The goodies around Christmas

This year Andy kindly asked me to not volunteer to be head room mother. I was last year and really loved it, but it was a lot a work. Not much help from other parents, and I tend to go a little over board which means late nights and tired me. So Andy convinced me this year especially being pregnant. So no one signed up to be head room mom. One mom decided to kind of take lead and get people to help. I went in to help with the Halloween party and brought some treats, but was not in charge and it was awesome! When Christmas came I planned to do the same thing, and then no one could do the party leaving the teacher left to figure something out, so guess who volunteered. Yes, yours truly. I cannot leave well enough alone, I have to keep pushing it. I will think of something and then think of something to make it better and cannot just let it be. So the result was a really awesome party, but a very wore out room mother!

These were the prizes for our games. To add to the stress I was almost at the school and forget the bingo game and had to go all they way home again. When I finally got back to the school I threw everything in the stroller and went running through the school with everything, 5 minutes late and so sorry I was!

Cookie treats for every one and then little candy bags for take home prizes! This does not seem like that big of a deal until I realized how many 35 really was! It take a long time to do all that!

The yummy cupcakes!

Teacher gifts. We also gave them little gift cards to St. Louis Bread Co.. Now I want St. Louis Bread Co..

I love these beautiful snowflake cookies we make every year!

One night after Family Home Evening, we finally made our Gingerbread house. IT was so fun and the kids had a ball!

Our Favorite Santa!

We finally made it up to see Santa. Can I just say I love this Santa. When we walked up Bennett looked right at me and said I have never seen a black Santa. The other kids did not even notice one bit. We have always told our kids that all the Santa's we see are just the Real Santa's helpers. Andy thought it was funny and said, isn't Santa they one time they really go off looks for the job? Old, white, chubby? This guy was thin, our age and not white. He was by far our favorite Santa of all time though. He was so cute and kind. When we walked up he said, "ho ho ho, I am not the Santa you are used to seeing am I?" So cute. He took time with each child and talked with each one of them. I loved it so much. When I look back at all the pics of my kids with Santa, I am pretty sure this will always be my favorite!

Waiting for Santa!

ANd more birthday...

I haven't really blogged about preschool yet. I don't really have any pics of anything and that is probably why. A few months ago around their birthday's I guess, I had been feeling like I needed to do something for the twins. I didn't know what it was. I prayed about it and got no where really. One day Andy said, maybe it is right for the twins to go to preschool. It is not like I am against it by any means, but for our family it was a no go. I do not want to push my kids out of the house any sooner than I had to, so why start earlier than needed? I thought about it, and prayed about it and one morning as we were doing little home preschool I noticed that I was not pushing the twins at all. I was helping Paxton and Maddox, but with the twins, they were kind of stalling on some levels. So I decided to check out the local preschools. It was then that I realized another reason why I had not done it before because it was a small fortune X's TWO! Then I stumbled on this little church preschool just blocks away from our house and fell in love with it. I loved the teachers and the school and the class size and it is just a couple days a week for 3 hours. I loved it. So we started and although I really miss then, it has been one of the best decisions we made last year.

So here they are celebrating their birthdays at school. I left my camera with them to get some extra shots. So adorable. I love these five years olds!

With their teacher and a book of drawings the class made for each birthday child!

Eating their snacks or jello, oreo's and juice!

The whole class!

That night we met Daddy at Monkey Joe's. They had a great time bouncing away!

Then we went to dinner. We should have quit while we were ahead. We were wanting Mexican and we new that they sang happy birthday at this restaurant so we went. The kids were just so tired after Monkey Joe's. You can see how tired Jadeyn is in the bottom picture. Andy was being grumpy for her!

A room full of balloons!

We decided right before Bennett was five that we would fill a dream of mine for our kids. I always pictured a room full of balloons on my birthday. Doesn't that sound fun? So we decided on their 5th, 10th and 15th bday we will do just that. Bennett loved it when he turned five and is really excited about April when he turns 10! So after the went to sleep the night before their birthday Andy and I got started on the balloon journey. We had 75 in each room! That is a lot of balloons. Unfortunately I was not much help blowing them all up!

They were so excited when they woke up!

How beautiful!

A whole lot of birthday going on

(For some reason I cannot move my pics once they are in the blog post!!

So they are out of order! Oops!)

My twins are five. MY TWINS ARE FIVE? How can that be? I know I say it all the time, but really? They are getting so big! We celebrated in true E style. We had three parties and the kids did not complain! We just love celebrating around here. We have more like birthweeks around here!

Best cousins! Jadeyn and Natalie. I am so happy that Jadeyn has girl cousins so close. They really love eachother. When Natalie and Julia are here

it for sure seems like a girl dominant home.

I love Julia's face in this pic!

One of his favorite toys...a dart tag game? Or something like that.

J with Grandma Joy.

Opening up some fun things!

Another cake!

Such a pretty cake!

Wishing it was his party too!

The favorite toy of his birthday. A remote control car!

Her favorite! Hello Kitty Makeup. Two of her faves!

They love money and have no idea you use it to buy something!

With Great Grandma!

Mickey and Minnie Cakes!

Our night away

I look forward to this night every year. It is such a fun tradition now. We get so excited to get dressed up and eat fancy food and stay in a hotel by ourselves! Every year we say we are going to sleep in and neither one of us every can.

We have internal clocks that just wont' let us sleep in.

Getting ready for out night out!

This is at the house where the party is, isn't that tree fabulous?

I love this great room!

This picture I messed up somehow which is sad, because we are by the tree and the back of the house and you can see all the beautiful windows! I love it!

St. Nick

We celebrate St. Nicks day every year just like I did as a kid. It is a very European/Catholic thing to do, we are neither, but we still like doing it. We fill their stockings that were hung on the door with candies and little treats. This year they got a present too that I have been wanting for almost 10 years and finally broke down and got it. I love it! They did too!

Look how tired and and happy they are in this pic. It makes me laugh!

Here it is in all it's glory!