Date Night

Jeff and I finally got a chance to go out on a date. We were so excited as we have not been out alone since Logan was born! That was 5 months ago! Our good friends from Australia sent us on a date to a local restaurant. It was so fun! It was such a sweet and generous gesture on their part. We not only had an incredible meal with dessert to top it off, but we got a chance to talk and enjoy each other's company uninterrupted!

Yummy chocolate mint cheesecake!

Carsten's Cookie Monster Party

Today we celebrated Carsten's second birthday (it was on the 14th) by having a Cookie Monster themed party! 9 of his little 2-year-old friends came to celebrate with him! We had lots of blue snacks and a Cookie Monster pinata. Carsten was so excited to have his friends over. He has been asking for days when his birthday party was. Here are some pictures from the party.

Cookie cupcakes with blue coconut to look like fur.

The table set with snacks and the pinata.

The party favors filled with blue frosted sugar cookies.
It says, "Carsten's Birthday was brought to you by the letter  "C"
and the number "2." Thanks for celebrating with us today!

Enjoying the snacks with his friends!

Rylan hitting the pinata which never actually broke!

Beach day and a broken leg

Our trip to Florida went well. We got a lot of information each day at our conference. We brought a friend with us to watch the kids and she did such a good job taking care of them! On Friday we ended up having the day free, so we rented a car and headed out to Daytona Beach! It was a little chilly (nothing compared to Canada!), but we still had a lot of fun. Here are some pictures from the beach:

The only downside to our trip was that on Wednesday afternoon Carsten hurt his leg going down a slide at the park. He cried for a long time and we tried to figure out where it was hurting. We had a friend who is a doctor take a look at it and he said just to keep him off of it. Carsten did not even try to walk on it. Anyway when we got back to Canada we took him to the doctor and is leg is actually broken. The poor little guy will spend the next 3 weeks in a full leg cast. He seems to be feeling good now. He was very excited to show both Logan and Rylan his cast when he got home today! Here he is:

Flight to Florida

Yesterday morning at 7 a.m. we left our little town of Durham and headed down to the Detroit Airport. We boarded a plane bound for Florida!! We arrived at our final destination last night at 7 p.m.. We came down here for a week long conference. We left all the snow and below freezing temperatures for palm trees and summer-like weather. What a nice and refreshing change! A palm tree has never looked to good to us before. The boys did really well travelling. Carsten and Logan slept for most of the flight and Rylan played by himself. Before the plane took off the pilot came and got the boys and took them into the cockpit. He let them touch the buttons and everything! They thought it was really cool. We are now enjoying our conference and the lovely weather!

Gotta love the nose picker in our family plane photo!

Family Walk

The other day we decided to take a nice family walk. We bundled everyone up and headed outside to walk around the campus. The kids had a good time, even Logan seemed to enjoy himself! Here are a few pictures:

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!