It's A New Year!

Happy New Year! We celebrated "Noon Years Eve " with the kiddos since they still go to bed at their usual time. Cupcakes and "adult drinks" (they were so tickled by this idea, it was cute!)

The hubby and I had a nice date dinner out- something we haven't done in years!  A lot of fun. As with most years lately, we didn't make it to midnight ourselves - in fact we slept through any midnight hoopla in the neighborhood even!

As usual, we hope 2015 is a fun, safe, happy and healthy year.

 I realized last year that while it was nice having a break from training for any sort of race (I only ran one official race), I missed the challenge of getting ready for one. So...I am signed up for my first (small) triathlon the end of March!

I have been toying with the idea of one for a little over a year now. As I did with running, I'm starting off small - 400 meter swim (a full 8 laps in a lap pool), 8 mile bike and 2.4 mile run. Feeling confident about the run, but I haven't ridden a bike in years as well as done any "serious" swimming.
I just started going to the lap pool last week...one thing about training for a spring triathlon - the yucky winter swim hours! Very limited. However, next week  I will begin swim lessons - purposely for someone like me training for a triathlon, who needs help with my stroke and distance (those lanes are longer than they appear once you're trying to swim them!) I'm looking forward to the extra guidance, I think I'll need it to feel more comfortable. Already eight weeks away!

Can't believe that as I write this we are already halfway through January. We have a very busy (and fun) first part of February coming up!

Christmas Festivities!

Another fun holiday with our families! Christmas Eve we spent with Josh's family, as we normally do. This year we trekked over to his brother's house and mingled, had a glorious meal (he had smoked turkey that was to die for), homemade stuffing, yummy potatoes...and cherry pie to top it off! All so good. Then we opened gifts. This was the first year we drew names on his family side, which was great. We then headed back to our side of town so that we could attend evening church service at our home church. We actually haven't been to our home church in years for Christmas Eve service, so nice to have gone.

Pleasantly surprised that the boys slept Christmas morning until Nate's alarm went off! (7:30am for winter break!) Mom and Dad actually got to wake fairly refreshed ;)

Most years after we open gifts we usually go to my parents house to celebrate with my siblings, but this year I hosted Christmas at our home. It was nice not having to leave the house!

Nate was the "elf" this year - meaning he got to pick/hand out everyone's gifts

The Christmas highlight - a battery operated car to drive! Nate has already just about reached the max size for it, but I figured Aaron would at least get a few years out of it.

The adults then played games and ate dessert goodies while the kids played with their new toys.We are so blessed to have such wonderful families to spend the holidays with!

And oops...yes...I did forget to mention my birthday, which happened shortly before Christmas. Our tree was looking a little frumpy (though better than I thought it'd look after such a journey to our house) so the boys decorated it a bit better - the Christmas tree turned into the Birthday tree!

We left it the way it was ;)

Lots of birthday celebrations with friends and family. I went with all my boys to see The Nutcracker- first time we've all gone as a family.

The evening we celebrated my birthday with my parents and siblings we ordered a cool birthday cake - or I should say, a "hot chocolate mug" cake!

So yummy! Chocolate cake with raspberry cream filling.

I may or may not have finished cake leftovers the following day...as in entirely. Oops.

Other Holiday Fun

Other than going up north, the kids met Santa a few other times - Nate went with his Cub Scout group to our city's holiday parade (some of the older kids got to be on a float).

Santa!

Our tumbleweed tree got lit

We also got to have tea and cookies with Santa, Mrs Claus and some elves one Saturday afternoon. Nate was always on top of making sure we brought his list to show Santa!

We met Santa at the mall....

Nate sang carols with his Cub Scout group at a local nursing home

To Nate's delight I made him a holiday lunch for his last day before winter break!

Nate's school also had a Reindeer Run the last day (a run around school for fun, I was excited to take part and run with him!) and his class made gingerbread houses the last day as well.

