Last gift of Christmas

Remember how I'd said that we asked the Haseks to save a special little puppy for us till Christmas? At the end of gift opening, daddy brought in that last present. A puppy! Oh, was Katie excited.The little puppy she'd loved, was now all her own.  She was in heaven.

I think Jared likes the new puppy much more than he's willing to let on.  What do you think? We let the kids name our new family member during breakfast Christmas day.  Coleson is in a major Star Wars phase and he suggested Leia (as in Princess Leia).  All the kids unanimously agreed. I'm hoping that our wonderful Molly dog will help train our new puppy to be a wonderful dog like she is before she passes on.  This is going to be so fun!

Big boy haircut

Ethan got a real big boy haircut today.  He did a better job than Hunter does.  He sat still and didn't even cry.  I was so proud.

Craft time

I made this cute little ribbon Christmas tree today.  It was so fun and so easy.  Katie enjoyed helping me too. I think I'll make a few more.  The blue and silver matched the decor upstairs.  I could make some green and red ones for downstairs.

Puppies!!!

The Haseks' dogs had puppies a few weeks ago.  We were over visiting on Sunday and Katie fell in love with them.  They are so cute and adorable.  She especially bonded with this little black puppy.  The puppy let Katie carry her around all night in every different position and love all over her and the puppy never got tired of it.  Katie carried her around like a baby and still the puppy stayed with her.  She talked about it non stop for the next week.  In the meantime, I made a call to Sonia (who was trying to find homes for all the puppies) and asked her to keep that puppy set aside for us until Christmas.  ;)

Putting up the tree

We had a blast putting up the Christmas tree today.  The boys were so helpful.  Jared let the boys organize, sort, and put together the limbs of the Christmas tree.  It was neat to see them work together.  We snapped this picture of all the kids standing on the piano bench as they were trying to reach the top of the tree.
I love Christmas tree decorating.  I love pulling out all of our beautiful ornaments.  They have such sentimental value to me.  We buy or make an ornament every year for each child.  So there are memories attached to each one.  I dispense them to the children in order of fragility.  Coleson hangs the fragile ones on the top of the tree where they'll be safe and Katie and Ethan hang the fabric and wooden ornaments that don't break at the bottom of the tree.

Everyone working together to make a beautiful tree.

Family pictures 2011

 

Usually I spend days planning for our family pictures- from coordinating clothes and hairstyles to poses and location of the shoot. I put a lot of thought into it. But this year, not much of that. I texted Katelyn to see if she'd meet us at the park after work one day and just got everyone dressed in something nice and we went and did it. There's a park down the block from Jared's shop and the only idea I'd had was that it'd be fun to get a shot of us all coming down the curly slide in order from Ethan to Jared (which turned out cute but now I can't find on my computer). That's it. Our clothes didn't match (I'd already decided to just make it sepia and forget the color issue altogether) and Jared was even wearing a work shirt with a big ol' GLOCK insignia on it. But there was no whining or crying from anyone (especially Jared :) because they were trying to deal with mom's preconceived notions about how the event would go. I didn't spend days planning what each person would wear only to have someone spill down the only shirt that matches and then having to try and hide the spill behind someone else (not that that's happened before). It was just a lot less stressful. And dang cheap. I almost always end up heading out to the store for one shirt or sweater to complete everyone's ensembles. But not this year. And Katelyn did it for free and printing at Meijer cost me $24- for 8x10s and wallets and all of it! Nice.

Wedding dress

Andy finally proposed to Katelyn last month.  Today we went with Katelyn to make a final decision on her dress (she's been eyeing this one for months so it wasn't too hard).  At the end, she let Katie slip it on.  Oh was that a happy girl!!!

Katie spent the next couple weeks pretending to be a bride.