one two three

three amigos

three musketeers

three stooges

one 

two 

three

BOYS!

Yeah, we couldn't be happier! We are having a healthy baby BOY!

Happy Birthday/New Year's Eve PARTY!!!!

Wowsers!!!! I have the coolest friends ever. 

They wanted to do a birthday party/NYE party this year (I can't remember the last time we had an actual party on my birthday). We decided to have it at my house and Matt and I wanted to do a fondue theme (inspired by his family tradition and the triple slow cooker my mom got us). 

Matt had the morning off on my bday. We cleaned our house like fools and went shopping at Costco (wooo!). Got lots of food for the party! Matt took off for his afternoon clinic, I did some random cleaning, painted my nails and a little shopping. It wasn't a bad day. :) 

Then about 45 minutes before the party began my friend Kassie showed up to decorate....and that girl sure has a the touch! She made it look like this in no time!!

 We had a pizza fondue, a cheesey/salsa fondue and of course, chocolate fondue. It was delicious!!!

 She even got us all these cute party hats and made me a special one. :)

 My friend Bekah made a dream come true for me that night. She bought me a Cake Boss cake!!!! 

And you just can't imagine how good it tasted. It was amazing. 

Kassie and Allan.

 I wish I would have taken better pictures of my guests! 

I wanted to invite more people, but we were having so many of them putting their kids to sleep at our house, and the rooms filled up quickly. A few friends couldn't come, because of sick kids and they sure were missed!

 Matt, Toby (on the floor), Joe and Bekah.

 The Collette kiddies who stayed up till midnight with us!

We were so busy playing games and chatting that we almost missed midnight! I randomly looked at my phone and it said 11:59!!! So we all ran into the kitchen to watch the ball drop. We barely made it by like 8 seconds. Cathy brought some fun little confetti things.

 The Collettes!

 And I um love this picture because....well, I'm not sure what the heck Bekah and Joe are doing. They are hilarious. 

 Yes, I realized I look totally fat in all of these pictures...but trust me, it's just a bad angle! And did you know that 3 of the 5 of us girls were professional models (obviously not me!)...so it's just not fair. 

Oh and I'm pregnant. :)

 My instagram pics...

 I really have such amazing friends and I feel so blessed! Kassie prepared this fun Jeopardy game and there was a column titled, "There's something about Mary." She had contacted Matt a few days earlier to ask him some questions about me. Surprisingly, my friends knew most of the answers. I was impressed! Then she read a cute paragraph of something super sweet that Matt had said about me. She even started to tear up while reading it (she's really tender :). It was really sweet.  She had to leave early because Jane woke up, I was sad she wasn't in our pictures!

Matt spoiled me yet again. He bought me these workout clothes that I've wanted for a while now. They are super cozy and I love them! And yes, I'm sucking it in.

 He got me some Amazon gift cards and maternity clothes cards. 

And speakers! Sounds totally nerdy, and more of a gift he bought himself, but actually, I really wanted them. It fits perfectly up on our cabinets in our kitchen and it's wireless!!! It has Bluetooth, so it wirelessly connects to our iPhones, or iPad or whatever. It's sweet! It has a little remote too, so I don't have to get the stool out to reach up there (like our old ones).

 I don't normally take photos of every gift I get, but I had taken them for Matt (he was on call the next day), so he wanted to see them. I figured I'd post them anyway.

I felt a lot of love in cards, gifts from my parents and in-laws, texts, phone calls, facebook messages and more! I am so blessed to be surrounded by such wonderful, loving and thoughtful people!

I'm also thankful that my birthday is on New Year's Eve, because people are partying everywhere, and I love it!

A big THANK YOU to my wonderful husband Matt, my two sweet boys (Dev kept telling me Happy Birfday all day), and to my wonderful friends and family!

Merry Christmas 2012!!!

On Christmas Eve Luke insisted on making cupcakes for Santa. He thought he was tired of so many cookies. :)

The funny part was we only had a Halloween mix. So I covered the orange frosting with all those sprinkles. I think we fooled Santa!

 The Christmas goods!

