It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

We had a wonderful Christmas, and hope everyone else did too!

Here's a little recap of the last week.

Sam had his program at school. It came with mixed results. 

We had some moments like this...

And other moments like this...

Here's a video to show the difference too. In his defense, he did say that there were flies biting him and it was dark. It's very hard to perform in those conditions.

I sat down to read Sam a story one night...

We celebrated Christmas Eve at G&G Rikli's.

Can you tell I am excited?!!

Sam got water on his outfit and had to put on jammies. Clearly, he was upset about that.

Grandma Rikli restored an old toy tow truck. She and Grandpa added hooks and Sam Towing on the side of it. Sam was thrilled!

Then we came home to see if Santa had come. He had! Sam got the track excavator he had been asking for, and I got Skylanders Superchargers. Together, we got the game Pie Face and some markers for drawing in the snow.

Great Aunt Mary sent us some Spurs gear. We will proudly wear it...but we're not quite sure who Duncan and Leonard are :)

I had everyone playing Pie Face. I didn't even want to play it the way you are supposed to. I just wanted everyone to turn the handles so they got pie in the face. Sam handed out wipes. He said that he wasn't playing because it was too scary.

G&G Rikli gave it a try!

PIE FACE!

Christmas Day we went to G&G Hyland's house. Mommy captured a good picture of the 3 grandchildren!

We couldn't convince Sam to get his hands out of his mouth, but Maebel was smiling so Mommy had to post this one.

The annual picture in the chair in front of the tree. Maebel's first!

We waited too long to take this picture, and I had already changed into one of my new pairs of jammies.

Sam wouldn't sit in the chair so Mommy was trying to convince him. I gave her a prop!

Here was the only way Sam could be convinced...with Daddy!

Had to play Pie Face with G&G Hyland and Uncle Jay too!

What a wonderful Christmas. We are very blessed!

Christmas Parties!

We've been busy with some Christmas events and parties.

Here we are at Mommy's annual Chuck E Cheese party for work. She and Daddy are liking it a lot as we get older because we can be trusted to know what we are doing.

Sam really liked this game...

I did the hopping game, which was new the last time we were there and we both really liked.

Our picture with Santa turned out well!

I got to stand with Chuck E!

Right after Chuck E Cheese, we went to celebrate Grandpa's birthday. I ran right over to Grandpa's lap like the past years...next year might get a little tricky since I'm getting so big!

Sam joined in this picture!

We decorated a gingerbread house together. We stuck with it for over an hour and did a great job!

Sam's side (his was snowy with the gingerbread man on the roof!).

My side!

Next up we went to a Cookies for Santa program at the Park and Rec. We got to hear a story from Mrs Claus and then we had a table set up for our family with cookies, frosting and sprinkles.

Dad and Joey side of the table!

Mom and Sam side of the table...

Our whole family with the finished product!

They had a couple stations set up to take pictures. We were in a silly mood at this point after decorating cookies.

Saturday the 19th, I went to see Star Wars with Daddy and Uncle Jay. Since Aunt Amanda had to work, Mommy and Sam got to babysit Maebel (G&G Hyland came to help too). She is such a good baby and Sam really enjoyed babysitting her. He got a little jealous and was kind of happy when Mommy put her down to sleep on the floor instead of holding her and played with Sam. Sam brought his stuffed animals out for Maebel to play with, and he talked to her quite a bit.

Holiday Prep

We've been getting ready for Christmas! There's always so much fun this time of year!

Sam got invited to Kona's birthday party at Play N Wisconsin. I got to go too so we had a great time. This picture is blurry but Mommy wanted to include it because Sam was adamant that he get to sit by Kona for supper and cupcakes and he followed him around a lot of the night. Kona seemed ok with it, but was more into doing his own thing.

We decorated the tree! The stepladder was critical to being able to get the ornaments at the top, and you can tell how much Sam liked the stepladder by how the ornaments are placed on our tree :)

We went to G&G Rikli's to learn how to make fudge. Sam really wanted to make fudge. Of course once we got there, he opened a couple bags, stirred a pot a few times and then went off to play with Play Doh.

We went to the Sun Prairie Optimist pancake breakfast and Santa and Mrs Claus were there!

Sam was a little hesitant, but Mrs Clause convinced him to come to her and then he talked with Santa quite a bit!

Sam had a "homework" project to make his hands and decorate them. He chose paint!

I had the Christmas program at Church. We retold the Christmas story in a cute way.

I had Lego club and set up a pretty cool display with the guys and accessories that I found!