Playtime at "Fort Hoctor"

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Evie, Evan and I built a fort in the living room this morning. This is the fort that we bought for her last Christmas and we've sure had fun with it! (Although it's been probably 6 months or more since we've played with it).
It's great to get out old toys that you've forgotten about! Evan loves it, and Evie says that she is sleeping in it tonight... we'll see about that!


Here they are!


And just for fun... here they are in it EXACTLY one year ago!

Merry Christmas!

Well, what a long and tiresome day!
We woke up to presents from Santa at 6 am. Evie and Evan got everything that they could possible want and played at home until about 11.. then we went to Grandma and Grandpa's for another round of gifts and food... in fact, more food than we could ever eat. But it was wonderful! The kids are fighting going to bed tonight, which is amazing to me because they have been on the go all day.

Here are some pictures from today..

Christmas Elves!

I know that it doesn't look it from the still video pics but each of these videos are different!
Enjoy some holiday fun! Do the elves look familiar? :o)

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Who's Eating the Gingerbread House?!

Evie and I built our annual gingerbread house today.. (Thanks, Kylla for reminding me).
Evan sure enjoyed the house. I put him on the kitchen chair so that he could see it when it was finiahed and he went to town on it... notice the frosting on his face LOL



Evie felt miserable, though.. complaining about her tummy hurting.. and half way through she ran full speed into the bathroom and threw up. She acted fine the rest of the night but still managed to throw up 3 times and felt warm. Poor girlie..

My cutie

Nothing to report.. just a couple of cute pictures of Evan from yesterday when we were out at a playgroup.

SNL Digital shorts

OMG! If you missed SNL this past Saturday, you missed the best short that they have ever had... I actually fell asleep during SNL so I told Joe to hit record because I thought it was going to be a good episode.. he must have missed this part as well.. or he would have told me about it.. I just watched it this morning and peed myself!

Now.. it's slightly adult, not too bad.. but adult humour... totally my sense of humour. And keep an eye out for two cameo appearances in it from my man, Justin Timberlake!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pXfHLUlZf4

Everybody loves pictures, but waiting sucks!

So.. I love this picture!



I didn't, however love the wait time to get it taken.. Our appointment was 3:10. We waited amongst 6 or 7 families for our turn.. got taken back to studio 1 around 3:50. The photographers were super quick, (which is a good thing for my kids.. get the smiles and finish up!). That was with the Christmas background... then they said that I would need to have a seat and studio 2 would be ready in a few minutes, (there were two ahead of us) for the other backgrounds and pics. I informed them that I only wanted Christmas pics anyway, that I was ready to view my pics and check out. Anyone who has been to Portrait Innovations will tell you that they take 86 digital photos whether you want them or not.. the "have to", she tells me... but I tell her that I don't wanna hang around to go into studio 2. they can't "load my pictures" until I do that... so we wait another half hour.... my kids were wearing thin, but being better than most of the kids suffering in that busy lobby area.
Evie starts complaining that her ear hurts.. Evan wants to run around.
We get into studio 2, the kids smile wonderfully but I had already made up my mind that no matter how good the pics were, (and they were good), that I was only buying the Christmas pics anyway. We get finished quickly and as I am viewing the pics and ruling out every one but the one that I want, (and thankfully I had a guy that wasn't a hard core salesman and let me eliminiate quickly), Evie starts screaming.. and I mean SCREAMING.. Her ear is hurting so bad that she is holding it and almost laying on the ground in her pretty dress. I pay as fast as I can, Evan is getting super restless especially with Evie screaming.. and we head over to Convenient Care. Evie has a raging ear infection.. she's crying so hard that they take her back immediatly and give her Motrin.. 20 minutes later, it's like she's cured. She feels 100% better. She's on antibiotics and Motrin every 4-6 hours. I hope she has a decent sleep, she seemed fine before bed.

Anyway.. If you MUST get pics done this holiday season, I'm not sure how much I recommend Portrait Innovations this year. I don't know why they started this new thing where you have to go to both of the rooms, it takes up so much extra time. I initially figured that it was because of the Christmas background in the first room.. and they want to use different ones in the 2nd room, but then I saw them using non holiday backgrounds in the 1st one as well.. seems like you could get more people in and out if you just took them all in the one room.. whatever.

Bad Santa

I'm not sure how many of you have ventured out to meet the new Santa at
Marketplace Mall. "Bad Santa" is the best way to describe him.
I'm pretty bummed about it, too.. because we usually like to take Evie a few
times but today was our one and only trip to see this guy.
So I'll start off with the major coffee stains in his mustache/beard. Then
move onto his way thick southern draw.. (I think last year's had that, too) I
usually don't imagine Santa speaking like a hillbilly.. but for some reason
our mall seems to find them. Then, Evie shifted on his knee a tiny bit
because her dress was caught and he said in a gruff hillbilly voice, "Don't do
that! You're likely to fall off!" She was startled, to say the least.
Evan was terrified of him..
And Evie was telling him what she wanted for Christmas, she was being
specific, "Peekaboo Petites dolls", he said, "a dolly, okay, got it, I'll see
what I can do" He obviously wasn't listening at all.
Am I being a pest wanting the Santa from Miricle on 34th Street who actually
adores children and seems classy and refined? UUUGH!


