The St. Louis Zoo penguin march

Well, here is my aunt, dad, Caleb and E heading to the penguins.  We were all excited and a little cold, but it was a great day.  It was as warm as it could be and still have the penguins out.

Caleb and Pop checking out the bears.

This little guy was a ham.  He was out there posing and walking around.  It was too cute!

Then the big guys came out, the King Penguins!  They also were struting their stuff and striking poses.  They make the craziest noises.

These penguins were almost as tall as Caleb.  He was very excited to be there.  E was with my folks and they were not able to see them.  We'll be going back on a cold day so there will not be as many people there.

E liked the polar bear and Pop liked showing it to him.

Ooma and E enjoying a ride!

Caleb riding an Elephant.  He was SO excited despite the look on his face in this picture.

This guy was showing his stuff to 2 females in the prarie dog area.  I felt bad for him because one took off over the wall and the other was too busy eating to pay attention.  I thought he was very pretty!

This is one of the baby tigers.  They were very cute.  A lot bigger than when they were first born, but you could tell they were not full size yet.

Mommy and this baby were having all kinds of fun together playing and running around.  The mama tiger sounds like an elephant.  She doesn't growl at all.  
It was a great day at the zoo!  Hope you all had a nice day today too.

Christmas highlights

Elijah was so happy Christmas morning.  He is hooked on Larryboy!  He hangs on to that all the time since then.  It's too cute.  I was wondering when he'd get his 'lovey' and now he has it.

This is Noah's pile of presents that he was saving.  He didn't want to be the first done, so he kept some.  Then he says, 'I guess it would be nice to open another present.'  It was cute.  When he opened his new bible (which was after lots of toys) he was so excited and said, 'A bible!!!  This is the BEST present!!!'  On his trip to NC with Daddy the next day he said he would like a bible every Christmas.  I LOVE that!!  He reads his bibles so much they end up falling apart.

Caleb loved his pirate ship!  So, did Noah.  They played with them the whole morning until we left for Uncle Richie's house.

E's too favorite things were the Larryboy and his Veggie Tale Bible.  He really loves the Veggie Tales.

This is one of Tyler's new Christmas presents.  Caleb kept wearing it.  It freaks me out a bit.  He was so cute.

Uncle Richie and Addison.  So, cute!

This is the best picture of me and my boys on Christmas day!

Tyler getting dressed up in the present we gave the girls.

E thought is was pretty funny.  He was also attached to that bottle since he doesn't get those.

Uncle Richie thought everyone needed to be dressed up, since Tyler and the girls were getting dressed up.  He looks so crazy!

Well, Christmas is over for another year.  That's a bit sad, but in comes the new year and I pray that it will be better than the last.  2008 was a pretty good year, but we did have a LOT of medical issues.  Pray for a better year.  I want to see less urgent cares, ER's and doctors offices.  We'd LOVE to pay less on copays and medicines.

I'm taking one photo workshop trip this year.  It should be great and I'm VERY excited.  Last year I did 2 workshops and one conference.  They helped out a lot.  I'm excited to see where my photography goes from there.  Well, if I'm going to make it though the day tomorrow I need to get some sleep.  Byron and Noah are out of town, so I'm on with no help until Wed.  and they left Friday morning.  It's a long time to be alone.

Twas the night before Christmas....

Noah and Daddy came out of Noah's room to remind me to put milk and cookies out for Santa.  It was funny, because I just threw away a bag of cookies.  Thankfully, I had not thrown away the cookies I made a few weeks ago.  Yes, they need to be pitched and I will do that tomorrow.  Anyway, I just put crumbs on the plate and a tiny bit of milk in the mug.  He'll be excited to see the left overs on the plate.

This is our crazy tree.  Yes, the ornaments are all at the top and that's the way it will be for years to come.  Santa already left his presents under there.  They are toward the back in case Noah did come down.  He would remember what he saw and if it was from Santa and under there, we'd be busted.

Check out that sweet belly!

E was on the phone.  It's so cute how you don't have to teach kids how to use a phone.  They just pick so much up by watching.

Love this pic of me and Caleb.  It was so sweet how he touched my face.

My mom (Ooma) took the boys on a hike after purchasing them a bunch of warm gear.  I didn't think Caleb would put it all on, but he did.

This week we drove through Lone Elk park and saw FIVE wild turkeys.  That was SO cool!

