December 1st....Finally!

This year has flown by!  I can't believe it's almost christmas again......sad that another year has gone by but soo happy that our family was able to enjoy it to the fullest.....we sure made some great family memories this year!  Christmas will be no different.  We are going to enjoy every aspect of christmas this year. 
Shockingly most of our prep work is already done so we actually get to spend time enjoying the season.  Christmas has officially kicked off at our house.  Our trees (yeap we have two this year after my darling husband decided mid way through putting up the first tree that we needed a second one) are up and decorated.  We used to be particular about how the decorations looked, where we placed things and this year.....we said .....who cares.....the twins had an absolutely amazing time decorating the tree while I put the hooks on and Jason lifted them to the high branches.  They even decorated the upstairs tree that is more adult looking and it makes me smile everytime I see it remembering how much fun we had. 

We've already been to a christmas parade and the christmas walk and we can't wait to partake in tonnes more chirstmas celebrations.We are hoping to have lot's of friends and family over and make it a truly enjoyable season.  Tonight will be the first night we open one of our books to read that I had mentioned in a previous post.  Today was also the first day for our playmobil calendars.  Absolutely great thing for the kids.  Every day we open a box and get a part to a specific set.  When christmas arrives you have an entire little playset to play with.  The only thing about the playsets is that the ones we got came all in little bags and a million little pieces that Jason and I had to organize two nights before.....let's just say it took us about 45 minutes to get each one read (even though the directions said 15 minutes). 

So the backgrounds are now set up in their room right below the calendars.  As I was watching them open their first day spots I couldn't help but think how things like this teach them delayed gratification and how we have to wait patiently in order to able to get all the parts put together :)
The boys sure love to be outside in the snow....we are looking forward to many fun activities this winter but for now they are more then happy to just shovel......here they are shoveling the deck while I started dinner :)

Tonight the four of us were all working on an official "Gauthier Family Christmas Bucket List" (more to come on a later post).  What activities are all your families doing this year to make great memories?

Looking back on the summer wedding

One of our favorite things about last summer was my sister's wedding.  I was the maid of honour and the twins were the ring bearers.  The day was absolutely perfect.  My sister looked beautiful, everything went off without a hitch.....we couldn't have asked for anything to go better.  She recently gave me a copy of the pictures the photographer took.  Wow....is all I can say.  Her wedding pictures turned out gorgeous and I am so so thankful for the great pictures of my boys and family.

Here's a little peak.

Our first family photo after the wedding.

Our little fam.....first time we've all been dressed up this fancy together :)  The boys first wedding :)

One of my fav pics.....4 generations.

 

Lot's of great memories with friends and family!

Being a ring bearer can be tiring :)

The wedding is something we talk about often in our house.  It's something the boys were proud to be part of and will remember for the rest of their lives.  A priceless moment for me though.....the boys helping their great grandma blow out the candles on her 90th birthday cake....priceless :)

Nashville...the home of country music.

Finally I've had a little bit of free time to work on some more posts from the summer. 

Next stop....Nashville......We were quite excited to get there :)

If you want to understand where country music comes from, you need to see downtown Nashville.  The honky tonk district is packed full of restaurants with musicians playing in each one.  Literally it’s like hundreds of country stars coming through the windows as you walk down the street. 

In order to be able to truly get as much background and information on a city that is new to us, Jason and I like to do the tours. 

 I find that you get some of the history, you find out and see the most notable sites in the city and you get a taste of what the city is really like.  We hopped on a little red trolly in Nashville to learn about some of the sites.  I was surprised there was so much to see.  The boys were super excited to get on and behaved fantastic for the 1.5 hours tour (especially Mathew because he slept 1.25 hours of it hahaha). 

We stopped by the tourist centre and had a great time trying out the instruments!

We enjoyed a quick lunch at BB King's.

We stayed up way past bedtime......but had a great time!

And you can't go to Nashville without getting a pair of cowboy boots.....or two in our case!

PD day

Two friday's ago, I took a day off of work to spend the PD day home with the boys.  Boy did the three of us have fun just hanging out.  We played board games until we were laughing so hard that we couldn't breathe.  We made an obstacle course in the basement, made a tent in their bunk beds and drew shapes on each other's cheeks with face paint.  The only downfall about the day......when the boys started climbing on the couch with face paint on...... :(  face paint on the cushions.....and yet lucky for me the covers just came off and I threw them through the wash.....and 1.5 hours later the couch was a little cleaner and we were still laughing about the triangle that jumped off Zach's face onto the couch!  Looking forward to our next PD day my boys!