 Dev loved his train all set up. He knew it was for him and in ran straight to it, laid on his belly and just played with it for a while. It was so cute.

 Closing their eyes...it took Devin a long time to scoot down the stairs with his eyes closed. Funny kids.

 It took us about 3 hours to open all of our presents! Mostly because we took turns. Since we have no where to go, we like to try and savor the morning!

 The boys were got a little too spoiled this year I think...Lukes two big presents were this collect of Star Wars stuff and a remote control Sonic the Hedgehog skater dude, among lots and lots of other toys, games, movies and clothes.

 And Dev's two bigger gifts were his train set and this big rig that holds like 50 matchbox cars. I love his fascination with cars, trains, air places, etc.

They were also spoiled by their grandparents too!

 Matt is a great gift-giver. I wasn't sure I'd ever say that. But really, he has surprised me quite a bit over the last couple of years. This year he really outdid himself. He gave me 3 sets of jammies, lots of little stocking stuffers, an Aldo backpack that I really wanted, maternity pants (nice try babe), the softest sheets on the planet and my biggest surprise were my new Hunter boots. They are rain boots and they are AMAZING! Most people know that I have a bit of an obsession with boots (and yes, I usually get at least one pair each year), but these ones definitely top them all. THANK YOU BABE!!!! 

And if you're thinking, why rain boots? Well, Cleveland is a very wet place, lots of rain throughout the year and I've already gone through my share of cheap rain boots. I'm SO excited! :)

Oh and Luke "went in on the boots too." He is very observant little fella, he knew that I really wanted some fancy pens (that I use to write on my clients CDs) and so Luke bought me a set of nice pens. He is so much like his dad. I'm surrounded by little gentlemen! 

 Our parents really spoiled us as well. We are so thankful for the practical gifts they give. Seriously, they always give gifts that we need and want to buy, but don't always have the extra money to get them. This year we got this awesome emergency radio that has phone chargers, wind up battery, a solar panel, flash light and other nifty little gadgets on it. We also got a Victorio Strainer! Yay. We've been making applesauce the last few years and always borrowed one, but now we have our own to make more applesauce this year! My mom got us this triple slow cooker. Basically it's great for entertaining. We love it and have already used it a few times since Christmas! The boys were spoiled with countless toys and we got lots of other little things and money. We are so thankful for such wonderful, loving parents!

You probably aren't wondering, but in case you were, Matt was given lots of clothes (that he needed badly), socks (a gift given to each of us at almost every holiday...why do we all go through socks so fast?!), a head lamp (he still thinks it's lame, but I know it will come in handy!) and lots of other little things. 

But most of all we are grateful for this time of year to remember the birth of our Savior and to reflect on all of our wonderful blessings!

Merry Christmas!! 

Much to blog about...December Part 2

The first half of December was actually quite warm, with some rain. We didn't get a snow storm until right before Christmas. We Matt took advantage of the nice weather with many trips to the park with the boys. We have an old, closed down school just 2 blocks away, there is a big parking lot behind it and it's a great place to take the boys and their bikes. I joined them one sunny night.

 That same night me and my friend Bree surprised our husbands with a FUN date!!!

My sitter came over and we all drove to an indoor shooting range. It was our first time at an indoor range, it was really LOUD! And for some reason freezing cold. But it was a lot of fun and the boys LOVED it.
Aren't we cool?

 Matt in his new fancy pants coat, that he loves. He is quite smokin' in it, if I do say so myself!  :)

 Me and Bree-the cool wives.

 Afterwards we took them out to Penn Station (a really good, greasy man-food-kind of sub place). It was so much fun! 

The next day I took my boys to the Cleveland Rockefeller Greenhouses. They were having an all FREE, kids Christmas fest. It was like this little gem that we discovered! It was awesome! I told a few people about it, but only one family showed up...and I know everyone else was sorry! They had free lunches for the kids, and then let them go into a room (by themselves, but we could see them the whole time) and pick out whatever toy they wanted! They were pretty awesome toys too! And then back in the garden was Santa and he gave them bags of candy. It was awesome! I love finding fun, free stuff like this! 