Doctor E, paging doctor E.  Again he picked this up on his own.  It was so cute.  He put those on his neck and started walking around the house.

I was out without the boys and saw this guy in Kirkwood.  I thought the boys would love to see a fully decorated tree on the back of a car.  It had lights and they were on!

I just thought this was cute.  We see Ron way too often!

This is from the neighbors house.  Noah wanted his pic with both of these giant things.  We don't do pics with Santa, because the boys freak out.  Not worth the money, but this was free :)

This is a pic of my boys at Missouri Botanical Gardens.  We've been to the train display 3 or 4 times this year.  We have a membership, so it's cheap (free) and the boys love watching the trains and finding something new each time.

Twas the night before Christmas and everyone (except me) is finally fast asleep!  I'm SO excited about tomorrow.  The boys are excited too.  We opened a few presents tonight and it was great.  Uncle Jonathan, Aunt Christine, Alex and Ethan always do such a great job on gifts for the boys.  They played with everything and had a great time.  

While Byron was reading to the boys, I cleaned the downstairs.  Just cleaned up after dinner and presents.  Then I got to play Santa and bring up all the gifts and put them under the tree.  I got a new little point and shoot camera tonight and some very cool boy mom t-shirts.  I can't wait to wear one tomorrow.  I'm also going to only use my new little camera.  When I use my good camera I think I miss too much of the moment and I don't want to do that.  All these are from my old camera, except the tree pic that's my new camera.

Gotta get to sleep so I don't run into Santa.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

I'm stuffed!!

Well, today was another nice day with the boys.  We hung out this morning and were planning on taking a hike after my mom got to my house.  She went to the Alpine Shop to buy them long underwear so playing out in the cold is not SO cold for them.  Anyway, when she arrived Elijah was done!  So, Ooma and Pop took the older boys and I put E in bed for a nap.  They were gone a while.  I was able to watch 'The Doctors' (from last night) while I ate lunch, IN PEACE!!!  Then I vacuumed the floor and did the dishes.

They had lunch and when E got up I took the big boys to a friends so I could go to the mall.  My sister in laws birthday is today and we were going out for dinner with the family.  SO, after the mall and a nice visit with my good friend, Cindy I headed home.  The sitter was there as I'm getting the kids in the house and then I was off to Harrah's for the buffet.  I've never eaten there and it was fantastic!  It cost A LOT, but when your dad pays for you the cost is pretty reasonable :)

Pray for no ice tonight!

Christmas is coming....fast!

I thought I'd post some of our Christmas activities.  One story first that I don't think I've told.  I tie our stockings on the steps banister.  Well, the boys play with them and kept taking them down.  I told them if they did it again I would put them away and then Santa would have no where to put their stuff.  Well, of course, they did it again so I put them away.  Noah says to me, "It's OK we still have a tree."  He was not upset at all.  He told me a different day that Santa didn't need to get him anything, because he knew "You, Daddy, Ooma and Pop would get him presents."  He's so crazy!  Anyway, I did put the stockings up and took back the gifts we boutht for them.  He will not realize it until he's old enough and cares enough to read this.  Christmas is going to be crazy.  

This picture is of the ornaments we made out of dough.  I remember as a kid making these, so it's fun to now do it with my boys. The boys had fun with this.  We may paint them after they dry. 

Caleb cleaned up after we decorated the house.

Here's our beautiful house  :)  .  Pay close attention to the cool trees and the wreath.  

E was enjoying his part of decorating.

I LOVE this sweater!  Caleb doesn't wear much other than his dino shirts and jammies, so to get him in a sweater is quite an accomplishment.  The candy cane eating dino helped a lot!  Present from Ooma.

Really could E be any cuter in that outfit?  He's in the holiday spirit.

This is Noah's preschool Christmas presentation.  He did such a great job.  Back row red sweater.  He was all into it.  SO handsome!

The final attempt to get the play group in a picture.  They were all pretending like they were sleeping.  Yeah right!  We didn't even try to get the siblings in this pic.

Here are the two littlest monkeys.  They are too cute.
This was our first attempt to get a group pic that included all the kids.  E is behind Noah, N and N are not on the bed at all.
This was the second attempt.  The only two missing were the babies and we love them too much to put them in the middle of all that craziness.
It was a fun Christmas party!  Good salad, chili and cookie cake!  I'm not sure I'll post again before Christmas, so have a Merry Christmas!