Christmas 2012-The Beginning

Christmas this year started off fast and fun with the Roby Christmas the day after school got out.  Cameron was recovering from a 24 hour fever bug, but he rallied for time with cousins and presents.  I do have to say, the older the boys get, the more enjoyable and relaxing Christmas parties become.  They still are SUPER excited, but the excitement can be harnessed a bit more ;)

Four of the six Roby boys!  Baby Gryffin was on the crawl and Grayson came down with a stomach bug just before the party.  Not sure what my two are looking at?!

Stocking time!  My parents do the best stockings! It really is that huge gift bag filled with all kinds of goodies!

"Yay, new paints!"

Got to have hunting and work carharts!

We heart Pez!

Made by Grandma Super Hero capes!  Both boys can now tap into their greater super hero speed and strength!

On Christmas Eve morning we were able to squeeze in some traditional cookie decorating!  Grandma and Grandpa Vruggink's house was not quite ready for the chaos fun of sprinkles, frosting, crumbs, drips and spills so we found some room in Brower's church....which was actually perfect for the kids to run around as we cleaned up the fun!

Christmas Eve is when we have our own little family's Christmas.  We start off by making personal pizzas!

Ever since the boys were born, they have gotten an ornament each year.  I decided to try something different this year and bought a box to put the ornaments in.  I set them on their plates to open before our Christmas Eve dinner.  I think this will become a nice little tradition!!  During dinner we can talk about why they received a certain ornament.  For example, we could talk about why Cameron got this one...



(speaks for itself!)

and then why Haiden opened this...

(It's a Mary and Joseph manger scene to represent his first year in Wednesday night church and Sunday School!) ;)

Then we headed off to church(in which Haiden fell asleep on my lap at the end and his snores echoed throughout the silent sanctuary as we lit our candles!), came home to quick change into our cozy clothes and open presents!

Checking things out.....


"Optimus Crime" as Haiden calls it--he really has no idea who this is--only by name!


A new one to replace one with a broken axel...boys and toys......


We had to take some time to open things up and check them out.


Love these two....



I fully intended to put all Christmas in one post....but clearly this is long enough.  A few more Christmas pics and parties to come!

Tree Tradition, Tooth Fairy, and Photo Flops

How's that for a title!?

Since posting has become quite sporadic, I need to jam all of the happenings into one;)

So, to start with, the day after Thanksgiving we headed out for our fairly new Christmas tradition of a real tree.  On Thanksgiving day we were walking around with no coats on and the day we went foraging trough the forest it was about 30 degrees and windy!  Needless to say we did not look for the perfect tree, rather the first one that looked like it was the right size and was not too far away from the parking lot!

Found it!

Cameron giving us the low down on how to cut it.  And notice no coat. Yep, another reason why our adventure was short lived.

This was going to be my shot of getting the boys out in their element for the Christmas card, but then I noticed Cameron had his gum sticking out of his mouth.  At least Haiden was not crying in this picture.  He was not one for being out in the cold any longer than he had to that day!  All in all I think it took us no more than 30 minutes from start to finish ;)

And then the BIG news......finally our first lost tooth. Cameron has been waiting ever since last year for any tooth to be just the tiniest wiggly and finally it happened!  He worked hard at this one!  The adult tooth was already popping up behind it.  One night he was wrestling and it jarred loose just enough for him to pull it the rest of the way out himself.  Before that he tried dental floss and pliers!  The smile on his face when it came out was priceless.  One of those little moments I won't forget!

You can see the big hole and just a little of the big tooth behind it.  And, yes, we wrote a note to the tooth fairy.  Grandma Roby told him all about it and he was sure he was going to get $3!

'Tooth Fairy, here is my tooth.  Leave me money.  By Cameron.

He did that all by himself ;)  Proud teacher mommy moment!

And just today he lost the one right next to it!  It was loose and again the adult tooth was already there.  In music class today a friend lost a tooth and he said it reminded him he needed to get his out so he twisted and bent and turned it and out it came!  He left it at school though.  Good thing.  The tooth fairy needs to find some dollar bills!  I think it's only $2 this time ;)

Oh, the Christmas card photo.

The past few years I have tried to get it taken on Thanksgiving Day.  We made a stop to my parents in the afternoon to quick try to get it done before we all became unglued by then end of the days' festivities.  I thought the background of the tress would be something different.

Trees good. Looking into the sun not so good.

Nope.

A hide and seek Christmas card?!

Add shadows to the sun and gusty winds.  Moving on.....thanks for trying, Dad!

So on a whim Sunday afternoon, round 2 begins.

And this is how it starts.

Now it's the other boy!

Getting closer....

Let's try a new position....

The very LAST, seriously the last one snapped, was it.

My new favorite family photo.

Nothing fancy, but it's us.

Flash Catch Up

Well, life is happening at a rapid pace lately.

For awhile my computer and iPhoto were giving me fits and it was difficult for me to do a post, so I chose not to go through the hassle.  And for awhile I just did not remember to get the camera out!

And honestly, it has been rather nice to be away from the computer.

Then there was a grad class that I had to cram into a few weeks(after have a year to do it--oops), getting into the groove of fitting in the homework of a 1st grader, building stamina of being a teacher mom(and falling asleep by 9:00 which obviously leaves no room for blog posts), spending more important time with my Savior at night and in the mornings, trying to maintain a healthy work out life(5:00 comes pretty fast some mornings), and the other every day tasks of being a mom of 2 boys and wife to an amazing husband.  So, the break from blogging has been needed, refreshing and one less thing to do, BUT, I do need a place to record all the excitement of a life of boys and all of the milestones we have been experiencing lately.

So, here it goes in flash forward.

We left off with Cameron ending a great, although loosing, first season in football.  His last game was terr.i.ble.  Freezing cold rain, crying kids, windy and we were drenched from head to toe.  He got a donut after and an award so all was well then!
Then, it was just fun to be home more during the week.  Doing all the little things like.....

painting just for fun

pumkpin carving

trick or treating(yep--the same costumes as last year!)

(and it's weird to be posting Halloween pics at the beginning of December---Christmas ones are coming!)

tales of the wild with daddy hunting(and Cameron starting to go with him!)

 playing in boxes and hammering for no particular reason than to pound something into wood and use tools(seriously my boys could play with boxes, paint, nails, and tools for HOURS!)

and creating art work with a fun new white board(currently still leaning against the wall in the living room--not sure where this will find a home yet!?)

And there you have it.
Now--Christmas tree decorating, the infamous Christmas card family photo mishaps coming(as long as I can find my pictures now!)