25 Days of Christmas (3)- Meeting Santa

Saturday was the beginning of all our Christmas outings. Each year the Brentwood Library hosts a Breakfast with Santa along with a magic show. We took the babes last year and had such fun, and wanted to take them again this year. What is amazing to me is to look back on this year vs. last year. Wow, my babies have changed! And it just seems like yesterday :)



Josh did so good meeting Santa. Jules...not so much



I had to intervene on this one

We got juice again!

Watching the magic show This year/Last year. Just more hair on the babes I think.

This year/last year. Last years is still one of the funniest of all time. Peepie Jake!

This year/last year. Hmmm, they look about the same.

Writing a letter to Santa

Putting it in the mail!!

We got our faces painted! Do you know my daughter? The ham?

25 Days of Christmas (2) - The "Kid Tree"

My friends make fun of me. My tree is a crazy obsession that must remain matchy-matchy. We do an ornament exchange party every year and they try to purposely force me to leave with a crazy ornament that doesn't match my chocolate/bronze/gold/silver tree.

It's okay, because now I have the perfect place for all the rest! This year we decided to give the babes their own tree. We put it in the bonus room, while our main tree is in the living room. I love it. We put all of their yearly "craft/memory" ornaments on it, any family ornaments on it, those orphan ornaments that don't go on my regular tree, and also (I love this idea) I am putting old shoes on it that they wore as babies/early toddlers. I have tried to keep a set of shoes from each size that they loved and thought it would be so super cute to hang them on the tree as well. I am excited about it. Its a cute way to showcase them and the memories we are making.

Helping hang ornaments!

Hugging his rudolph ornament that he just made :)

One of the ornaments we made last Christmas

Hanging their old shoes on the tree as an ornament. I love this!

Happy little helpers.

They crack me up!!

25 Days of Christmas (1) - Fantasy of Trees

Okay, since I have been awful at blogging lately, and since I also have a goal of making Christmas the most fun ever this year for the kiddos due to lack of Halloween mojo, I thought I would revisit my 25 Days of Christmas series from last year. I loved doing it: it gave me a goal to post something each day, and also made me think of fun things to post about or things to do with the kids.

For our first post, Fantasy of Trees!!

I grew up in Knoxville, TN. There they have the fabulousness that is Fantasy of Trees. Its a showcase extravaganza that benefits the East TN Children's Hospital.  It's a wonderland of interior designer Christmas Trees, holiday decorations and lights along with event-long entertainment, children's activities and shops. Its really fun, really pretty and there was so much to do with the kiddos. They got to decorate some ornaments, get some faces painted, and rode a carousel.

Its a tradition for me, and now I hope to make it one for the babes as well. It's also a great way to kick-off the holiday season.

OMG Mimi - HURRY up and give me my ornament!!!

Well, hi there! You look like me. Could we be friends?

Me and Joshie

The Prater girls and the babes: Moi, Josh, Leslie, Jules, and Ginny

Family Pic!

Sweet Girl

Me and Jules. I swear, the babes were uber photogenic today, no?

Curls!

He's such a  doll-baby

Check out this family pic.

Our First School Pictures :)

We got our pictures back from daycare. As aside from the fact that poor Josh looks like Prince Valium from Spaceballs I think these are some of the best pictures EVER. Its crazy how I have spent so much money on photography for my kids and they are both SMILING and LOOKING AT THE CAMERA in these school photos! It's so rare and ever happens! They however did the cardinal sin to poor Josh and brushed his curls. Sigh...anyone with curly hair knows that a hairbrush is NOT your friend. Oh well...still precious!

Good Morning America feature - revisited

I realized I never posted the video from when their picture got featured on Good Morning America!
As I mentioned a couple of months ago, I was contacted by a producer for Good Morning America. She had found the picture I took of the babes' first day of preschool on Pinterest (It has been repinned hundreds of times, super excited I didn't watermark - NOT) and asked if they could feature us on their special on creative first-day-of-school photos. While my "interview" part didn't make the cut, they featured two pictures I took and mentioned the blog, so I'm still happy and the babes are still famous, no?

Happy Halloween!

Yes, I know it's Thanksgiving, but I have been just so busy that I haven't posted about their Halloween!

First off, let's just say that they didn't have the best of Halloweens this year...it was just too crazy. But no worries, we are going to get all up in Christmas' face this year. I am so excited about it I honestly see Christmas lights up and get butterflies in my stomach. Having almost three year olds that are going to be omg-so-much-fun this year will do that to you.

However, that being said the poor things didn't get much of a Halloween. I had high hopes for her costume, but started working on it way too late. The tutu dress was done, but there was never any "flower" part. I kept meaning to deal with it, but life has been nuts. Between packing up our house, and dealing with a nasty home renovation, I just never got back to it.

So, here we were on Halloween Eve. We closed on our current house that morning, had movers there, and we're then informed that we STILL couldn't get into the new house- not even upstairs. It was "technically" livable, but it still had no doorknobs and stair rail. Um, no, not with toddlers. So, me, Jake, jakes mom, and the babes all got checked into a hotel. I was at Walmart at 11pm trying to find something to complete the poor child's costume. And here we are the next morning in our hotel room...taken with a cell phone. Sigh. The bee and his poor flower.

We got into our house on Halloween night, yay!!! But just the upstairs. We were all so stressed and tired we didn't even trick-or-treat.

Halloween Fail. We'll make it up next year.

I'm still here!!!

Hey readers! Please don't give up on us over here. I am living smack dab in the middle of crazy town at the moment. We have gone drone sleeping on the floor, to living in hotel rooms, to now finally in our new house.

However.... Still only upstairs at the moment. The downstairs still looks like a haunted house. Still empty, guted, kitchen-less and sad looking. Getting sick of restaurants. Oh and did I mention our entire house of boxes and furniture is in the basement??? Whew. This too shall pass, right???

I will be back soon I promise. I have a whole big post on how Halloween was a big fat fail for Josh and Jules. Poor things, it just happened to fall right in the middle of this mess!