Christmas Festivities

We started off by going to Illinois to celebrate Christmas with Nick's Grandparents in Goodfield.  Here are the  "waibel" clan with Great Grandpa and Great Grandma.

 Next was Christmas with my family.  12 grandkids for my parents:)  Lots of stocking stuffers!!

 Ellie got her VERY FIRST doll.  She loves to give the baby lots of slobbery kisses on her face.

 Liam got exactly what he asked for.....a BIG combine.

 I just had to throw this great picture in here.  Isn't my sweet niece Liberty Adorable??  Big blue eyes just like her daddy AJ.

 On to my grandparents christmas.  We sadly don't get to have everyone here since the Jan clan live in Haiti and Dan and Tess in CO.  Miss you guys:(

 We then moved on to Nick's family Christmas.  Yearly tradition is to have an appetizer meal.  Such good food each year.  Sadly I wasn't feeling very good that day.

 Mom Waibel has lots of santa hats so of course everyone got to wear one.

 Elijah got himself a good ol fishing pole.

 Liam got a handsome looking hat:)

 Ellie got the little booties she is wearing from her Aunt Karis ....she really wasn't sure about Tucker the dog though!!!

 And last but definitely not least, Caden got exactly what he wanted too.......a CAMERA!!!

Fun times had by all this christmas!!  (our family christmas to come in another post)

Naughty Little Boy

Please tell me eveyone has a child (or two, three or four) that decides writting on walls or furniture or in our case a door is something they think they can do???????

 Thanks to the magic eraser(that Ive had for many many years, since this is child number 3)that thankfully, with a lot of scrubbing, I was able to get the marker off.

Not a very happy little boy though:(

8 months old!

Really???  8 months old already??  Time is sure going fast. We were in the midst of Christmas celebrations when I realized that it was her 8 month birthday:)....so I set her in the nearest chair and took some photos.  No hair bow but oh still so cute:)

                                                                    SO BIG!!!

No Time

Being we are having our little family christmas tonight, I don't have time to post the MANY posts that I am behind on.  Including Ellie turning 8 months old.  Yes, I got her mini photo shoot on the day of her turning 8 months, but no time to post.  So this one quick shot of her from TODAY will have to do for the time being.  Her VERY FIRST pig tails courtesy of daddy:)

Merry Christmas!!

Elijah-10, Caden-7, Liam-3, Ellie-7 months

Worn

 

Not sure why exactly, but today this song just won't leave me??  My heart is going out to all those kiddos who are "worn".  Not even sure why, but my heart is feeling for those Haiti kids. Little faces keep flashing before my eyes....Why Haiti??   Im praying for those orphans today.

 

Wow....not sure what this is all about??  Maybe someday I'll know??

Leon Waibel Christmas

This past saturday Nick and I hosted the Leon Waibel Christmas.  Usually Marcia and Gerry host it, but I asked if it was ok if I did it to give mom a break.  It went over great, we had a wonderful evening and as of now, I hope to host it next year too.

 Dinner time!!  We enjoyed some wonderful Ham Loaves that Mom W. made.  Everyone pitched in and brought one or two items.  Such good food.

 The kids table....plus Elijah, Caden and Avery sat up at the bar(in previous picture).  The adults sat in the dinning room.

 Grandpa Leon and his Great Grandchildren.

 Of course I had to throw in a couple other pictures too.  What do you think.....enough toys surrounding this girl??

 Nick is traveling this week so I let Caden pick out our dinner for tonight.  He chose Sloppy Joe Buggy's.  They were a hit and the kids thought they were so fun to eat.  Good choice Caden!!

I did it!!!!

Thats right folks, you are seeing correctly....my mommy isn't holding onto me:).  I have been sitting for 10 minutes now without falling over!!!  7 months old and 5 days.  WOOHOOO

7 months!

 

This is a bit late I realize, as sweet Ellie turned 7 months old 2 days ago.  I went to upload these photos and was unable to.  I had run out of storage and needed to figure out how to delete the pictures from my blog.  So I got to use a nice little thing called Blurb and create my very first blog scrapbook.  It has been ordered and so the first year 2007 of which I started my blog has been deleted from this blog....and now I have room for more posts with pictures!!

 

So with this photo shoot I decided to keep her in her everyday outfit and snap a few pictures of her in front of the christmas tree in which I put up this weekend.  My dear little 7 month old can hardly even sit on her own!!  She seems so behind but maybe this is somewhat normal?  I just know that at 3 days before turning 7 months old Elijah pulled himself up to a standing position in his crib!!  Now that was advanced:)

Here is my attempt to sitting up on my own and smiling for the camera:)

 Over I go again and again and again.......

Tada.......I am sitting:).....ok.....not really.  My dear mother is holding my arm(but you just can't see it).  Maybe someday soon I'll decide to sit on my own??

