Happy New Year

It is New Year's Eve and we have our first snow. It isn't much but it will have to do. Bo apparently looked outside and said that isn't snow. I think he is used to all the books that have tons of snow. Daddy rushed home from work to go outside before it got dark. Mommy made hot chocolate for us inside with lots of marshmallows. This is Bo's famous snow angel.

Emmy did lots of crying because we didn't have the proper coat, she didn't want to wear mittens or her hat. She lasted about 10mins outside. She was saying it hurts, it hurts but I have no idea what it was. The only thing that made her stop crying was being pulled in the sleigh. Suddenly she smiled and was happy. As soon as I stopped pulling her, she went inside to eat.

Bo made a cool snowman who was called Pirate Snowman.

Bo did hit Mommy with a snowball earlier in the day while they were at the Science Center. Another funny thing he said was he wanted to (ice) skate.

Family Flu

We survived the week. Emily just threw up the one time on Christmas Eve. She was a little down the next couple of days but made no messes. Bo on the other hand threw up 3 nights in a row plus Christmas Day. He did a good job except for one incident of going in the toilet. The poor guy spent most of his day laying on the couch not eating or drinking anything. He really had no energy which is saying a lot of Bo. Daddy made it until Thursday then he got it. He stayed home from work Friday and slept all day. All of us seem to have recovered although the stomach ailing still lingers.

Christmas Eve and the stomach flu

Christmas Eve Daddy had to go to work while Mommy and the kids stayed home to get things ready for Christmas Eve dinner and party. About noon that day, Mommy called Daddy at work to tell her that she thought Bo was sick. She said that he was just laying on the couch for the past 20mins or so and then finally told her that he was tired and wanted to go to bed. For Bo to say he wants to go to bed, you know something is really wrong.

Daddy came home a little after 2 and both kids were still sleeping. Bo got up a little while later but would not leave the couch. He didn't eat or really drink anything all day to this point. He stayed on the couch for the next few hours. He had a bad fever. Emmy slept until like 4:30. We then tried to take a family photo in our Christmas outfits. Since the stomach flu is going around, we were afraid of the outfits getting ruined. Here is how the kids photo went.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrRgGaxhnv0
After they settled down a little, Mommy took some with the kids.

Then we attempted a self family portrait.

Then we tried some with Daddy and the kids.

Then they were done.

Then Will showed up and Bo had new life. I think it was the Motrin kicking in so we took a picture of all the "big" kids.

The two best buddies (no trouble makers this year according to Santa)

Emmy got her PINK sports car.

Mama and Papa got all the kids Ipads so guess who made themselves at home in Daddy's bed.

Then the fun began. Bo would go off and on all night with being totally wiped out and then normal. I know he hates to miss a party so he was a champ. He was running a high fever off and on all night too.
Emmy on the other didn't have a fever but was acting odd. She really didn't eat anything either and just wanted to sit on Daddy's lap or be held all night. She was very "blah". Then around 930ish we were playing a game on the floor and she was sitting on Daddy's lap when everything came up. And it was all over Daddy, the rug. On the way up to the bath tub, she finished off on the stairs. It scared her very big time.
Bo still was just running a fever. Both kids didn't want to go to bed and wanted to sleep with Daddy and Mommy so we let them. Emmy fell asleep in about 5mins so Daddy carried her to bed. I think the whole ordeal wore her out.
We tried to carry Bo to his bed but he wanted nothing of it. Twice during the night he awoke with a dry heaving side. Daddy ran him to the bathroom but Bo was just like what are we doing in here. Finally around 3am in bed, turned and puked all over Mommy. So we went through the whole cleaning thing again. Needless to say it was a long morning and short night.
We were able to make it over to Grammie's house Christmas morning and Bo spent most of the time at the toilet. Poor little buddy, did a very good job of just doing it in the toilet and telling us when he was ready. Hopefully, they both make it through the night dry this time. I'm sure we will be writing about Mommy and Daddy in a few days going through the same thing.

Did Santa come last night?

As I explained in previous entries, Santa came a little early to our house this year. We had a lot of parties to go to and the kids simply couldn't wait. So Saturday night they made sure to leave out cookies and milk for Santa.

Video of the kids first coming down "Christmas morning" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BZ53IvtVxg and then another one of them opening a few presents http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yqkz23w2ghw
This is the scene before the kids came down.

Bo opened his telescope and was trying to see the moon.

Mommy made Santa pancakes with whipped cream, bananas, and strawberries.

This is the doll house from Mommy and Daddy that we put together the past week every night after the kids went to bed.

This is a picture of teh footprints that Santa left from the chimney when he brought the presents.

Is it Christmas Day?

Needless to say the kids were a little anxious about Christmas. Ever since we put up the Christmas decorations after Thanksgiving, Bo would wake up every day asking if it was Christmas day or he would look outside to see if it snowed because that would mean it was Christmas. For some reason he had that in his head that Santa would bring snow on Christmas. Mommy spent a lot of time creating a advent calendar to give visual cues on how many days (count down) until Christmas.

We also did a new thing this year where we wrapped up Christmas books for the 18 or so days until Christmas. So each day Emmy and Bo would fight over who was going to open the book present for the night before bedtime. Then we would read it and go to bed. Somehow we ended up a little light and finished before actual Christmas day so the kids thought the next day would be Christmas. Having said all of this, they were stuck inside the house because it was cold outside the weekend before Christmas.

