Family Christmas Picture

Here we are on Christmas Eve. We did a self timer family photo and it actually turned out! For some reason, James will actually look at a camera and smile if no one is holding it. Who knew! James isn't a huge fan of having his picture taken these days. Ella sang beautifully at church and we had a nice dinner at our house with my parents. After my parents left, we let the kids open their presents from "Great Uncle" Hal & Sharleen from CA. Ella has been dying to open these presents ever since they arrived in the mail and tonight she got her wish. Both she and James loved their books! Thank you! Then, we let Ella and James each open a present from Mommy and Daddy. Ella, of course, chose the biggest present that she had under the tree. It was a talking Little Mommy doll. She has named her doll Julia. As I type, Julia is tucked under Ella's arm and the two of them are fast asleep dreaming of Santa visiting our house...

James was rubbing his eyes while he was opening his first present...but he managed to stay awake with all the excitement. I think he won't be needing too much help from Ella with opening his presents this year....though Ella is more than happy to help when asked. James was happy to play with some new cars. He was also happy to be tucked into bed tonight. It will sure be fun to watch the kids' excitement tomorrow morning. We are all looking forward to it!

The kids with Grandma Judy and Grandpa Jim after the church service.

Waiting to open their presents from Hal and Sharleen.

A very excited Ella ready to open a present from us.

A Little Mommy and her baby.

Setting out milk and cookies for Santa.

Happy Christmas Eve!

We are enjoying a very nice Christmas Eve today and hope you are too! We just finished having lunch with some of my high school friends. Now, the kids are napping and Mark and I are relaxing. Then, we'll be heading to a Christmas Eve service at our church. During the service, Ella is singing with her children's choir and I have the honor of filling in as the director of the group. Hopefully, I won't lead this little group of singers astray! They are really so cute when they sing and I am hoping that they know the actions better than I do!! After church, my parents will come over to have dinner. Before bedtime, we promised the kids they could open one present. Ella claims she is going to stay up all night to see Santa. She has been so anxious for him to come and she says she has been trying to be good.

Ella asked Santa for a princess vanity and all the dress up things that go with it. James asked Santa for some num-nums (candy) and a blue tractor. Hopefully Santa will deliver! James wasn't too fond of Santa when we went to his workshop at the mall. He finally sat on his lap and did a quick smile....but he didn't stay there for long. Ella, on the other hand, took the time to give Santa a very detailed description of the gift that she would like to receive. Santa stopped by our house last Thursday evening to check in on the kids and make sure they were being nice. He arrived at our house in a nice Ford pickup. Ella asked about this and was told that the pick-up was on loan from a local car dealership and Santa was happy to use it since his reindeer were resting up for their big trip on Christmas Eve.

Our holiday plans were changed a bit by the weather. We started out on our trip to Mark's parents' house yesterday. Once we were out of town we realized it would not be a fun trip. The visibility was horrible and the roads were getting slick due to very high winds and blowing snow. Mark didn't enjoy driving through white-outs and we were happy to get back home and watch the snow from inside. We'll make our trip up to Grandma & Grandpa O's later this week.

We are looking forward to celebrating all the joys of Christmas tonight and in the in the coming days. To steal a famous line, "Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight!!"

The kids visit with Santa.

Ella is explaining the details of the gift she would like while Santa listens with care.

Ella and Santa

Merry Christmas to All...

Little Helper

We've had several snowing mornings lately. Thankfully, we have an eager little helper on our hands. Even dressed in her Sunday best, Ella begs to help daddy clear the sidewalks! Can't turn her down!

James' Birthday

Here are some pics from James' Birthday party from a few weeks ago...

He was thrilled to get some birthday balloons and enjoyed them for many days after the party. The theme for James' party was a combo of his two favorite things....tractors and Elmo! James was so super cute and excited when everyone sang to him. He covered his mouth and just giggled with delight while looking around the room.

He blew out his candles speedy quick....didn't get it captured on film!

In our family, we always light the candles more than once so the other kids can help blow out the candles too. James didn't blow fast enough the second time and was upset that he didn't help blow out the candles... He burst into tears, so we lit them a third time and made sure that he was ready to blow them out with the rest of the kids.


James had lots of fun and lots of help with opening presents. He finally got the hang of it by the end. He is all geared up for Christmas presents now. I think Ella will be upset that she can't open all of James' presents this year.

Many thanks to all our family and friends who celebrated with us or sent James birthday wishes!

Harvest Time

Recently, each time I have tried to upload some new pics, I have run into problems....Blogger seems to be acting goofy. However, I did manage to get these pics uploaded after a few attempts. They were taken several weeks ago when the kids went out in the cornfields to check on Grandpa's harvesting. He had a rough time this fall as there were many wet spots in the fields. He had to leave patches in several fields and come back to them later when the fields had dried out a little more. James inspecting an ear of corn.

Ella, James and cousin Trenton watching Grandpa unload. Ella was waiting not so patiently for her turn to ride in the combine with Grandpa. She combined twice with Grandpa and James took one ride. They both enjoyed riding in the bumpy field.

James and Grandpa Jim in the corn field with James "Best of Show" awards that he won with Grandpa's corn at the county fair. Grandpa Jim was an extra big winner...He won this Mule this fall via a drawing from Producers Hybrids! He has been enjoying driving it around the farm and all the little ones have been excited to go on rides with Grandpa.

