December was a pretty busy month, as always. My choir had our very first concert, which went really well – I was so proud of them. My photos weren’t that great. I am waiting to get some better ones from my brother. (Hint, hint…)

We finally got around to decorating the Christmas tree! The boys were pretty cute about it., especially Logan.

We had the opportunity to participate in our church’s service project/Christmas party. It was pretty fun – we were able to do so much for so many different people in need. I really hope the boys got something out of it. Santa came at the end – Logan was a little freaked out, but he did like the little bag of goodies Santa was handing out!

I really wanted to go to Zoo Lights, so we finally made it one night. It was a crazy busy night and the boys were a little cranky, but we still had fun. (Note – I wouldn’t go again! Wasn’t really worth it!) We went with Jason’s parents, and Gran treated the boys to the carousel.  Imagine Jax’s delight when he was able to ride a TIGER! He actually said it was his dream come true – ha ha!

We visited with Jason’s family and everyone got to snuggle our new little niece/cousin, who we already adore.

Christmas celebrations were split up into many different parties. We started with a cousins party at my mom’s.

Christmas Eve at my mom’s:

Christmas morning at home…

Christmas day with the Popowich family… (I didn’t get very many cool photos – they all seem to be blurry!)

My brother got us some tickets to the Russia vs. Switzerland hockey game – the boys very first hockey game ever! Fun times had by all!

Playing around with Instagram…

I wish I could say that we do a Christmas book advent every year, but I have yet to get myself together in order to actually do it. However, I do have an extensive Christmas book collection because I love Christmas, I love books and I love Christmas books! I thought I would share some of my favorites and some of the new ones I added this year, since lots of people seem to be doing something similar – you might want to add to your collection too!

At our house, Christmas would not be Christmas without the Nutcracker. I am hoping to do a post all about how to teach your kids about the Nutcracker, but we’ll see if I have time. (Anyone interested in that?) Because of this, I have more than one, or two, or three Nutcracker books and I usually add one every year. You can’t have too many Nutcracker books! (Especially when you are a music teacher…) I think my favorite Nutcracker book is…

or…

This year, I bought…

Which isn’t supposed to come until after Christmas, but I am very excited to see it because I LOVE Susan Jeffers.

I also bought…

Which is only $5 and a cute little book. Yes I know, I am Nutcracker crazy!

Our new books this year are…

Love Tomie dePaola…what more can I say? Beautiful story.

Everyone needs a little Strega Nona at the holidays!

Funny Canadian Christmas book!

How could we NOT have Thomas in our Christmas collection? When this book arrived, Logan carted it around all night.

I bought A Christmas Goodnight because I love Sarah Jane Wright’s illustrations – it’s a cute little book and she has made free coloring pages and puppets to go with it!

You know the book Snowmen at Night? Cute story!

Some of my favorites are… (Note that this isn’t including the classics everyone knows about, like The Grinch, Frosty the Snowman, A Charlie Brown Christmas, A Christmas Carol, Olivia, Madeline…)

It’s Margaret Laurence. It’s a little old (long) for my boys – maybe Nate will like it this year. But it’s a great story. And did I mention it’s Margaret Laurence?

I found my version of this book at a used bookstore. I love this song, so I was delighted to find this little classic. Another version of this story is on my wish list for next year.

Beautiful artwork! Such a nice and simple way of viewing Santa.

I love The Little Drummer Boy. My mom hates the song, but I love it. I just love the message and the poetry and Ezra Jack Keats does wonderful illustrations.

My boys love this book, especially Nate. It is a VERY detailed explanation of Santa, the North Pole, and how everything works.

On my wish list for next year…

This artist, Astrid Lindgren, reminds me of my childhood. I’m not sure why – I guess because we had a couple of her books. I just love her art, so I really want this book.

Pearl S. Buck? Need I say more?

I think this is a must for our Christmas collection.

Maurice Sendak meets The Nutcracker? How do I not already own this?

This is just a little sampling of our Christmas books, but I thought I would share because I love reading about what everyone else is reading. What is your favorite Christmas book? My wish list can always use more additions!

Nate and I went on a “date” the day of his parent-teacher interviews. He loved it. I did too – he’s such a funny kid.

I gave the boys these new blankets as a reward for good behavior (and because they needed some more blankets at night). They both laid down on the floor with them, so of course, Logan had to get in on the action too.

I’m pretty sure most people have heard of Elf on the Shelf by this point. We’ve had a special little elf visitor at our house for a couple of years now. I bought our original at Michaels, but this year, after seeing all these cute ideas on Pinterest (like this!), I wanted to have a more flexible elf. I considered buying the $30 plus real deal, but then I saw this pattern to make my very own elf. I thought it looked easy enough…

SO MANY HOURS OF MY LIFE LATER…I had a new, cute little elf. The boys were a little unsure about this new Alfred at first (Nate hated him), but after they saw what he could do, they have started to really like him.

The best part is that, other than my time, this elf didn’t cost a cent! I already had all of the supplies on hand in my fabric and craft stash. Actually, that’s not true – I did buy ribbon to make his belt out of, but I easily could have used ribbon I already owned.

I told my sister I would make her one too – what’s one more? Sheesh! What was I thinking!?But now the Rawlings have a little elf friend too! (This picture is right before I realized I hadn’t sewn elf boots onto the Rawlings’ elf…at two in the morning!)

We’ve been having fun coming up with places for Alfred to be found by the boys in the morning, and other than the morning of his first appearance, the boys have been delighted by Alfred’s antics. In Santa’s letter, he warned them that Alfred might like to get into mischief, a new word for Jax’s vocabulary. Here’s a few of the places Alfred has found to hang out so far:

To say that Logan loves trains is an understatement. He plays “choo-choo’s” for hours, and carries them around with him, sleeps with them, breathes them. It was an obvious choice for a birthday party theme!

