OUR FAMILY CHRISTMAS!

Because we leave on Thursday for Lanae's wedding and Christmas festivities we decided to have our own Family Christmas and it was so much fun! It began with opening presents in the morning, then Vienna's dance recital, then an afternoon/evening at Lake Farm Park's, Country Lights! It was better than last year, better organized and so fun. It began with visiting with Santa, then the hayride with all the Christmas lights and at the stable to see all the horsey's and baby piglets that were 5 days old. It ended at Santa's workshop making a wooden toy with his elves. It's amazing and so well done. Lincoln made a fire truck and Vienna made Frosty! It couldn't have been better.

Our ward Christmas party, we had the cutest Santa (one of our YM & our bishop's son)

This was our home on our Christmas Eve, Santa brought little V and dress-up chess full of dress up clothes

Here is Vienna on Christmas morning, waiting for Daddy to get home from B-ball so we could open all our other presents. She's got her pretty shoes, Tiara and wand, the dress quickly followed.

Here are some of the spoils...

Wow, spoiled little kiddos!

The kiddos with "real"Santa

Our family with Jolly Old st. Nick

We really tried to get lots of family pics because we never get the chance. We were lucky enough to join the Rudolf clan.

Lincoln playing with his new toy from Santa, he loves it and is standing up on it.

Here are my goodies from Christmas. Mike made me a jewellery cabinet, I can't wait to use it.

another family pose. 

Actually, for some reason I am not able to upload any more pics to my blog. I need my cousins help, but I have tons more pics of Santa's workshop and Vienna painting her Frosty, so I hope I can figure this out.

Lincoln is 7 Months & Thanksgiving!

Well I feel aweful because I missed making a special post about Lincoln's 6 Month mark, but Halloween was pretty much that time. Now he is 7 Months old and very mobile. He is army crawling, reaching up and pulling things on him, sitting up from his stomach and getting onto his stomach whenever!He is such a stud and still puts up super well with Vienna's headlock hugs and constant face touching. Today he just put a puff in his mouth for the first time. he's been able to grab them for a while but it got lost on the way to his mouth. Today was the first time...he's on his way!

OH MY WHAT CAN I SAY.....STUDLY!!!

Making butter rolls was a HUGE feat for me, as I was trying live up to my Mother-in-laws and despite my nerves They turned out great. (I did call Peg about 8 times)

PRE-TURKEY BOWL

POST TURKEY BOWl (this year unscathed, last year super muddy...hopefully never in the ER....

Vienna is such a good helper with the Apple salad....

It was so nice!

What a yummy looking turkey...yummy for hugs and kisses.

Kids craft project after dinner was snow mans and Vienna loved it!

Us ladies also did a craft at another table while the Daddy's helped out the kiddos, it was super fun!

We are blessed with so much and have so much to Thank our father in heaven for.

No Trick-or-treating for us today...

Even though we aren't in New York or New Jersey, Thank heavens! We are pretty close and because Hurricane Sandy is so big, we are feeling it here in Cleveland with strong winds and heavy, heavy rains, flood warnings etc, so Halloween (trick-or-treating) has been rescheduled. It's funny some places it's tomorrow, some friday and saturday, but mostly Sunday. It has definitely been yucky. We still wore our Halloween shirts and said happy halloween to people. So the question now is...will there still be after halloween sales tomorrow??? I need to get some princess dress-up's for Vienna. Anyway, here are my sweeties!

Vienna is not only showing off her Halloween shirt but her socks too. Lincoln just has a shirt :(

She just loves him SOOO much and Never gets enough of him, never!

On another note, Here is us at our ward Trunk-or-treat.

Lincoln is Mike and I's farm dog as we are hicks.

Vienna was a little eskimo girl, but her hat was too fuzzy for her.

Aww, it's so fun being a mama!

Lincoln is 6 Months Old!

Well our little Linc man and already 6 months old. The older I get the faster it goes....its scary. Anyway here's the scoop on our litle man... 

Sitting up on his own

rolling all over

getting up onto his hands and knees and rocking

sleeping 12 hours at night

no teeth

loves to eat food 

He is super content 

Loves to be around his sister and watch her intently

He is much more adventurous already, compared to Vienna at the same age

I can't get enough of him

He fell asleep while we were out for a walk. He can't survive much past 7pm and it was 7:10, so he was out!