Aaron's school for the month of December was all Christmas oriented...which I thought was fun...Christmas songs, stories, crafts, etc. Since our public school does away with a majority of that now I'm glad Aaron got to have "fun school" for a bit! Holiday parties and events have always been cherished parts of my school memories. 

Christmas craft sampling

Winter Wonderland

Last weekend we took the kids up north to Flagstaff for some cabin/winter fun. They also knew we were taking them for a ride on the Polar Express! We took Nate a few years ago, and after visiting Flagstaff last winter and not being able to get tickets for it, decided we would buy tickets to ride as soon as they went on sale for this winter. With Aaron especially being into transportation, he was excited to ride a train for his first time.

As an added bonus, we got snow! The boys were stoked. Usually we've seen snow but haven't actually gotten to watch it snow.

It was so relaxing to spend the majority of our first day there just chilling at the cabin, watching it snow off/on. We lit a fire, had hot chocolate, built a gingerbread house and the kids played. So glad we didn't make any other plans before driving to Williams for the train ride. And...it was wonderful to have a break from all the hustle and bustle we would have otherwise been in had we stayed home! At first I was bummed because of all the activities we were missing being away that weekend, but it was worth it. The snow itself made it worth it!

Now...onto the Polar Express!

Perfect weather for going to the North Pole!

Our hot cocoa/cookie servers

Passing out bells

On the way to the North Pole we read the story and got hot cocoa/cookies. There were a bunch of twinkle lights as we arrived and Santa boarded the train , passing out bells to each of the kids. Then we sang Christmas carols going back to the station. Both boys enjoyed it.

The following day we hung out at the cabin for a bit more, but by lunchtime we left and headed to a tree farm to chop down our own tree! Our first experience with this. Well...now we understand why people go early. The farm wasn't too much of a farm, pretty picked over. But, we did (luckily) find a tree we liked. It even made the 2.5 hr journey ride home! I was afraid we'd have nothing left but branches. It's not like the "full" trees we're used to, but it's kinda fun that it's unique and made getting a tree a little bit more special this year.

Goodness. Now Christmas is right upon us. December seems to be one of the fastest months of the year if you ask me. The kids have just started their Winter Break. Other holiday fun coming up in another post ;)

Hubby's Latest...

One last woodworking project for 2014. I've always wanted an entryway table. While hubby took care of building the table, I worked on pictures and decorations.

Now it's time to work on other house stuff - like deep cleaning :p

The Windy City!

We had our first family flight together not too long ago...to the Windy City! We visited a bunch of family (see next post) but we managed to squeeze in some sightseeing and time with friends too.

Boys got up the morning we left with no problem, excited. Heck Aaron was excited just to ride the bus shuttle from the parking lot to the airport itself :) I was a little nervous that once we got on the plane that Aaron would be scared, but he was perfectly fine! (ok, maybe the excitement factor that I let the kids have bubble gum when we took off and landed overwhelmed any fears or nerves)

Once we got to Chicago we stayed overnight in downtown. With it being a traveling day, I didn't feel like we should be then in a car for another hour-ish to get to anyone's house. Best decision! We had a little bit of time to walk down to Navy Pier. We had dinner and Nate wanted to go on the ferris wheel.

We always go to a Bubba Gump whenever we see it!

The following morning we had a little bit of time to explore before going to Josh's grandparents house. So, we walked down Michigan Ave, had pizza for lunch and checked out the Hancock building.

Look, colored leaves!

Deep dish heaven

The next day we went to our friend's house - Nate's best buddy Braedan moved to the area over the summer. They were so kind to let us sleep over for three nights. We were happy to have had some open time to do fun stuff with them too!

Silly characters - the idea was for them to sleep in the same bed one night, but we ended up having to separate them :)

They loved their cereal time together

Overall we had a wonderful time. Weather was certainly different...forty degree difference for us and coming home we unfortunately got stuck in all the snow in Minnesota! It made for a six hour delay. Now of course the kids want to know when they get to fly on a plane again!