 Luke: "Mom, I think that was Santa's helper because his hands were black."

Gotta love Cleveland!

 The poinsettia display was really lovely too!

 On to more randomness...

 Dev "falls asleep" all the time like this. ;)

 I got my busy baking/candy making on this year and made lots of caramels for friends and also some delicious fudge, divinity, and toffee. Mmmmmm....

 Matt really is such a fun dad. We played hide and seek...and really had the hardest time finding him...

 This is up way back in Devin's closet (which goes up and in really deep). It was pretty hilarious.

 A day at the mall to see Santa for the hundredth time. He was a very nice-looking Santa though, who gave out crayons and coloring books.

 Matt has been on THE BEST rotation of residency...and we've been soaking up every minute of it! I swear some weeks he's working like 25 hours...ahhh we've loved it! Well, he also lucked out big time around Christmas and somehow got 6 days off. These are some of the things we did...

 Twice a month they have Family Night at Chick-fil-a. Kids eat free, there is a clown that ties balloons ..oh and Santa Cow was there too. Plus of course the play place. It was great!

 

Devin really is our hilarious little munchkin. One of his latest tricks is faking dead....He does this many times a day. It's usually funny...but sometimes also a little annoying (like when we are trying to get him dressed!). Notice his tongue?

Back to more work on our blasted window...Matt plastered it, let it dry and sanded away. It took him about 4 hours to get it smooth. Luckily I covered our couches with sheets, because we found a layer of dust all over our entire main floor, even back in the kitchen. It was a mess! But at least we did the most deep cleaning we've probably ever done since we moved in. He's working machine!

 Next day we took off to the children's museum! Every year for about 6 months, during the winter, they get this awesome sand exhibit. It's a big room just full of sand. We spent almost 2 hours in that room! We loved it!

 Matt convinced Devin to climb this tower (we had a 3 yr old and 5 yr old with us that wouldn't even do it)...but alas...Matt had to shimmy up there and get him out. It was quite entertaining for myself and like 6 other parents to watch. 

 Lots of shoveling.

Texas Roadhouse Grill (our fav).

A night in Kirtland to see the Nativity exhibits...

 We opened some presents from our cousins...the boys thought they were awesome (especially since we let them open them on Christmas eve eve).

 Christmas Eve....

 Daddy made snowman pancakes for breakfast.

 Luke's list to Santa.

 A morning at the bowling alley...

I love this little face!

 Some money spent at the arcade and lunch at Five Guys.

 And just like his birthday, he requested to wear swim shorts when we got home for his nap. 

By the way....also during this week he went on a no-napping strike and one afternoon I went to check on him and found little toes poking under the door. I opened the door and he was completely naked and his dresser was totally empty. He had his swimming suit in his hand and said, "Mommy, let's go swimming!"

And in case you are wondering...he is back to the naps and my life has been saved!

My next post is a much more detailed Christmas one.

But a glimpse of Christmas morning....

(Notice our window?!! Well, a little. We finished it after a couple hours of painting, then cleaning like crazy and putting everything back together, just in time before Christmas Eve. YAY!)

 Luke and Dev got a bunch of Play-doh stuff this year...but I think this one was more for me. :) An ice cream shoppee (I need a little girl).

 The day after a good friend was willing to watch our boys for a good 4 hours or so and Matt and I went to the new Les Miserables movie. I cried like a baby through almost the whole thing...but I pretty much LOVED it too (except for a few parts, but you really can't beat Hugh Jackman). We also had a blizzard, so that night the boys played and did lots more shoveling.

I asked Luke to clean his room and a few days later found this mess up in our guest room....Nice.

 Dev got a train for Christmas. It was very simple and he absolutely loves it.

This is one of his many "funny faces."

 And eventually Matt did have to return to work (sniff, sniff) and I ventured out to shovel our extremely long  driveway, yes by hand. Did you know that ALL of our neighbors have snow blowers and think thatwe are so lame that we don't (even though we are in better shape!! :)....I may have had a bit (or a lot) of snow blower-envy that day...and a back ache. #pregnancymakesmeawhimp