We started our new year out by taking a quick trip back home to Alabama for a short week before the boys started back to school.

After our regular activities and preschool started back we added a swim class on Monday mornings for Matthew.  He started out not doing so great for his coach, but he’s gotten better and better each week!  Noah and I also started a Mommy n Me swim class and it has been SO fun!  I have love swimming with him each week. He smiles and laughs the whole time and it’s just a neat time for just us two to bond a little.  They all love the water so much!

It seems like we did have a few nice sunny days in January and we took advantage of it!  It’s hard to be in the house so much with kids during the winter, so if it’s warm, we go out!

We did some fun things like water play….

Or truck and rice sensory play.

More park time!

Goodness, Matthew is so cute!

Matthew and John Michael started really working on learning their states in their states puzzle.  They have done such a great job with them and they know all of them.  I’m so proud!

We went to the drive through Safari one sunny Saturday.  We love is every time we go!

We went inside the barn but our boys were more interested in the cat than anything!

Matthew asked us if he could ride Jewel the camel and we said yes!  Jordan rode it with him.

We had a n afternoon snack on the Crystal Bridges trail with cookies and oranges!

And we visited the LOVE statue in front of the museum.  I love our museum and the new, beautiful trails!

It was a fun and cold January!

Life just keeps moving and it never stops, does it?!

I had a New Year’s Resolution to make sure I blogged more and as you can see, that hasn’t really happened.

I hope to get back to blogging about things that have gone on in January and February but this past week has been a really hard one.  A few months ago we started wondering if Matthew was having snoring/sleeping problems.  I happened to notice his tonsils looked enlarged, but not red and inflamed. I mentioned it to the doctor and he referred us to our ENT.  He determined his adenoids/tonsils were, in fact, enlarged. We also had a sleep study that proved that Matthew was having a lot of severe apnea with dips in his O2 levels during the night (umm, hello, scary!).

This made a lot of sense to us and we felt like a lot of pieces of the puzzle were starting to come together with lot of behavioral problems we had been having with Matthew.  Our guess was that he was not being able to get into a deep sleep and was walking around exhausted every day.

Tuesday he had his tonsils and adenoids taken out and had a tube placed in one ear that would just not clear up all fall and winter.

This was a HUGE deal for me to hand my baby over for surgery.  I was so nervous and I had so many friends and family praying for us.  It went really well and the Lord took care of what I was most nervous about…handing him over to go back to the OR.  The nurses were great and they let him watch Cars 2 and they wheeled him off and he did just fine.  I was so nervous that he would scream and cry and call for us, but thankfully, he didn’t.  It was a  quick surgery and it went well.  We stayed and recovered for most of the afternoon and then headed home.  I got lots of snuggles in, so that was kind of nice even though it wasn’t in the way I would have wished!

For the first 2 days things went well and we thought he was just doing wonderfully, and then we got hit hard with his recovery and on top of that he caught a flu-type virus on top of everything.  I have never felt so sorry for him in all my life. Luckily, we had family n town for the part of this but it has been a hard few days for me as I take care of him and try to take care of the other boys too.  We did end up with a late-night ER trip when his fever just would not come down. Even Noah came down with a fever on Friday but his didn’t last long.

Even with sick little ones, life goes on…. The boys are out of school for Spring Break so we’ve been playing, eating lots of ice cream and popsicles, taking tons of Tylenol and Motrin, watching movies, doing puzzles, playing chutes and ladders, and Candy Land. Although it snowed today, we have had a few good days so we have played out back and played with worms and lady bugs (before Matthew got very sick).

Don’t squish the worm!

 The hardest part of the past few days of Matthew’s recovery was just him being in so much pain during the night.  I stayed right on top of the Motrin/Tylenol but he was in so much horrible pain and just screaming so much during the night.  It just hurt my heart so badly.  I finally called the doctor and just demanded that we be able to have something else .  I got them to call us in lidocaine lollipops and a steroid for the inflammation.  This has seemed to do the trick and I’m happy to report we are through the worst of this!  I mainly write this down so that I can remember what happened.

It’s strange to walk in the boys’ room at night to check on them and I can’t even hear Matthew.  He’s not really snoring anymore and his breathing is so quiet, so I know the surgery was definitely a good call.  It was a hard call but a good call for him.

Noah knew brother needed to be comforted.

 Feeling better!

This year I researched a lot on Advent and how to incorporate it into our family Christmas.  I came up with a good schedule of activities and crafts and Bible passages.  I also found “The Christmas Angel” instead of jumping on the Elf on the Shelf bandwagon.  Our Christmas Angel showed up every morning to tell us how we were going to bless someone else by spreading the real meaning of Christmas.  It was precious and I loved it.  The boys liked her too.  I hope to find new and different ways to do this every year!  We did fun and interesting things all throughout December and read and re-read the Christmas story a LOT!