My Baby is Two!

Our baby is two years old today. I can hardly believe it. At this exact time two years ago, we were sharing news of James' arrival with family and friends and getting to know our sweet boy. Since I'm feeling nostalgic, here are a few pictures of James first days.... The very first picture of our sweet baby boy...he's a minute old!

A happy Mommy and Daddy

All cozy and asleep.

A kiss from big sister, Ella.

Brother and Sister!

I wanted to add more pictures....but blogger is having trouble uploading today. As James would say, "Oh my!".

Our Cute Little Tricksters!!!

Here are James and Ella right before we left to go trick or treating on Halloween night. They were so excited to go out and by the end of the night James had trick or treating down to an art form. I'll post more pics later!

Pumpkins, Parties and Halloween Fun!

We've enjoyed parties for the kids, parties for all of us, pumpkin carving, princess pumpkin making and tonight we hope to have some windy fun trick or treating!! Here are a few pics from our various activities. Hope you all enjoy a very Happy Halloween!!!

No, that's not his Halloween Costume!

Ella has discovered that little brothers can be dressed up. Ella and James were playing quitely up in Ella's room for a little while. After only a short while, Ella was very excited to have James come downstairs and show off his new outfit. He did make a really cute cheerleader!!! James was all smiles and Ella was very proud that she was able to dress him up all by herself. Ella loves to dress up, so I think James will be modeling more outfits in the future!!
Aren't they cute!!!!

I am so behind on posting! We have been super busy and I have lots of cute pictures to share....so hopefully I'll get caught up soon. I am almost half way through my grad class and it is taking up more of my time than I thought it would. I also started back at my part-time teaching gig a couple of weeks ago so things have gotten a whole lot busier around here. Hopefully more pictures to come....soon!!

Vegas!!!

Mark and I decided it was time for us to visit Las Vegas. We went last weekend and enjoyed three nights at the Flamingo-- smack dab in the middle of The Strip. We had an excellent time hanging out with our friends Mike and Erin who flew out to Vegas for the weekend too! Ella and James were very excited to spend three whole nights at Grandma and Grandpas....well, maybe Ella was more excited than James. We arrived Thursday evening, met our friends and got settled into the hotel. We enjoyed a great meal at PF Changs before heading off to see the Jubilee show at Bally's. The show was really amazing and we had excellent seats thanks to my friend, RaeAnne. Her sister-in-law is in the show and she hooked us up!!! Thanks again, RaeAnne and Gina!!! By the time the show was over it was after 2:30 a.m. our time so we decided to call it a night and rest up for Friday!

We started Friday out right with breakfast at the Bellagio. Their brunch was awesome!! We then spent some time exploring the Bellagio and other hotels on that end of the strip. After tolerating too much window shopping, the guys decided it was time for them to head back and try their luck at poker. Erin and I continued shopping a bit more before heading to back to the hotel to rest by the pool. Friday evening we enjoyed dinner at Margaritaville, went to the Second City comedy show at the Flamingo and spent some time at Toby Keith's bar at Harrah's. We stayed up way too late....but we really had a great time!!

We all started Saturday a bit slower due to all of Friday's fun. We enjoyed lunch at the Venetian and spent some time in the Wynn and the shops at The Forum. We even saw a few celebrities there....I think it was my first celebrity sighting! That night we had a great dinner at Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill restaurant in Caesar's. We walked down the strip to watch the pirate show at Treasure Island....that show was okay....but not great. Then, we spent the rest of our night at the casino in our hotel. I was fond of but didn't do so well on the spin the wheel game... at least it was fun to lose my money! I did hit the jackpot on the $.02 slots though!! I won over $75...so all in all...I think I broke even! Mark didn't win big at the poker tables like he had hoped...he didn't lose big either so that is even better! Mark did have success at the video poker slots at the airport on Sunday morning...so at least we left feeling like winners!!!

We had an uneventful flight back and by the time the plane landed at the airport, we were both really anxious to see the kids. Ella ran and hugged us and James just giggled and giggled as soon as we were in sight. It was a great trip and we hope go back again....sooner than later!

Below is a link to a slide show of some of our Vegas pictures. I think if you double click on it you can view the pictures in a larger format. Enjoy!!

Apple Orchard

The kids and I had a wonderful trip to a local apple orchard with our Moms and Kids group from our church. Here are some pictures from our adventure... James eating an apple that Ella picked for him from a nearby tree.

Ella takes a big apple bite!!

Here are the animals that enjoyed our apple cores.

The kids and me!

James picks his first apple!!! He loves apples....I mean he loves to bite into an apple, mash the fruit around in his mouth and than spit it out somewhere.... The kid still does not like to really eat very much!!! Apples are fun, tastey and messy!

Hiking up the orchard lane.

Believe it or not, these beautiful apples are from our little tiny apple tree in our yard. We ended up with four apples this year, our first harvest! They were juicy and sweet and anyone who saw them or tasted one was impressed that they were home grown! Maybe next year we'll get enough for a pie!!

Marigold Days Parade

On September 9th we enjoyed our last parade of the season. We attended the Marigold Days Parade with family in Mantorville. Here is James with Grandpa Jim and Grandma Judy before the start of the parade.
Here's the big dragon that is always a hit with the kids.

This clown is giving Ella some candy while James hides in my lap.

After the parade Ella enjoyed a wagon ride with her cousins Bryce and Brennen.