Luckily, we celebrated Logan’s birthday with my family and had his little party before his actual birthday, because on that day, both Jason and I got really sick and we were unable to do anything at all!

First, a party at my mom’s. I made him a Thomas cake because I knew he would love it, and I think he did.

Logan was delighted by the train sets that he received from my parents – one can never have too many trains!

We had a little photo shoot so I could make invitations for Logan’s party (Actually, Lahni made the invitations!) I couldn’t decide which photo to use because I thought they were all so funny. The one I really liked was out of focus, of course! Aren’t the invitations the cutest thing you’ve ever seen!?

The “party” was really just a big play date. I wanted to have lots of finger foods, just for toddlers. I think the food was a big hit – the kids spent a lot of time eating!

I used my Silhouette to make t-shirts for all the kids. It was pretty fun to play with the ink kit!

So I think I posted most of these photos on Facebook, but I thought I would post them here too, for my own purposes! This blog is sadly the only journaling I get done!

Nate joined us this year for our annual Run for the Cure. I don’t think he has any idea why he wrote what he did on his sign, but some day it might mean more to him. The run is always a little emotional for us!

I think this was the best turnout my mom and I have ever had! Here’s going for broke next year!

Logan has started doing this funny little thing where he crawls into Jax’s bed and says “night-night”. He gets awfully mad when he has to get out and get into his own crib. Not sure why he thinks he will get to sleep in Jaxon’s bed… I caught all three of them cuddling in the bed and had to get a picture.

Not sure if you are aware, but I have some really adorable nieces. This adorable little thing turned one in October so of course we had to celebrate. She is so stinkin’ cute – we all just love her to pieces. She was hilarious about her cake. You know how most one-year-old’s go at it and end up with a big mess? This one-year-old would have none of that, but her two bigger, almost two-year-old cousins, made up for it. She looked at them in awe and maybe a little bit of disgust?

We like to spoil our birthday peeps and this was no exception. Lots of new toys just for the birthday girl!

A special bear from Daddy.

No birthday party is complete without treat bags! Nana gave out these bags to all the cousins.

Which toy should I play with first?? (Note: traditional sleeping Papa in the background…)

We went to Butterfield Acres with Jax’s school. Lots of fun had by all!

“Pun’kin! Pun’kin!”

Logan’s favorite part had to be the animals. He thinks all animals say MOO, so here he is “moo-ing” at the miniature ponies.

Oh, this face!!!

We carved Logan’s little pumpkin from the pumpkin hunt. He was pretty delighted by the process.

Halloween – Ron Weasley, red hair and all!

Harry Potter and a very cute cowboy.

Logan couldn’t believe his luck when he went door to door and got candy in a bag. I’m not sure he knew what the heck was going on, but he wasn’t questioning anything! He loved trick or treating and reaping the rewards even more! Luckily it wasn’t very cold on Halloween this year!

September was a busy month. We were able to go to Montana for the September long weekend. The boys love the boat.

We also went to BC with my sister and her family. Poor John drove up with the boys and Lahni and I took the “babies”.

John took the boys out fishing one night. They didn’t catch anything.

We took Jason’s truck up the crazy road to the natural hot springs. This is all of us squished in the back seat!

Eek! I went out onto the golf course to play bocce ball with the little boys and there was this bear! He ran away as soon as I yelled at the boys to go back into the house.

Two little trouble makers.

September was so warm, we got the pool out one day after school. The boys had so much fun playing outside in it!

Fun times with family…

Jax at his Terry Fox walk.

If you can explain where these crazy boys come from, or better yet, what the heck they are doing, please fill me in… (I think they were pretending to be tigers?)

My sister took these cute pics of the boys on Thanksgiving. I had to share.

I’ve been a little lazy about blog posting lately, so I thought I should catch up.

Here are our traditional first day of school photos, though if I’m being completely honest, neither of these shots were taken on the boys actual first day of school. Those days we were busy rushing around and trying to get out the door on time.

Here’s little Nate, heading into Grade Two. He wanted to try this shot where he was “walking” down the steps.

So I saw all these people’s cute photos of their children holding signs and whatnot that said what grade their child is in and I thought that it was so cute and such a great idea. Since I had no spare time or energy, Nate holding up two fingers to signify grade two is as close as it gets for our family…

Jaxon – my little kindergarten baby. I love this happy little monkey. He loves school so much and that makes me very happy!

I bribed the boys to pose for this photo. They really wanted to go ride bikes. I managed to get them to smile for at least one picture!

I don’t know if anyone watches Parenthood, but I quite enjoy the show and it started up again last week. (Don’t worry, this post isn’t about the show – it just inspired a post…) I think what I like most about the show is how real it is, and by that, I mean the relationships. I find that every episode speaks to me in one way or another. In the season premiere there was a moment that actually brought me to tears – not because it was so sad, but because I so get it.

One of the main characters turned 40. She had a big party with all of her family and her 18-year-old daughter kind of blew it off. When she was feeling sad about it, her own mother asked her if she remembered her 40th birthday. She reminded her that she hadn’t been there, that she was out having fun with her friends instead. For some reason, this small moment in this television show moved me so much. I have often said that we don’t truly appreciate our parents until we have children of our own. Having babies has made me view my parents in such a different light. I’m not sure it’s possible to love our parents as much as parents love their children. I can think of so many times I have not been there for my mom when she would have been there for me, when I have chosen selfishness over family. And now it makes me sad. And it makes me sad to think that one day, my children will do the same, because that’s what we do.

I don’t know if that makes any sense. But I really did think it was a profound moment, so I thought I would share.