Happy New Year!

Well it's hard to believe that Christmas has already come and gone. I hope that you all had a Merry Christmas with all of your family and friends. We had a great time and our lil man was tuckered out early Christmas night. He had had all he could take and around 7pm crashed. I will post pics later but you can check some out at mdsvantagepoint.

Hope everyone has a fun and safe New Year's! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Merry Christmas!

From our family to yours we wish everyone a Merry Christmas. We hope you have a safe and fun time with family and friends.

"Santa Claus is coming to town..."

Well, Christmas is almost here and Santa Claus will be coming down the chimney very soon. This last Sunday we had a sandwich supper at our church and the kids had a surprise visitor. Santa decided to stop in to make sure he had what they wanted on his list :) Last Christmas lil man sat on Santa's lap without a care. This year he was a lil more concerned with this man all dressed in red. I am sure he was wondering why in the world am I going to sit on this strange man's lap. We tried to put him down but he was off Santa before we could even get a shot. He was much better when his sisters sat with him. We will see how he does next year. Here are a few pics of the night.

Lil man and Mommy (my new favorite pic of the two of us)

Lil man and his sisters with Santa

My 3 kids and my nephews

Picture update!

I have updated the pictures on mdsvantagepoint.com. Hope everyone is getting their Christmas shopping done! I am going to try and finish today and get wrapping.

More to update later....

Days off

This last Thursday and Friday I had the fun of vacation days. I had a couple I had to use before my anniversary date at work so I took a 4 day weekend. On Thursday Lil Man and I had fun staying home. We built a fort, made a car out of a box, and I was a horse. It was such a fun time just me and my lil man. He didn't know what was going on since we got to sleep in and not have to go anywhere until late in the afternoon. I did have some fun laundry that I did but other than that nothing that was pressing to get done. On Friday I went out to lunch w/a good friend and shopping w/my mom. I was excited because I got a lot of people crossed off my Christmas list. It is such a relief when the list gets shorter especially w/the day getting closer. It was a nice time of catching up and relaxing, I could get used to 4 day weekends.....I don't think my boss would go for it though. Here are some pics of me and lil man.

Peeking out of the fort.

Posing in the "car"

Riding mommy like a horse while saying "Cheese"


Mommy and Lil Man

Gingerbread Houses Galore

This last weekend we went over to a friend's house with some other friends and built a Gingerbread house. The girls made the house while Dad supervised and Mom took pictures. Poor lil man had fought not to take a nap until the drive over. He slept in our friend's daughter's bed. My hubby went back to check on him after a while and said he was laying on his back with his eyes wide open trying to figure out where he was. He knew that his room wasn't pink or have butterflies. He wasn't in the mood for much of anything that afternoon. Lil man decided to lay low and hang out w/dad. Which was fine w/dad and the girls probably wouldn't have appreciated his help this year any ways. There were 6 families who got together and the houses looked great. A couple of the dad's were recruited to reconstruct the house that was falling apart. It was a fun afternoon spent w/good friends. Here are some pictures of the day.

Part of my family.

A few of the families working hard on their house.

Our middle daughter was hard at work separating the candy and stealing a few in between ;)

Lil man all tuckered out asleep.

Our oldest working hard on the roof.

The girls and their finished house.

Our middle child kept asking if she could eat the house when we had finished. I told her it is for decoration. She thinks it would be much better if she got to eat it, but for now Mom has won :)

"O Christmas Tree O Christmas Tree....

On Tuesday night we got out our Christmas decorations and put up the tree. Now I have to admit that I grew up in a home where our home was decorated for every season, but I have not carried on that tradition. My sweet, dear mother would go all out for every season, holiday and birthday. I just didn't get that trait from her. I remember watching her and thinking you go to a lot of work just to decorate. My mom loves it though and going to her home would not be the same if she didn't. I love that about my mom she goes overboard with decorations :) Now I do have decorations in my home it's just not changed every season. With saying all of that we do put up a Christmas tree and a few other decorations but not a whole lot.

Tuesday night my wonderful hubby got out our tree and put it all together so we could decorate while he went off to Bible study. Our middle child was definitely the main contributor to decorating. Our oldest had homework and is not really into decorating. I was assured by our middle child that she would never not want to decorate. She had told me how her sister had not really wanted to help at her Grammy's either. I told her that it was ok and sometimes people go through stages where they don't really care to decorate (I know when I was a teenager my mom had to beg me to put 1 ornament on the tree). She looked at me like I was crazy and said well I will always want to decorate. I am documenting this just in case she does get to that stage someday ;) Lil man did want to help for a lil bit but he found it more fun to take the ornaments off then put them on the tree.

I did take some pictures of the process and the finished product. Enjoy!

My decorating elves!

Lil man placing ornaments on the tree.

He really liked the same spot for his ornaments.

It was much more fun turning the lights on and off though.

Here is our star decorator posing w/an ornament.

Finding just the right place.

The finished product!

Family Traditions

I am sure that many of you have family traditions. As the holiday season has arrived it seems that many of our family traditions center around this time. The day after Thanksgiving is a day full of traditions for our family. The last 2 years I have been one of the many who brave the early hours for the best deal. This year though I decided I would like my sleep more. There weren't any great deals that I "had to have" and one of my sister in laws who I normally go with was skiing in Colorado. So, that tradition at least for this year took a break.

Another tradition our family has in going to the farm. My great grandmother who passed away this last September owned a farm about 45 min from where we live. As a kid my sis and I loved going down with Dandad to see Gramma Day. Now my kids get to experience going to the farm. On the farm there are several acres of woods. We normally have a weenie roast, s'mores, cut some wood, ride the tire swing, ride the dirt bike and visit the river. My kids and cousins have fun playing in the woods for most of the afternoon. The ride home is always much quieter than the trip to the farm.

And last but not least our kids go over to their Grammy's and decorate the Christmas tree. This year was a lil different since 3 of our nephews were in Colorado but they still had fun. Our lil man isn't old enough to join in the decorating yet but he will soon enough. They always have fun going out to eat, decorating the tree and spending the night w/Grammy and Grandpa. This year since the younger boys were gone they also got to go somewhere other than McDonald's for dinner.

Needless to say the holidays are always a busy time. Our Thanksgiving consisted of 2 meals on Thursday, the Farm and Christmas tree decorating Friday and another meal on Saturday. It was a fun time with family. Now on to getting ready for Christmas! Here are a few pics of the farm.

Getting to drive on the farm. Lil man wasn't too sure about it.

My 3 kids

Roasting hot dogs.

Lil man playing in the sand on the beach of the river.

Memaw and her grandkids.

Check out mdsvantage point for more pics.