Four Years Old!

4 years old.  On 1-4-14.

So, what do we make of this turning 4 stuff?  Well.... the date is cool, but other than that, we don't like it very much, that's for sure.  4 years have gone by WAY too fast for us.  4 seems like way too big of a number for him. 4 (more than 3, 2, or 1) has made his mommy cry a few times.  4 means Pre-K. 4 means he's really not a baby anymore.  4 feels like 40 to us.  4 has brought about a few nice changes in his little life though.  ;)

So, about our 4-year-old's celebrations this year..... we did a Cars themed birthday party since he's very much into all of that these days.  =)  We had his party at our local YMCA again, but this year we booked a bounce house party complete with scooters, basketball, car decorating, racetrack car racing, a tattoo station and quite a few neat Cars themed snacks!  This little boy of ours was red-cheeked, sweaty and never stopped grinning and laughing the whole afternoon.  He kept telling us, "I love my party!"  The crazy snow and some sickness brought about some cancellations of a few of his friends and family, but we still had a great time and he never seemed to miss a beat!  (We're just thankful we didn't have to cancel completely!)

After his party, since it was still early enough in the evening, we did another separate party and dinner with just the family back here at our home.  We had such a good time celebrating our boy.  He is most definitely a pleasure to celebrate, that's for sure.  Can't believe the next time we have a birthday for him, he'll be 5.  5!!!

Happy Birthday, gorgeous boy!  We love and treasure you so, so, so, SO much!  My how these past 4 years have flown, but we can't wait to see what life holds with you and to have many, many, many more years celebrating YOU!  =)  You are hands down THE BEST little boy we've ever met and can't imagine life without you.  You are such a gift to us!  We always tell you that you are our "best boy" and based on how you live and love life, you must think we're pretty special, too.  ;)  Thank you for loving us almost as much as we love you!

Welcome 2014!

Happy New Year!!  And what a wonderful start to the new year we had, too! 

After sleeping in, making breakfast and lattes, we headed over to Bob and Cheryl's in the late morning.  Our good friends, Kyle and Maddy, are here for a quick visit and we just had to go see them!  Noah is absolutely in love with Maddy and he has quite the fondness for Kyle, too. They played planes, made the toys fight and did all kinds of boy things that Noah is into doing lately.  =)  Noah probably wished that Kyle lived with us.  ;)

After that, it was lunch at Chick-Fil-A and then sadly saying goodbye to them for another 4 months. We miss them muchly and really hope they move back here someday.

After heading home for a nap and a little regrouping, the plan was to head back out to our new Bass Pro Shop here in town and take Noah bowling for the first time with some of our dearest friends, the Mortons.  Well, as we were getting ready to head out the door, Trisha texted and said that they had beat us there and found out that they were booked up for the rest of the night!  Boo!  So... off to Brunswick they headed (and us trailing not far behind)... only to have her text us again and say there was an hour and a half wait!  Ahhhhhhh!!!!!!  Thankfully Matt has a military ID and could get us onto the Air Force Academy - where he called and found out that there was NO wait!!!  Yay!!!  =)  So off we went.  Third time's a charm, right?  ;)  Noah had more than the time of his life.  If only we could have somehow captured every single little moment of his sheer excitement.  And those little bowling shoes of his.... goodness. Never thought bowling shoes could be so.stinkin'.CUTE!!!  =)

After all the excitement, it was dinner together at Cheddar's.  Then we went our separate ways, headed home and crashed.  ;)

Whew!  What.A.Day!  What a WONDERFUL day!  =)

Christmas Happenings

A lot has been going on with us during this holiday season (surprise!).  In a way, it feels good to be done with the hustle and bustle and just sit down and enjoy each other again with some quiet nights at home. 

These past few weeks, we've gone to some Christmas parties - church, work, friends, etc.  We also made great attempts to keep up with a bunch of our own little Christmas traditions.  We went and looked at lights all over town one night with some dear friends (and we even went out quite a bit and saw them alone as well).  We've still managed to sneak in a few play dates and get-together's with friends over the past few weeks.  We've also been shopping a lot for fun as well! 