Look at the cute boy in his Halloween PJ's

Rolling all over the mini couch and pushing all the buttons on the keyboard

Our family at Hallo-Hayrides at Lake farm Park

On a different note, Vienna is a vivacious, lively, talkative, social little 2.5 year old girl that is so much fun to be around and very entertaining. She came to me looking like this the other day, thank goodness it was before bath time. We love our Nenna girl too much for words.

OCTOBER!!!

October is such a FUN time of year, the older I get the more I like Halloween. It's still a strange thing to celebrate but it's kind of fun as well.

Here are some of my Halloween decorations. The collection is growing slowly but surely.

I am apart of a BUNKO group, which I love and want to have whereever we end up settling down. It is so much fun!!! At first I wasn't a fan at all, but it has definitely grown on me and I look forward to it every Month. I picked October this year, which was my first time hosting a holiday specific month and it was quite fun! I wonder which one I'll do next year?

Candy corn veggies...pinterest of course. I also had olive and orange tomato skewers that I forgot to take a picture of. Black and orange..get-it, oh and I Mike and I even carved pumpkin faces in the tomatoes.

I am now a Velata consultant which is Scentsy's line of Fondue stuff with Belgian chocolate, so I made things that could be dipped in chocolate (which is almost anything :) My 2 favorites were the Monster bites (left) and...

earwax on a swab.

Here's are the prizes 

I enjoy it so much that I am even doing it with my family over Christmas too. Can't wait!

What happened to September?

 Vienna sure is a Daddy's girl and it is so adorable to see. This is the day they went to one of the metroparks with the Stake to do a huge service project. Mommy stayed home with Little Lincoln man.

 Enjoying the lingering sun at Horseshoe Lake in Beachwood area.

This is Lincoln's future treelawn dresser turned closet. It's all done, I will take a picture, it looks great!

 

Our not-so-little Lincoln man is 5 months old!!!

LINCOLN'S 5 MONTH OLD ACCOMPLISHMENTS

-He started rolling over a week ago (from back to front but still struggles with the opposite)

-Drooling like mad, even more so, which leads me to believe that he is teething

-Loves to grab at everything, and has amazing hand-eye coordination for a little gaffer

-He never stops smiling

-Sleeping well at 12 hours a night since he was 3 months old

-He sits up on his own for a few seconds and for quite a while with slight support

- Loves being outside, in the bathtub, on his tummy, around his sister and anything in our hands

 Our little Nenna-bean is becoming such a big girl!

OUR LITTLE NENNA BEAN's 2.5 YEAR ACCOMPLISHMENTS

-recognizes several letters in the alphabet, especially 'V' 'L' 'M' and 'D'

-loves puzzles and crafting projects

- says things like "when will I see you again?"  and "should I....?" like "Should I eat this?" or "should we go outside?" "Should I play with this?" etc.

- She talks about it being her birthday every Saturday

-she likes to read her Daddy a book after he reads one to her.

-she LOVES HER "BUDDY" (Lincoln) to DEATH. It's cute and kind of annoying too

- she loves playing with her friends, going to nursery and dance class

- She can get herself on the toilet and off and put her panties back on

- Her love for life is so sweet and inspiring

- She loves walking to the pole at the end of our street and picking up everything she can find along the way

- Disney princesses have recently come to life for her

- she always has to wear a nighty to bed and at nap time

- she mostly just has quiet time now, only actually naps maybe 2x/week

- her hair is getting a smidge longer and is still curly

-her feet are between a 6 and 7

- she super intelligent and articulates very well.

We are so blessed to have such wonderful, happy healthy children that sleep well. 

Here's to a most memorable Autumn!

WARRIOR DASH!!!

 Before the Warrior Dash -- gotta love the Viking hats :)

 The last obstacle before the finish line...muddy mayhem

 so yucky!

 Mike loving every minute!

 Our friend Kolt did it with us, her husband would rather play golf...too bad for him!

 Our medals! We're going to start collecting them

 Our kids were good for our babysitter Alexis.

 I know you can't tell but Mike is doing a viking hat symbol with his hands while the spike on top of the real one is poking him in the bum bum

 Good times! I hope to do many of these in my life!

Of course most people get rid of their shoes, well here is Mike with his huge ones adding to the pile.

All in all it was a great time and besides not having enough showers at the end it was a blast. The water obstacles were my favorite but jumping fire was fun too!