)
As a result, George ended up with the "wild side" snuggie, complete with complimentary reading light:And, yes, Kurt is shooting the marshmallow gun from the living room into the kitchen where the other guys are trying to catch them in their mouths- tons of mallows ended up in random places of the house....I just found a rock hard mallow in my kitchen-aid mixer tonight.Well, it's late once again and I am way past due for some sleep.

Love!
Lisa