A Twist on Ice Hockey

What a beautiful fall day today!!  This morning we decided to defrost our garage freezer while hanging the outside Christmas lights.  It wasn't long before the kids were chipping away at the ice in the freezer and collecting it in a bucket.  Soon we heard a competative little game of Ice Hockey going on. 

 So because its so nice out, they put on their skates, grab a broom and a "hockey puck", and away they go. 

 Even Liam was playing his own little game of "slide the ice puck around with a broom" game:)

 Here is their bucket of "ice pucks" near the end of the driveway (where their goal is).

An in action shot of them passing the puck.  I think its safe to say it looks pretty even.  Elijah has the small hockey stick and Caden has the LARGE hockey stick, Elijah has 4 wheels in a row on his skates and Caden 4 wheels all spread out:).  I LOVE when my kiddos use their imaginations and play things so well together!!

Orlando ~ Part 3

The last of the pictures of our trip:)  Ok, I probably could post about another 3 parts, but I'll spare you all!!

 

 The boys have never seen a banyon tree before so this was pretty cool to them.

 Even though Ellie doesn't have alot of hair she sure does have a slightly crazy long amount right on top.  This was one mornings "do" when she woke up.

 One evening we ate at the table in the kitchen at Bucca di Beppo's.  Kids had alot of fun watching the kitchen staff work AND mess around.  There was some interesting things happening back there:) and we got some free food samplings out of the deal.

 One night we went to Downtown Disney to walk around.  Of course my kids spotted Phineas and Ferb and had to get a picture taken.  They tried to pose like them.

 Everyday (minus Sunday) we were at the pool area.  Talk about a good little girl....she sat in her stroller the entire time while the kids swam, and nick and I enjoyed the sun.  She would play with toys, or sleep or even just sit there wide awake doing nothing!!  When she slept we layed her down in the stroller and covered it with towels to make it dark.  She was a perfect angel and many times was "forgotten" that she was even in there.  Such a blessing to have such a good, calm natured baby!!

 Lots of "rough play" by these two boys, but having so much fun!

 Poor picture of me, but I think its so adorable of Ellie.  This was the last day(or the last few hours on the day we left) that we got her out and sat her by the pools edge.  I tried sticking her feet in, but she started to pout.

 On the last day the kids played some water games the resort was doing.  Liam running out to chase down some rubber duckies.

 One morning we walked around trying to get some single and group pictures for our Christmas Card and for our "family" wall in the front entry way of our home.  Had so many good ones of the boys and Ellie and struggled with a great one for our christmas card with all the kids in it.  I think we might have gotten one, but ONLY ONE, so that will have to wait for Christmas:)!!!

Thanks to Mom and Dad Waibel for allowing us to use your time share points.  We truly enjoyed our vacation!!

Orlando ~ Part 2

So Sunday it was suppose to be nice and warm so we called up Mark and Tricia and they were planning to meet us at the beach a little after lunch and morning service at church.  However it turned out to be a very WINDY and COLD day.  None the less we had already left that morning at 8am to head to beach so thats just what we did!!  Of course the kids had a blast and when I said it was time to go not only because we needed to get to Tricia's house, but also because I was FREEZING, the kids were pretty sad.

 Elijah swam pretty much the entire time.  Good waves due to the storm sandy and the winds they had that day.

 Always time to build a sand castle or two.  Liam stayed up on the sand for the most part until Nick went in the water and all three boys followed.

 Mark and Tricia's girls and our kiddos....crazy to me how in this picture my boys are out numbered which doesn't happen to often since my house is full of boys and when with the waibel family its mostly boys too.

 On Monday we knew it wasn't suppose to be all that warm so it was a great day to hit up Legoland!!  The kids had a great time, but both nick and I think it is very much overpriced for what all they have.  Thankfully we had two tickets for a free child admission with a paid adult!!

 They had a mini driving school for smaller ages and then one for older kids as well.  They got to practice driving on the right side of the road and stopping at stop signs and stop lights.  Then they got this tiny little "driver's license" afterwards.  Liam above is driving his car.  Below Elijah and Caden are posed by a Ford made out of lego's holding their license.

 Liam interacting with the lego statues:)  I did enjoy seeing all the things made of lego's.  So neat.

 Several rides in which nick took the boys on. 

 Had to get Ellie in a picture with a princess.....ok....someone help me.....I don't know my princess's names yet.  (she was of course made of lego)

 The best part of Legoland is Mini Legoland within Legoland.  Its a large open area that has various cities built out of lego's all in a small scale.  We saw Orlando, Washington, Vegas, Paris, Kennedy Space Center, New York, San Fran, and many more. 

That takes us to the end of Monday. More to come in Part 3.