The Tulip Festival

Seeing as how I don't scrapbook, I figure I should probably keep the blog updated. I know it's been four months, but hey, I've been kind of busy (okay, maybe you can say, "lazy," but we'll just say "busy" for now).

Every year there's a Tulip Festival about an hour and a half away from us. This is the first year we actually went. I'm sure anyone from Holland would probably laugh at it, but I thought it was beautiful. And of course the place was covered in mud. Which means my kids ended up absolutely filthy.

We also met up with some friends there. Here are Taylor and Erik and sweet little Brooklyn.

Melanie was always on the floor. She would run and just fall down and roll over in the mud. And then small groups of Asian people would come over and laugh at her.

See- I told you there was lots of mud.

It was like pulling teeth trying to get the boys still enough for this picture.

There was a grass field next to the tulip fields. The kids wasted a lot of energy running around in it.

Pretty, ain't it?

Because We Are THAT Awesome!

My friend, Tara, told me about how she thought it would be a fun idea if we had an Ugly Christmas Sweater party. I admit- I'd never been to nor heard of one before. But I thought it would be a GREAT idea. When I told Kent about it, he looked like I told him Christmas was coming early and that we wouldn't have to pay for gifts.

Because when we say an Ugly Christmas Sweater party, we mean an UGLY Christmas Sweater party.

The best party about Kent's was ALL of the bells. Oh yeah. And it sang "Jingle Bells."

If you can't tell from the picture, my sweater has REAL tree branches on it. None of this faux stuff, faux sure (yes, you must laugh at that).

I wish we would have gotten a picture of everyone before people started taking off. It was awesome!

Not surprisingly, Kent won the Ugliest Sweater award. But for your viewing pleasure, meet Scott, Tara's husband. I almost died laughing when I saw him.

And because I'm still playing catch-up, here are our Polar Express pictures. We went with two of the same couples from the party. And it wasn't easy to get a picture of the kids-

And before you even ask, YES, I made our jammies. Why? So my kids can be embarrassed for the rest of their lives. And we look more organized. And I'm cheesy like that.

Lumberjackin'

I'm a die-hard real Christmas tree kinda gal. So off we went to the local tree farm to chop down our Christmas tree! Luckily they had warm apple cider ready for us. And by "warm" I mean numb-your-mouth hot.

I love when Kent doesn't shave. I think he loves when he doesn't have to shave, too.

"Taylor, don't go in the mud!"

"This mud, Mom?"

"Yes, Taylor. That's the mud I'm talking about."

Now which one is THE tree?

Melanie and her usual cute pacifier-in-the-mouth self.

Yes, that's Kent chopping down the tree while holding Melanie on his back. Isn't that how real lumberjacks do it?

And she started with two socks. I swear.

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!

These are the pics we used for our Christmas cards this year. It had been a cold weekend, and that Monday it started to snow. I was talking with my friend, Tara, and she said, "Wouldn't the snow make for such beautiful Christmas card pictures?"

So naturally I had to drag my family out into the freezing weather. Without coats (because what's the point of matching outfits if they're covered up?). And then yell at the boys to stop getting dirty, and won't you PLEASE, for the 20th time, stop putting your hands in the snow or your hands will get wet and then you'll whine because they're too cold? And no, I don't have any snacks! And don't look at dad while he's running to get into the picture- look at the camera!

Anyway, Tara was right. They made for some awesome pictures, even if we were all shivering and had snot running down our noses because it was so cold. Lucky for you we didn't include those pics in the Christmas card.

And because I'm so proud of the fact that it wasn't a complete catastrophe, yes, I made Melanie and I matching skirts. Well, my first skirt was a catastrophe, but that's beside the point.

Has it Already Been One Year?

I could have sworn I had Melanie just a short while ago. The first year seems to go by faster with each child you have.

She turned one on November 9th. Still not walking or talking. She had only 2 teeth but if you saw her eat, you'd swear her mouth was full of 'em. And did I mention she's positively adorable?

It was hilarious watching her eat the cake. Whenever she gets something that she's really excited for, she doesn't tear at it right away. She sits there and laughs for a bit first. It's great fun.Such a sweet little thing. We couldn't imagine life without her!

Pumpkin Pickin'

I'd really like to post what we did for Halloween before the Christmas post. I was supposed to do that before Christmas actually got here. But (not surprisingly) I didn't get it done. Now I'm trying to frantically update our bloggity-blog.

So here's the annual pumpkin pickin' at the pumpkin patch. And yes, we made our kids wear their costumes to the farm so we could take cute pictures. Thankfully they're not yet old enough to care.

There were so many cute pictures of Melanie. It was hard to narrow it down so the post wasn't a mile long. Because I think she's awfully cute.

Surprisingly Erik didn't love the guts out of this sweet little kitten. I was scared for it for a while.

It's really hard to get a picture of all the kids looking at the camera and smiling. We'll settle for one where they all look fairly normal.

There was a corn maze there as well. It was pretty well-planned, seeing as how Kent and I actually got lost.

At least we got a decent picture of all of us out of the trip.

Sweet little cow tale.

The end.

*chuckle*