Shake it Off

Maybe I should be more embarrassed to admit that a large percentage of my iPod play list consists of Taylor Swift songs?  I don't think she's necessarily the best singer around, but her music sure is catchy!  And for the most part, it's not offensive so I'm ok with the kids listening to it, and most days that beats the kid channels on Pandora.  Being the mom of a daughter, I feel good about Natalie liking her music too; she's a much better celebrity role model than a lot of others.

I like to think that maybe this is how Taylor got her start...

We've had more than one dance party to this song...can you tell?

Big Boy Room

Ben's big kid room, sans crib, is finally about 90% finished.  The only thing missing his custom made quilt, which is presently underway but experiencing major delays in production because my sewing machine is still being worked on and the one I have on loan is not too keen on cooperating with me.

originally I really wanted to go with an airplane theme, but made the mistake of going to the fabric store with Ben and he found fabric with cars on it...so, cars and trucks it is

to the left of the frame is the window that has a bench under it full of books and colorful bins for storing all Ben's most prized possessions (more toy cars)

the quilt laid out

(I do have some of it sewn now, but it's been a process)

Budding Artists

For Christmas, we did a little painting project, but since the finished product was a gift, we couldn't post any pictures until after Christmas.  The kids had been asking to paint, and we thought some homemade wall art would be a good addition to daddy's office at work.

So, we headed to the craft store, picked out a couple of canvases and a pack of paints (getting them to agree on colors was an affair...), found old t-shirts and set up our painting station.  And after all that being patient, it was time to get to work.

careful at first...

and then paint chaos!

Natalie's work in progress

and Ben's

they thought it was pretty fun to be so messy

(until it was time to wash off, and then Ben did not like that at all)

ta-da!

Natalie's on the left, and Ben's on the right

Natalie Turns 4 & Great Wolf Lodge

In all the chaos of Christmas and our travels, we celebrated a birthday (two actually).  That's right...Natalie turned 4!  I can hardly believe it.  Our ditching birthday parties in exchange for a birthday outing experiment continued with a trip to Great Wolf Lodge.  Since we were in Wisconsin, we headed to The Dells for a night, and enjoyed a day at the water park while outside I think the high may have reached double digits.

birthday girl

Jack & Ben

We were joined by Nana & Papa and Mimi and Pa, who also brought Jack with them all the way from Indiana!

the boys decided to show off their muscles before heading to the pool

Natalie and I enjoyed a birthday pedicure...birthday girls only.

Scoops spa

(Ice cream themed spa, princess crowns, and a free scoop while your polish dries is all ok by me!)

waiting for pizza & cake

the original plan was for dinner out, but 3 tired toddlers called for a change of plans.

Instead we ordered pizza in and partied in our PJs in our hotel room.

Natalie requested this cake months ago.  Fitting for our little lady, don't you think?

wolf den!

our room had bunk beds in a separate kids' area.  Slam dunk success.

posing in front of the water park before Jack headed back home,

and Nat & Ben back to the water park for another day of playing.

one of the kids' areas 

Nat was a water-sliding pro

Ben got a little overwhelmed, I think mostly by how loud it was inside.

but look how handsome he is!

Natalie must have done the lily pads behind her 20 times.  She shamed some of the older kids who gave it a try!

We had so much fun, and easily could have occupied ourselves with another night there.  Overall, I will say that abandoning birthday parties has been a success and something that I look to continue.  It gave us the opportunity to have two big outings that we might normally have not done otherwise, plus we had some great family time.

Christmas

We had a hectic, but wonderful holiday season.  The busy-ness was compounded by my crazy work schedule, four Christmas celebrations, a trip to Wisconsin, two birthdays, and a Great Wolf Lodge adventure.

Our first Christmas celebration took place with Mimi & Pa and that side of the family.  On Christmas Eve, we celebrated with with Clark family and two great grandparents...

Anna all dressed up on Christmas Eve

daddy & Ben

4 of the kids got a little crazy after dinner with the anticipation of another round of presents,

so they had this dance party while waiting for the adults

A few days prior to Christmas (I got my pictures all out of order), the kids got to open presents from Mimi and Pa.  It was pure chaos.  The room looked like a wrapping paper bomb went off.  It was pretty fun to see 3 of the kids so excited about gift giving and receiving.  With each new box, their little faces would light up.

Anna found the chocolate

uncle Ronnie holding down his usual spot on the couch

Pa and Addison

This year, the three adult kids put together a book of all the pictures of our adventures 

throughout the year.  It was a hit!

Christmas Morning

Christmas day we had all to ourselves.  With unrealistic hopes of sleeping in and napping, staying in jammies all day, and playing and being lazy.  No chores, no running around, just being together.  And that is exactly what we did (minus the sleeping in and napping, of course).

so excited to find out Santa had stopped at our house

a new friend for Mickey!

and lots and lots of cars

And after all the presents were opened upstairs, we discovered a note from Santa buried in the Christmas tree.  He snuck one more present into the playroom in the basement...

a train table!

and the kids loved it.

And for our final celebration of Christmas, we headed to Wisconsin.  Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures from that day.  But three of four, not bad!  I did manage loads of pictures from our trip to Great Wolf, so stay tuned for that.  

In the meantime, I think it's safe to say that we are so lucky and blessed to have so much family to celebrate with and the means to give our kids and our nieces and nephews a wonderful and fun holiday season.  This was a really fun year for us; the kids are at just the right ages to have made it really great.  Hope you all had wonderful holidays, too!