Christmas day photos

This year for Christmas we spent the day together as a little family of 5. We started the morning off eating biscuits and gravy and eggs. Once we were done with that we had the boys open their gifts from us and from my grandparents. Later in the morning we skyped with both my parents and Jeff's parents so that they could watch the kids open their gifts. Then we spent the afternoon playing with the kids and had a yummy home-made lasagne for dinner. Overall it was a nice and quiet day.

Watching daddy open his gifts!

Happy and content to just hang with daddy.

Very excited to get a Cookie Monster that "eats" cookies!

Realizing he just opened his very own digital camera!

Thank you to everyone who sent us such nice gifts in the mail we really appreciate it!

Christmas time activities

Over the past month, we have done some different Christmas activities with the boys. Before school let out for the semester we made several dozen cookies to give out to the kids teachers and friends on campus. The boys got to help decorate the cookies. Carsten did more eating than decorating, but they both had a lot of fun doing it!

After we made a quick trip down to the states, the boys got to make giant gingerbread men that we bought at Trader Joe's. They were only 99 cents each! This was also a fun project. After Carsten put the candy on he ate them right off!

Logan has been spending his time playing while the older boys have been doing different activities.

Apparently toy bars are fun for all ages!

Carsten singing random songs

Logan jumping

Christmas decorating

     This past week has once again been extremely busy. I keep thinking things are going to slow down, but instead they seem to keep picking up speed. We have one week left of this semester and then we should have at least some relief from all the busyness. Last Saturday we spent the day decorating the house for Christmas and making 8 dozen sugar cookies! We made some for our Sunday group Christmas dinner as well as some families here on campus. We of course ate some ourselves! The boys had fun helping to cut the cookies out of the dough and then they each got to frost a few of their own.
     On Sunday night we went to our Sunday group Christmas dinner which was really fun. It was a formal dinner so we all got dressed up. After dinner we watched a live performance and sang some Christmas hymns. On Tuesday we went to a Christmas sweater party. The boys had fun running around with their friends. They each got to take home a mug with all the ingredients for snowman soup (hot chocolate, 3 Hershey kisses, mini marshmallows and a candy cane to stir with). They both really enjoyed that special treat yesterday!

Carsten drinking snowman soup!

Rylan enjoying his snowman soup!

Trying hard to put an ornament up

Reaching high to put an ornament on

Gotta love the jingle bell earrings!

Video of Logan "talking"

Here is a video of Logan showing his new found "talking" skills. He loves to have conversations with us. It is fun to watch him get so excited when you smile at him or talk to him. He is such a fun and easy going baby.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our friends and family! Hope you have a wonderful day! We are thankful for you and we miss you all!

Thanks to Uncle Scott and Auntie Cami for the cute turkey outfit! 

Busy, busy, busy

     Life has been just a bit hectic lately. School is keeping us rather busy with homework assignments every night. And with it being American Thanksgiving tomorrow we have a school potluck and then on Saturday we are having several Canadian friends over for an American Thanksgiving feast at our house. I have been busy getting everything prepped and ready for that!
     And in the midst of all of this, Jeff has been doing a lot of speaking/teaching lately which has meant a lot of study time for him. This has left me running a busy little household with my three little guys. I am also organizing a thank you event for all of the women who volunteer to watch our children everyday in childcare here. Several student moms came to my house last night for a planning meeting and then we just hung out and played games.
     On top of all of this, Rylan is still getting over a bout of strep throat. We took him in last Friday and he got put on an antibiotic. I think today is the first day he has started to seem like his normal self again. Whew! If you aren't tired from reading all of that, I am tired from writing it!! But honestly life is going really great for us right now. We are really enjoying our Sunday group and the friends we have made through that. We have also made some new friends on campus who are first year students. Life may be extremely busy and sometimes even overwhelming, but at the end of each day I am so thankful for all that I have!
     Here are some pictures of the boys from when we still had snow. It is long gone now and I am not complaining because I know it will be back soon enough and then it will stay for way too long!!

Carsten with rosy cheeks after being in the cold!

Logan's first snow experience...not a big fan!

Jeff and Rylan built this snowman and Jeff kept changing the snowman to get different expressions. Then he would tell Rylan to mimic that expression. Here are a few of those photos:

Happy snowman!

Angry snowman!

Trying to cheer the angry snowman up with a hug!

Worried snowman as he is about to be eaten!!

First snow

We got our first snow last night. It snowed a lot more than was predicted! The boys were so excited to wear their snow boots today! Here is a picture outside the back end of our house:

And some of the boys playing during class:

Carsten with his teacher Miss Laurel

Fun moments

As a parent of three young children, I don't have to look too hard to find funny things happening all around me. Each of the boys has their own unique personality and it is fun to watch them develop and grow in their own time and way. Each day I am faced with both joys and challenges. On those days that seem to be more challenging than joyful I still find myself smiling at the end of the day when I think back on the fun moments that did occur! I am so thankful to be not only a mom, but a mom to three beautiful little boys!

Logan chewing on his toy bar

He sure was enjoying it, must have tasted good!

Not sure how he even got himself over there!

Carsten has figured out how to take off his clothes!

Rylan always wants to be right by me in the kitchen

And his tower had to come with him so brother didn't break it

Looks comfortable, eh?

New bed, decorated room

Today we finally got around to moving the crib into Logan's room and setting Carsten up in his toddler bed. We were so thankful that there happened to be a toddler bed available for use on our campus and our friends had a crib mattress that they did not need any more. We also got Logan's room all decorated with the cribbing set my grandma made for him! We love how it turned out.

Costumes

The boys had a lot of fun last night going around and collecting candy. We went to a fall festival on our campus first and Carsten grabbed an apple that was supposed to be for decoration and started eating it. He did not want the candy, just the apple! He was devastated when the apple fell and got dirt all over it. Funny kid. After the fall festival we went around the neighborhood for just a little while. We stopped at a local school where there was a fire truck with firemen handing out glow-necklaces! The boys loved those! Overall it was a really fun night and not actually too cold...a minor miracle for this area! Oh and Logan stayed home with daddy that is why there are no pictures of him!