We go to Krispy Kreme every Christmas Eve!  It’s a tradition now and the boys talk about their snowman donut all year long!

 We made LOTS of Christmas cookies and treats and bagged them up to take around on Christmas Eve.

We visited the hospital and the boys passed the treats out,

We took some to the policemen who are working on Christmas Eve instead of being home with their families.

I ran by the nursing home and then the boys played for a bit at a local train park!

We were having a very normal Christmas Eve until Noah woke up from nap with a very high fever.  I packed us up and headed to the ER to get this under control so we wouldn’t just be sitting there over Christmas waiting for the doctor’s office to open.  We were in and out in record time and I was so happy about that but it wasn’t exactly the Christmas Even I had planned or envisioned, but you go with the flow!  Noah and I got back home around bedtime and I was so concerned because I had SO much left to do, but alas, my wonderful husband thought ahead and had the boys help him do the cookies so they would have something to leave Santa before bed.

I was so surpirsed when I walked in the door and they already had the cookies rolled out!  What a thoughful husband!  He really helped me out!

Cookies and milk were ready for Santa and our boys were ready for him to come.  It wasn’t a normal Christmas Eve because Noah and I were at the ER but I definitely can’t complain!  It was a fun and educational Christmas season around here!  We had a blast!

What this Advent season taught me was that if I’m intentional about it, I can show my boys, even on the most normal of days, that we can do small things to show the love of Jesus to people around us.  It also showed me that I do a really BAD job of doing this throughout the busy year.  I’m trying hard to cultivate these things into our regular lives.  As usual, I’m not perfect but I’m a work in progress always, praise Jesus!

As usual, I’m very, very behind on catching up on the ole blog.  Here’s a glimpse of our Christmas!

We were all together, healthy, and happy, so what else could you ask for?!  We started our morning out by playing with our nativity and going over the Christmas story in the Bible first.  Then, the fun began and the boys opened presents!

We opened presents for awhile and then we had a wonderful family breakfast.  Jordan’s mom and sister were up for Christmas so we had a full table!  We had breakfast sausage casserole, pigs n a blanket, monkey bread, and orange juice.  I prepped the monkey bread the night before (all except the butter) and it turned out to be the best monkey bread that I had ever made.  I was pleasantly surprised!

And last but not least, John Michael had very specifically asked Santa for a white bike and you’ll never believe that Santa actually found a white bike this year!  I can’t wait for the weather to get warmer so he can start really riding it!

It was a wonderful, warm Christmas at home!

During December we did some fun crafts!  The boys did this cute Christmas tree craft, and because JM is older, I labeled his with numbers and had him glue them in order.

Doesn’t Noah look happy to finish his tree?!

Matthew and JM had a choir concert with all the other kiddos for a Sunday night singing in the chapel.

They did just great and had a fun cupcake afterwards to celebrate!

And for fun, Noah in his Christmas best!

JM was a shepherd in his school Christmas pageant.  He did so good with his little hook.  All the kids look so cute!

Here he is having a little too much fun with his shepherd’s hook!

We had a LOT of fun in December.  I hope I can get around to blogging about all of it.  It was a great month to celebrate Jesus!`

It is SO hard to get a picture of ALL 3 boys smiling and looking at the camer at once.  One Sunday after church all the stars aligned and the boys sat by their Christmas tree and actually smiled for pictures!

 Not quite there…

GOLD!  I believe it’s the best picture of ALL 3 ever taken by us…ever.  I am SO in love with this picture!

Silly boys!

I am so glad they sat down and smiled for me!  It’s a Christmas miracle!

The boys LOVE The Polar Express!  We went on a fun Polar Express train last year.  This year we didn’t go to the Polar Express so I decided to throw a Polar Express party for our friends!  We are fortunate to have a neighborhood club house we can have birthday parties and events like this!  There’s no way we could fit this many families in our house, but at the clubhouse, there’s plenty of room!

Here’s Matthew getting his ticket!  The kids turned in their tickets before they left to get a bell off of the little tree on the table.  I put down tape to make a train track from the front door to the room.  Jordan downloaded the Polar Express music for me and we had that going as you walked in the door.  My friend, Tracy, loaned me this red board and some other fun Polar Express items!

The kids did a waffle cone/Christmas tree craft.  They decorated their cone with lots of differnt candies.  It was a lot of fun!

I had (fake) candles and bells everywhere.  I love how Matthew is about to jump off the back of the couch in this picture.

I served pepermint sugar cookies and hot cocoa cookies.  Kacy brought coconut cookies too!  We had hot chocolate and all kinds of fun marshmallows.  Berkli  brought a veggie and meat tray as well!  I had cut out little Polar Express art from Etsy onto each red cup.

I’m pretty sure Matthew had a great time eating ALL of the candy.  Goodness!

