December is NUTS!!

As you can tell by my lack of posts, December has been NUTS and I've found no time to blog.  The month flew by - I can't believe we're staring 2012 in the eyeballs!

Ella and I started the first weekend in December with the Jingle Bell run downtown.  Her gym teacher got over 120 people signed up from the school. It was a ton of fun and Ella ran the whole way with me!  (It was a 5k, or 3.2 miles).  She did great and wants to start running with me more often.

We put our Christmas tree and decorations up earlier than usual this year because we hosted the Santa party, and it would have looked pretty bad to have Santa but no tree or decorations!

Both Ella and Silas wanted to put the angel on the tree this year - so they both did.  Both are getting pretty heavy for Justin to lift up that high!

We had another great visit with Santa this year - our 10th year I believe.  Such a fun tradition.
And Ella had quite the outfit picked out - she looks like one of Santa's Elves!

Ella's class also put on a stellar performance with their play called Snow Way Out.  It was very good and some of those kids that sang solos were very brave!

I tried to upload the video of one of the songs but no go...

Silas had  a fun party in class.  All the kids got a gingerbread boy. Si was so excited to get him.  His teacher had been reading The Gingebread Boy to them in class.

Margie got a cardboard gingerbread house for Ella and Silas to paint.  They did very well for the first couple days...then I had to twist arms to get them to paint!

Guess who ended up finishing the painting on it!? It turned out cute and Cleo likes it :)

Much more to post about Christmas and Si's birthday...but that will have to come later!

Flash Backs!

I've been feeling like everything is a deja vu lately.  Especially with these two boys.  Sometimes I see and watch them side by side and think I'm hallucinating. 

Mason - 2002 - at Kuhlwein's pumpkin patch (above)

Silas - 2011 - at the same place

I remember when we were there and seeing Silas in the blue with the orange pumpkin, reminded me so much of the picture of Mason.  Tonight when I was looking for some other pictures, I found it.  Mason is about a year older or so older (hence many more missing teeth!).
Often, when it's just me, Justin and Silas (when Ella and Mason are out with doing who knows what), Justin and I will feel like it's the pre-Ella and Silas days.  It's a funny feeling!!

Fall Into Winter...Already!

With Christmas quickly approaching, the kids have had some festive school projects to create.  In kindergarten, they make wreaths that they can decorate however they want. We made Si's this week.  I thought I'd have to come up with ideas for him, like things to glue on or family pictures but Silas knew exactly what he wanted to do.  He wanted snow on the ground, snowflakes falling and Santa and a snowman.  With the exception of gluing down some of the cotton balls (it was messy) he did everything else himself.
I thought he did a beautiful job!
I love that Silas is taking more interest in art and painting but in pure Silas style though,  he likes to drink the paint water. He really is a nutty child!!

Justin has gotten to go on two fun outings over the last few weeks.  The first was to see a Notre Dame vs. Boston College football game with Kevin.  It was a good game and ND won.  It was pretty cold, just like a November football game is supposed to be!

This week Justin got to go on a 5 day golf trip with Tim and a bunch of other guys.  They went down to Santee in South Carolina and golfed 3 days of 36 holes per day.  I can just imagine the Icy Hot and tired-men-drinking-booze smell filling the air in the condos! He had a BLAST and I was very happy to see him go have some fun after all the long days he's been putting in.

I have been happy to have some good live music to listen to.  I listen to CD101 (now 102.5) and the CD101 Holiday concert was this past week.  I won tickets to see one of the bands playing in the Big Room on Tuesday, so Justin and I went to see them.  There were probably less than 30 poeple in this (very not big) room and the band.  It was very cool. Sleeper Agent was the band.  A very young looking band.  It was a lot of fun.

I'm pretty sure we are old enough to be the parents of most of these guys!

That night I went to the concert by myself. Everyone else was either busy or had never heard of the bands I was seeing. It's the first time I've gone to a concert alone and it really wasn't that bad.  They biggest problem was I wanted to keep the spot that I had claimed (open venue, no seats) so I didn't leave to go to the bathroom or anything once there.  I stood up on the 2nd lever so that I had a better view of the stage and it was crazy watching all the young "kids" slam dancing and crowd surfing.  All I could think is how sore they would be the next day.  Guess that shows my age! (though I was never one to get into that anyway).

After a very busy week and weekend, we've got some sleepy people in the house (it's 9:30pm and I'm the only one still awake!).  But I think I'm ready for bed now too.  When did life get so exhausting!?! (I think my answer is when I hit my 40s!)

{PS} - sorry to be such a blog slacker lately - it's so hard to find time!  I promise to try to do better with updates!