They were running out of things to do so they decided to create their own game and her is the video of it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNRBJ_oRyc0

Christmas decorations

Below is a picture of the final product for our Christmas tree this year. Bo helped Daddy put the lights on the tree which didn't look the best so Mommy re-did it. Bo and Emmy both helped put ornaments on there. Some had to be re-arranged or re-hung because they were heavy but overall they did a good job. Of course, this was in between watching some Christmas shows on TV. Mommy did a good job of finishing everything especially the ribbon.

St. Nick also brought "Little Elfie" (the name of our Elf on the Shelf). We read the story to Bo and Emmy so they knew his job was to watch over the kids and report back to Santa every night. He was magical so he can fly and then each morning the kids had a contest to find him because he kept showing up in funny places. This time he was inside the Cheez-it box eating Cheez-its. Bo thought that was so silly of Little Elfie.

Here are Mommy's little helpers making Christmas cookies for all the parties we had. They also decorated a GingerBread house (Home Depot version) and a rice crispy treat train. There was a lot of eating/snacking on some cookies.

St. Nick's day

I think St. Nick almost forgot to come this year. The kids put their shoes out at the last minute. It was funny because Bo wanted to leave out his spiderman shoes. However, once he realized why he was leaving out his shoes, he wanted to find his boots (or biggest shoes possible) so there was more room for candy, etc. They were very excited first thing in the morning as you can see below. Mommy got donuts that she shared with everyone and Daddy got beer which Emmy said "was so silly."

I think last year St. Nick brought some toys so Bo was a little disappointed that he only got candy and snacks. However, Emmy thought it was great. She opened one after another all within 15mins and tasted them all.

One other funny tidbit was Bo was very curious about how St. Nick was going to get into the house to put the candy into the shoes. He knew Santa came through the chimney but what about St. Nick. Mommy said she came through the door but how does he get in asked Bo. So we had to tell Bo that he and Emmy had to go to sleep and Daddy & Mommy would stay up to make sure only St. Nick came in and no one else. So we were all safe.

Breakfast with Santa at the Zoo 2012

It has become a tradition since Daddy and Aunt Heather were kids that we go to the zoo for breakfast with Santa every year. Emmy was very excited this year to eat breakfast and see the animal characters that walk around while you eat.

That is until they came too close. She loved seeing them but if they came too close than this was the reaction.

Bo on the other hand loved it. Here is the snowman but they also had a bear, reindeer, tiger, Blues mascot, etc.

Then we attempted to take a family photo by the Christmas tree but everyone wasn't cooperating. This was my favorite one. It looks like Bo is doing the famous pose.

Then the kids gave each other a hug and danced around a little bit, almost knocking over the tree.

At the end Santa came and the kids took a picture with them. A picture is worth a thousand words.
Bo told Santa that he wanted a pirate ship, a train, and a robot. Emmy didn't really tell him what she wanted but told us beforehand that she wanted a baby doll.

Afterwards we went and saw Daddy's Paw-Paw.

Christmas Lights with Mama & Papa

Every year, Mama and Papa rent a bus to drive around St. Louis to look at the Christmas lights with all the grandkids. Our Lady of Snows in Belleville has become a popular choice lately. They have a lot of things to do there inside the building like art projects, a puppet show, and christmas carols. They also let the kids dress up as angels and take pictures. Here is my favorite one which needs no explanation at all.

Outside they have animal rides like donkeys and camels plus a petting/feeding zoo. Mommy was a little scared to get on the camel. She took some convincing which was mostly peer pressure because she held up the line. There was some yelling and popcorn was thrown.

She finally got on and rode with the best buddies Bo and Will.

That left Daddy and Emmy to ride on Ruby Slipper the camel. Emmy liked the princess reference.

Emily playing Jingle Bells

Last week, Daddy tried to learn how to play Jingle Bells and teach the kids. Ever since then, we try it almost every night. Well this time we actually caught Emmy playing. Daddy was a little late recording her because she was doing it on her own the first few times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tug4Z6zA2TE

Christmas Train

After Thanksgiving, we started putting up Christmas decorations. As soon as Bo saw Daddy get down the first box, he asked about the train. Then he asked again and again and again. Even though we weren't getting the tree just quite yet, he wanted to play with the train. So he wore Daddy down and we put it together. Here is a video of Bo and Emily playing with it.

http://youtu.be/7obH1x--QyQ

This past weekend we finally went to one of Bo's favorite stores Home Depot to get our tree. He thought that was so cool. They have tools, wood, and Christmas trees. While Mommy and Daddy looked, Bo and Emily climbed on every possible thing they could there. Mommy was hoping we wouldn't have to call an ambulance and sue.

Emily's Pink Party with friends

The Saturday after Emmy's birthday we had a Pink Party at the house. Emily invited all her "friends" so we had lots of kids over. Here is Pinkarella all ready in her birthday outfit with a pink hair bow, pink tutu and #2 shirt with a pink birthday hat.

It was also a morning party so we had donuts and chocolate milk two of her favorites. The donuts were pink of course.

Mommy went all out on the decorations so everywhere you looked it was pink. She did a great job as usual and Emmy & Bo too loved it.

In the garage, we hung a pink cupcake pinata that was full of candy.

It was a beautiful day outside so everyone went out to play even Pinkarella. She took her turn on the swings.

We had to take a break from outside to come in to do the cake which was pink. Emily loved that everyone sang happy birthday to her. I think she even sang it to herself too. Bo liked to help blow out the candles and encourage Emmy to stick her finger in the cake.

Which she did of course and then offered Daddy some to share.

  

 This is Emmy towards the end of the afternoon as she was running out of energy. She was hoarding all of her candy and sitting on it so no one took it. She tried every piece before Daddy finally took her up to take a nap.