All the kids did a great job with their Christmas trees!

Miss Elizabeth came early and helped me make hot chocolate and she also read “The Polar Express” to the kids!  She was a good sport to put up with so many crazy kids running around!

And we had a big surprise!  Santa made a surprise appearance!  He gave out little candy canes and each little boy or girl (that wanted to) got to sit with him a bit!

It was the most fun Christmas party!  We had a blast and the kids had a great time too!  We’ll have to do it again next year.  Thanks to all of our friends for coming!

 The boys were very excited to go see Santa!  We knew John Michael wanted to talk to him, and we knew that Matthew wouldn’t talk to him, and we knew Noah wouldn’t go near him!

We watched a little bit of Polar Express before it was time to go!  Can you tell Noah knows how to say “cheeeese!” whenever there’s a camera around?

They did a good job talking to Santa.  John Michael told him he wanted a white bike and a pop gun and we got Matthew to lean over and tell Santa he also wanted a pop gun.

Everyone got a chocolate square afterwards so everyone was happy.

We attempted to go look around the Promenade after this but a certain child had a complete and total meltdown and lost his mind, so we were forced to leave.  No fun but totally necessary, unfortunately!  Ho Ho Ho!

Yesterday we took a MUCH needed day of doing nothing but staying in PJs and watching Christmas movies and well, just doing nothing!  I made homemade biscuits for breakfast with scrambled eggs and chocolate gravy!  Hello Christmas Break!

All 3 boys slept for nap yesterday, so I decided to do my Christmas menu plan so I thought I’d share!

Last year we had the ham steak the way my mom makes it, gren beans and twice stuffed potatoes.

It looks like this year I’m not very creative, as my menu plan basically looks exactly the same for Christmas dinner!

 Christmas Dinner :

Crockpot ham (I’ve never made it like this, we’ll see that happens!)

Sweet n Sour green beans from Southern Plate ( I plan to make these the day before)

Baked potato casserole (A Pinterest recipe)

frozen cranberry banana salad in individual muffin liners that I can make and freeze this weekend. Also, another Southern Plate recipe

Rolls

And my mother in law will be bringing about 4,000 desserts from Alabama that day! I wanted to make a coconut cake if she hadn’t been bringing desserts for us!

Christmas Eve Dinner

We decided that we are going to brave the Christmas Eve service at church with all 3 kids, so I want an easy meal I can put on a plate right when we get home from the service.  I’ll put this “Mississippi Roast” (or Man gettin’ roast as I like to call it) in the crock pot all during the day and we’ll have it when we get in from church.  I’m going to add potatoes and carrots before we leave for church.  We need fast and easy on Christmas Eve! I’m going to devote a whole blog post to the wonders of this roast.  It’s insane and great and easy!

Christmas Morning :

make ahead sausage casserole

pigs n a blanket

monkey bread

Orange Juice

and peppermint hot chocolate

I wanted to try and prep my monkey bread the night before by cutting the biscuits into pieces and mixing the sugar and cinnamon in a large ziploc and then just dumping it all in the bundt pan early the next morning.  I’ll try it and see how it goes!

No matter what we eat, we’ll all be together and that’s what really counts on Christmas!

 Matthew and John Michael had their first choir concert at church!  I help with John Michael’s choir class, so I was really excited for all the little kiddos to get up and sing their Christmas songs we had been working on all semester.

Here they are before they went on….don’t they look so excited!?!

I was pretty nervous about how Matthew would do onstage, and he did not disappoint.  He was on the very front row and basically he messed with and poked the mircrophone the whole time.  A little embarassing, but that’s just what kids do.  He’s a curious guy!

You can see Matthew reaching over with his hand on the microphone.  That’s better than what he did at rehearsal, so I was happy!  Overall, the kids did great singing their Christmas songs.  I was proud of them!

After church we had a rare Sunday treat of eating lunch out.  Our littles are usually melting down so badly after church but they did great that day.  It was so warm that we were able to eat on the patio!  It was wonderful!

After lunch, we went to my friend Caryn’s mother’s house.  They hosted a Santa and hot chocolate party.  It was totally fabulous!  I cannot even beging to explain how precious it was!

JM was in Heaven because of all of the sweets to choose from!

Even Santa found a way to come for a bit!

Matthew and Noah were asleep in the car for almost the whole party, so JM wandered outside and played with some kids that were bouncing on the trampoline.

He had a really fun time and played and played!  I really admire how he will go and play with any kids and just not be afraid or shy about wanting to play or join in on fun.  He’s really blossomed and he really enjoys playing with his friends.

Toward the end of the party, Noah and Matthew woke up and came inside for a little bit.  They had some cookies too and refused to see Santa!

It was a super cute party and the boys LOVED having so many yummy treats to choose from.  We had to literally pull them from the house.  They didn’t want to leave!  It was a fun way to kick off December!