Hahaha the second picture I couldnt' resist taking.  After they painted each other's faces they wanted to paint mine.....and I let them.....this is the view you have with two four year olds about to start painting your face :)

Silly

This is just so we all remember that sometimes you just can't help yourself from being silly!!

Hmmm

Some weeks seem longer then others, some days seem like they will never end and sometimes you just wish you could be lounging on the balcony on vacation again.....

And just relaxing!

Welcome Home

A few weeks ago Jason was away for work.  He often goes away so it's not out of the ordinary but usually he drives or fly's home so late we don't get to meet him.  This specific friday he landed at 5ish so we got to go up to explore the airport and watch his plane land.  The three of us were so excited to see him get off the plane.  It's kinda crazy that even when he goes away often, the welcome home part still fill's us with excitement!

Birthday Party

Eek I started this post weeks ago and I am finally getting back to it!  The boys birthday was almost a month ago now.....where did the month go? Have we really had 4 year olds for a month already??  I had wrote the post about birthday preparations but I can't explain just how great the actual party turned out.  I will admit I was a bit scared to have 16 4-5 year olds in my house at once with limited parental supervision....and yet they surprised me.  They listened sooo good.  They sat in a circle "criss cross applesause" while we watched the animals, they were patient and waited their turns to touch the animals, they all waited in line while we washed their hands before eating and they all sat like angels at the table for food and cake.  When the parents started to arrive they actually started to get a little crazy on me. 

Look at all the little angels sitting so good in a circle!! Ahh!!

All the kids went crazy over the animals.  There were snakes, lizards, frogs, rabbits etc.  They brought the animals out one at a time, talked about them, told the kids (and parents for that matter) some new facts about the animals and then anyone who wanted could touch and/or hold the animals.  I was shocked that it was the teeniest little girls who volunteered first to hold the gigantic snakes hahahaha.

 

Absolutely love this picture....especially since his mommy warned me before she left that he doesn't like any snakes or bugs etc.. He jumped up...volunteered and had a great time :)

Here is a picture of the fattest frog I have ever seen.  It made the kids laugh hysterically.  It was so cute to hear the entire basement filled with so much laughter!  Every time he hopped they laughed like maniacs! 

We also touched this tree frog.  He could actually grip on to your arm.  His feet were slimmy and it felt weird but it was neat.

The biggest hit for all the kids were the bunnies though.  When they came out Zach and Mattie quickly volunteered to be the first to hold them.

The whoopie cushions were also a hit.  I hope all the parents enjoyed them hahahaha :)

 



















My babies are 4.....I still can't believe it.  We are now into school life, new friends, new social activities.  Some days it seems like they are so old and then every once in awhile you still realize how tiny they are when they hop up on your lap for a cuddle!

Happy Birthday to my not so baby boys!

I'm ahead of the game

There I said it....I'm jinxing myself but really trully I am starting to get our christmas stuff organized.  Last night I even wrapped our christmas books.  Last year we searched through all our books and realized just how many we had.  In order to make sure there was an extra little christmas magic we wrapped them all up.....and yes I bought 4 more last year to make 24 in total.....and every evening before bed they get to choose one wrapped book for their bedtime story.

All wrapped up and awaiting December 1 !

 It's not a big thing, we would have read the books together anyways and yet it added a little more christmas magic to the season so I got it all ready again for this year!  This year I also got all our christmas movies out and I'm going to organize them so we actually watch them all as a family before christmas.  I'll divide them out so each weekend we will get a little christmas movie action too!

Practicing our names

Something we did for St Patricks day that they loved was to cut out shamrocks and print each letter of their name on one.  It was so quick and easy and they thought the game was so much fun to try and get them back into the right order.

The boys now know how to write their name and which order all the letters go in.  At school they are often writing their names but one of the things the teachers recommend is practicing their names.  They will write their name on anything we give them but I hate making them sit there and repeatedly write it.  Sooooo.....we have decided to incorporate name practicing into other crafts.  We bought these little foam pumpkins at the dollar store and we decorated all 20 of them :)  The boys would draw whatever pumpkin face they wanted on the front of the pumpkin and then write their name on the back.  We hung them up on the chair rail and the boys love running over to identify their pumpkins and their names on the back of them.

Does anyone have any other quick neat ideas for practicing name writing?