Cleaning out before Christmas!

I am posting a little of everything that we have done leading up to Christmas in hopes that I will get the Christmas pictures up in a timely fashion! The first picture is of my boys, the Klvana boys and Owen Barone at Bryan's work visiting with Santa.

Here are some of the boys visiting with Bubba, they sure are glad to have him for a couple of weeks!
Santa skated with the kids at hockey but of course I did not capture one picture of him and the kids, so here are Jack and Luke playing in their "game". They are both improving tremendously and are both still loving it!

Here is Jack still making the shot even from down on the ice.
Luke's group was using a tennis ball, he is usually good for a goal or two each game.
Spaghetti at Gram's, doesn't everyone eat spaghetti topless?!
"Claydough" as Henry calls it! Bubba is a good sport!
Bubba reliving his childhood in his old hat!
Oliver at playgroup, he is just the cutest!
The boys meeting the dogs....ok so some just admired them from afar!
Henry and Reed loved the dogs.
This is pretty much how the visit went when the boys met Emily and Brian's dogs, Jack and Cole stayed on higher ground while the rest of the boys visited.
Oliver wasn't too sure what to think of Brady!

Grammy and Papa's Tree

A few weeks ago we went to Grammy and Papa's to "help" decorate their tree, I use that term loosely since the above picture shows all of the ornaments we put on and actually Henry was the only one to help and he put them all on one branch! The rest of the boys really just played in the basement so I guess it was a nice time for the rest of us to somewhat relax.

Here's Henry and Reed playing Snood, a rare moment where they aren't fighting. I guess they decided the other wasn't so bad since they are still too small for the basement they might as well play together!

Grammy, Reed and Oliver
Playing blocks with Papa
Fun with Auntie's scarf!

Live Nativity!

I apologize for any of you who also follow the Rice blog, this may be a bit redundant but Nina beat me to it! We went with the Rice's on Saturday night to a Live Nativity in Granby, despite the cold (and poor Braeden's pneumonia that no one knew about) we all had a great time!

Meeting Samson the horse.

Hearing the Shepard's story.
4 out of the 6 following the wisemen.
The Wisemen were kind enough to let the boys pose for a picture.

The boys weren't happy that there was a doll as Baby Jesus and not a real baby, it definitely would have been very cold for a little baby like that but someone told Nina that last year they did have a real baby.
Checking out the sheep.

Christmas Tree and More...

Let me just first start by addressing the new "header" picture. I know it's not the best picture I've ever taken of the boys but I just thought it captured all of their personalities so well, Jack forever the "good" one, Luke with a smug look on his face, Cole the goofy one and happy little Reed with a huge smile on his face.

Last weekend we went to get our tree. Bryan had to work so Uncle Aaron was so kind as to take us all to the tree farm and pick up a tree for us as well as him and Kelly.

I text this picture to Bryan and told him this was the one, he said it looks good and big. We tend to overdo it when it comes to trees, I intended this to be a joke but I think he was actually ok with it!
This is the one we chose, much more sensible! Plus I'm pretty sure Aaron would not let me get a huge tree!
Helping Aaron carry it back to the truck.
Jack and Luke were thrilled to sit in the back of the truck for the ride home to "watch" the trees (we literally live less than a mile from the tree farm)
Decorating the tree...




....the finished product!

Today I made the boys dress up so I could take some pictures in front of the tree, of course no one was happy with this but they complied and we got a couple of good shots out of about 100!

Thanksgiving 2010

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year, especially with Grandma and Grandpa as our surprise guests! Here are some shots from our day.

Grandma and the boys playing a few computer games before we headed to the Rice's.
Cole surprised us with how long he sat still for Grandma!
Tom working hard to help Bryan unload our 3 tons of pellets.
Lee was very smart to get a family photo before the day really got underway! Thanks Kellen and Bekah for being our great photographer's!
Cole outside looking in, he lingered by the front door while the big boys were out back, he was a little frightened by the chickens.
Reed longing to be outside with the big boys...soon and then I will be kid free at the table!!
Nina and Lee relaxing after our wonderful meal.
A sleepy Reed being rocked by Uncle Robb in the rocker.
The big boys finally surfaced for dessert!
Braeden showing me his goodies!
Reed finally gave into his sleep!
My favorite picture of Thanksgiving, Tom leading us all in song!
Reed looking at Shaun in disgust, he did not love Shaun's singing, I'm not sure why because he definitely sings better than most of us! At one point Reed started to cry and told Shaun he was yucky, thankfully Shaun was not offended.


Kellen showing Cole her cool magnets.