We set up our tree a few days earlier than desired this year.  Mostly because we got a new one and we were excited to get it up.  We got a super tall one for our family room and Noah thought it was quite cool that he (and us!) had to stand on a stepstool just to decorate it.  ;)  We were gonna stick our old tree in the playroom up in the front of the house where all the windows are, but we just didn't get around to it this year.  There's always next year.  ;)

We made two sets of Christmas cookies this year.  Here is the first round:

Noah was in his first Christmas program at church!  He was beyond the cutest kid (ahem, cow) up there, and as cheesy as the program and his part was, it was super fun (and a bit crazy/surreal!) to be a parent sitting in the audience of a child in the program.  =)

We went and had Christmas with Greg's parents at their new home one night.  Noah could hardly sit still through dinner he was so excited.  And rightly so - he was spoiled like crazy and got some pretty cool gifts!

Noah set out cookies and milk for Santa again this year.  Although this year, he set out carrots for the reindeer, he (and Daddy) thought Santa might like chocolate milk instead of white,  AND he also colored some pictures for him.  Boy was he thrilled to see crumbs on the plate in the morning AND that Santa took home all of his pictures!  =)

We celebrated Christmas at our home with Jen's family again this year.  It was super fun to have a new addition to celebrate with - Noah still can't get enough of "his best buddy."  =)  Auntie and Bob came over later that evening to celebrate with us as well.  It was fun opening gifts, celebrating the holiday and enjoying them being a part of our family.  =)

We went to the zoo and saw the Electric Safari!  We'd talked about going last year and never made it, so we decided this was the year to go.  We're glad we did - it was neat!  And the weather was perfect, too!

Now that all Christmas activities have seemed to cease, we can focus on Noah's birthday and get that all planned and prepared for.  He's getting excited for his party next week - gonna be another fun one again this year!  =)

Friends and family, we hope your holiday was filled with lots of love and Christmas cheer.  From our home to yours, we hope for a wonderful New Year for you all!

Beyond Blessed

What a wonderful time of Thanksgiving we've had this year!  It always seems like it just can't get any better, and then every year surprises us with the fact that it does! 

We started the Thanksgiving weekend (and eve) off with celebrations at Jen's Mom's house.  We don't think we got out of our pj's for an entire 2 days - and it felt great, too!  It was also fun having Judah around to celebrate with us this year.  Such a precious little guy - he fits in just perfectly!

Then.... it was off to Estes Park with our little family of 3 for the rest of the holiday weekend.  It's our yearly tradition to head up there the day after Thanksgiving - one that we are SO glad to have!   We did our usual shopping downtown, trying out new restaurants, seeing their little cheesy parade, sightseeing and lazing around in our cabin.  It's so great to not have an agenda or a schedule and to feel a million miles away from "normal" for a few days.  =)

Now we're home.  Greg is still in the midst of enjoying 6 days off in a row!  Our plan is to finish decorating the house for Christmas, get some odds and ends done around the house, wrap presents and then ditch Noah for one of those days so we can get the rest of our Christmas shopping done (and even have a date night)!!  =)

And the Baby is a......

GIRL!!!!!!!!

This actually comes as a total shocker that we know (and have known) already!  We hadn't planned on finding out the gender until Jen's 21-week appointment. But when a friend of Jen's (who also happens to be the ultrasound tech at her OB/GYN's office) offered to scan her to pass the time while she waited to see the doctor, she absolutely couldn't refuse! 

We couldn't be any more excited about adding a little GIRL to the family!!!  People have been asking since we were pregnant what we were hoping for.  And, in all honesty, we were truly hoping for either gender!  Both had pro's and con's.  It always made us laugh how people assumed we'd want a girl just because we already had a boy.  Or that people predicted we were having a girl, just because we already had a boy.  WE really didn't have any feelings either way as to the gender, but now that we know, we are quite ecstatic and look forward to having a lot more pink around the house.  ;)

It was hard keeping the secret, but sharing it with our family and friends all at the same time made the wait completely worth it.  Here's what our gender reveal looked like this time:

It's a girl!!!  A GIRL!!!  Isn't she beautiful already???  =)