The pictures say a thousand words.. neither child is happy to be around this unfriendly dude... although Santa looks happy, he's not.. he's crabby and putting on an act for the pics... he instantly stopped smiling and ushered my kids off the moment we were finished.



We need to find a good Santa before Christmas is here!!!!!

The first snow of the season is here!

We woke up to snow today! Evie was so excited and was dressed and out of the door before breakfast.



It's still snowing, we are hoping for about 4 inches before tomorrow is over.

And we decided to put up a table top Christmas tree this year since Evan is a bit of a troublemaker. It's so pretty! And was sooo much easier to put up!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope that everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving! We went to my brother and sis-in- laws house today to dine and hang with the family. Evie and Evan were on their best behavior, as usual..

Here's Evie making bracelets with cousin, Brianne



And the kids on the way home.. you can tell that Evan wants to go to sleep so bad!
But he still wants to hold sister's hand..


Look at how chapped Evie's nose is! Darn cold!




Moving on to the next holiday!

Ice Ice Baby

Evan likes ice. And he likes it even more when it falls on his face LOL
goofy kid.

A class with a World Champion Extreme Martial Artist

We had an amazing morning! Today is Newberry's 20th Anniversary teaching Martial arts and they are having Open House. Evie's Tiny Tigers had an hour long class with 4th degree black belt Mr. Von Schmeling, a world champion. He was awesome! And he brought one of his students with him, (Mr. Harley) who was amazing as well.. I forgot my camera and my video camera :( and that sucks because they were doing flips and jumps over kids heads and other extreme martial arts stuff. The kids were in awe and were great students. I thought Evie did very well.. she didn't have the "wiggles" and stayed focused the whole time. Mr. Von Schmeling also noted that in front of the class. I was so proud ;) All of the kids were fantastic, though.. not just Eve.

I took a pic of Evie and the Masters with my camera phone, so the quality is poor. And I scanned Evie's autographed picture of Mr. Von Schmeling.
These guys are world reknowned, so it was pretty exciting!

And then when we got home, Evie was practicing flying side kicks on my kitchen island.. and I looked over and saw Evan doing it, too! It was pretty funny, to say the least! I had to take a video..


I think I have another martial artist on my hands!

Clean as can be!

Evan is personally cleaning the dishes now.. he opens the dishwasher and climbs in.. here is what I usually find..




He gets pretty mad when you get him out.. but with sharp knives in there from time to time, he needs to understand that he shouldn't be in there... guess I'll just have to start washing the dangerous items by hand from now on... we're lucky he hasn't started dropping plates yet!

YELLOW!!

Another successful graduation.. Evie is now a yellow belt!
Congrats, Evie! You are one step closer to your black belt!



Here she is receiving her belt


and just for fun, here is Miss Melanie demonstrating what the kids will be learning in the next 8 weeks.. the flying side kick!



YAY EVIE!

My Martial Artist

Wow.. Evie had professional pictures taken by Boster's photos a while back and they just came in.. They turned out fantastic!
http://www.photo-kicks.com/ is the link to the martial arts photographers.
They know how to capture the moment because they themselves are martial artists.





The first pic is actually a poster that says "Confidence" at the bottom, but it was too large to scan... it looks amazing, though!

Tomorrow night is Graduation!!! She will be a YELLOW Belt!

The Tooth Fairy is Coming!!

YAY! Evie finally lost that front tooth! She has had a "shark tooth" growing in behind her loose tooth now for a while and it's almost completly in so we were getting concerned about her front tooth causing trouble for the new one. Tonight while she was eating dinner, she bit down hard on it and cried so hard.. it was hanging by one thread and I plucked it right out. Now she says that "it's all healed".. it immediatly feels better.. and the tooth fairy will be here tonight!




Oh what a memorable occasion!!

Happy Halloween!

Hey all!! We had a lovely 70 degree day for Halloween! Evie had a parade and party at school so Evan and I went to school with her today. Evan had a great time watching the kids parade down the street and loved watching them sing songs in class.
Here's Evie as a pirate.. imagine that...
(and yes, I know.. I forgot her glasses this morning.. but I brought them to school an hour later!)




Here she is playing musical monsters in class..




And parading down the street..


And after school the kids played outside for about an hour.. it was so warm!
When Evan was napping, Evie and I carved pumpkins! Evie always paints them but today she actually carved one all by herself!




And then Evie and I went trick-or-treating while Daddy and Evan stayed home and passed out candy.

Here are the three pirates!




I'm sad that it's over.. it's our favorite holiday but we sure had fun with it this year!!

Happy Halloween all!