Christmas 2009

What a busy few days we have had! Love this time of year, but it seems to go by sooo quick with all the traveling, etc. We always stay at home on Christmas Eve so the boys can wake up Christmas morning at our house. Christmas Eve we went to the Christmas Eve services at our church and then we came home, made our cookies for Santa and then celebrated Jesus' birthday with some yummy cupcakes!

Here's Collin singing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus

Here are our cookies & milk for Santa....notice that Collin took a bite out of one of them! ha!
We also threw some oats out in the yard for the reindeer. :-)

Our sweet friend Misty came by on Christmas Eve to drop some gifts off for the boys. She made Collin's night with some Lightning McQueen slippers! Misty works at the daycare Collin used to go to and we just made her a part of our family too! :-)

Here are a few highlights of our Christmas morning here at the house....

Collin and his Big Wheels trike! Unfortunately, his legs are still a little too short for it. He asked if we could take it back and get a smaller one. ha!

Carter got some wooden musical instruments and a sock monkey.

We got Collin a kids digital camera. He loved it and took about 150 pics in less than 5 minutes. I'm going to blog about those some time soon. :-)

We had a beautiful White Christmas this year! So, the boys headed outside for a snowball fight. Although, trying to hit mommy through the glass was a lot more fun!

We then headed to my parents Christmas afternoon. I felt like we were at Toys R Us! Yikes!

Collin and his new weedeater! I love that he's putting safety first by wearing his goggles!

My nephew Hudson and his new ride-on Elmo airplane!

All the boys got this new Elmo that tells jokes and stuff. He's pretty funny.

My aunt & uncle Bob & Brenda joined us that evening for dinner and then all us girls and kiddos gathered around the piano and sang Christmas carols. So much fun!

The next day, we headed to Josh's parents' house where the gift giving continued.....

Carter of course, was more interested in the paper and bows.

Josh's brother Joey and our future sister-in-law Heather

Joey and Heather really outdid themselves this year and got Collin this four-wheeler! He loved it of course and was really riding it well and using a lot of precaution. He wasn't too thrilled about Carter sitting on it with him as you can see in this picture. :-)

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas as well! We are already looking forward to next year when Carter will be a little older and will really understand what's going on.
May the Lord bless each of you and your families in this upcoming New Year!

Carter-8 1/2 months old

Poor Carter doesn't get blogged about enough. I keep forgetting to blog each month about his latest accomplishments and by the time I remember, we are already around to the next month! Time flies with two kids, that's for sure!

Carter is so sweet and seems a little bit meeker than Collin was. His smile and laugh are infectious! He loves his bro-bro Collin (that's what Collin wants to be called) and our dog Lexi. They can always make him smile. Collin loves to tickle Carter's belly with his mouth and Lexi loves to sneak in kisses when mommy's not looking. Carter is all over the place now. He's been crawling for a couple of months now and pulling himself up and walking around objects while holding on. I caught him the other day, and he had climbed up and was standing on top of the fireplace banging on the glass! Talk about almost having a heart attack when I walked in and saw that! He says "Da-da" and "Momma" now. He got his first tooth the day after he turned 8 months and now has a 2nd! He loves his bathtime with bro-bro and loves to eat his puffs for snack. I just love watching my two boys interact with each other now. They are so sweet to each other (most of the time)! ha! Looking forward to seeing what Carter does next!

Love you little man!

Ok....seriously....doesn't this shirt say it all??? :-)

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.....

He loves to stand up and look out the back door.
Lexi stealing a kiss. :-)

Jingle Bells....Collin's version

I got a new Flip video camera as an early birthday gift from my mom & dad. It is soooo much fun and I am still trying to get the editing and stuff figured out, but here was my first attempt at a video of Collin. I told him to sing "Jingle Bells" for me and he started out ok, but then improvised with his own rendition.....you'll see what I mean.....

Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!!

A Visit with Santa

We took the boys to see Santa Claus tonight and had a blast! Collin was so excited all day and was all ready with what he was going to ask for from the big man. As soon as he saw him, you could see the excitement building in his eyes. It was so precious. When it was his turn, he went up to Santa, shook his hand and said, "Nice to meet you." So sweet! Santa then asked if he wanted to sit on his lap, so we sat he and Carter up there. Carter was facinated with all the fur on Santa's outfit and wasn't scared at all. He did great! Poor Santa just about lost his leg because Collin talked it off! ha! He started off talking about all the circles he saw. Then he told him that he wanted a Lightning McQueen and that Carter wanted Mater from the movie "Cars". He then said, "Where are all the reindeer?" to which Santa replied that they were at the North Pole and Rudolph was there as well. "Oh, ok..." replied Collin.

Patiently waiting his turn...

Here he is saying, "Nice to meet you."
Carter checking Santa out

Collin telling Santa his Christmas wishes.

Carter got so excited, he tried to crawl back! We could hear him getting excited and laughing the whole way back over to Santa. I think Santa got a kick out of him as well. :-)

Our final stop was to ride Collin's favorite horse on the carousel, Chilo. He loves this horse and refuses to ride any other. After our turn tonight, a little girl chose to ride Chilo and Collin didn't have any problem telling her that Chilo was his....yikes....

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas........

I absolutely love this time of year. Although the decorating has become a little more challenging with two little ones running around, I still enjoy it.

Siebert Family Christmas Tree

I'm a little obsessed with this mesh stuff on my tree, but it's great to use if you are wanting to take up a lot of space on your tree and don't have enough of the big ornaments yet to do it.

I've collected the Dept. 56 Dicken's Village for several, several years now. Here's a small portion of it. I think I'm up to like 22 houses now. I have to display it above my kitchen cabinets now so the kiddos don't break it. :-)


The stockings were hung by the chimney with care.....
So, yes, there are 5 stockings......the 5th one is the dog's, Lexi. I got these adorable monogrammed stockings from Pottery Barn. Love them!

So happy to have our newest addition to the mantle this year!

Since we have a double-sided fireplace, I have 2 mantles to decorate. I struggled with this one this year and am still not completely happy with it, but it's a little late in the game to come up with a new strategy.

Even Lexi, the dog, gets into the Christmas spirit with her own Christmas dog bowls! I got these up in Kansas City several years ago when we lived up there.

I love to hang large ornaments from my dining room light. :-)

Family Pics

My friend Katie from church took these family pics for us a few weeks ago. She has started a little side business, The Peekaboo Image Photography, so she got some good practice in with us. Thanks Katie!!

Christmas favorites.....

We l.o.v.e. to watch Christmas cartoons. I love that the boys love it as much as I do now! ha!

Collin loves to help me cook, so we decided to make some Christmas cookies.