Happy New Year - and 6 year anniversary!

We celebrated New Year's Eve and our 6 year anniversary with friends, while the boys stayed home with a babysitter.  It was a great way to end 2012, and an even greater way to start 2013!

The last Christmas celebration

We celebrated with the Oven side the weekend after Christmas. Once we got settled in (after I dropped a bottle of red wine in the driveway and Kale peed all over a kitchen stool and the floor) we had a blast. We were only going to stay two nights, but we got a little lazy, and after the Viking's big win on Sunday decided to stay until New Year's Eve day, since we didn't have to work. The boys loved opening all the presents, playing with their cousins, and eating lots and lots of treats and snacks.

Merry Christmas!

                                                                                                                                                           

We spent Christmas Eve and most of Christmas Day with the Bleck side.  We all went to church at our church at 3:30 on Christmas Eve.  We headed over to Ellen and Greg's after that.  We ate, and then the kids were able to open their gifts.  After the gift opening they made reindeer food to leave outside, so Santa wouldn't forget to stop at Grandma and Grandpa's house. 

Santa visited our house Christmas Eve night, so the boys were excited to wake up and see what he left them under the tree.  After we were done at home we headed back to Ellen and Greg's, and spent the day eating, opening gifts, visiting, and the boys playing with their cousins.  Kale decided he didn't want to nap, which was annoying, but Nolan was the super rockstar napper - which was great! The boys were very spoiled with fun gifts - motorcycles, pickup trucks, race cars, dreamlight, clothes, pj's, and construction equipment, to name a few.

Cookies for Santa

The boys and I decided to do a little prep work for the big man's visit, so we made cookies.  While the boys napped I made the dough and baked the cookies.  As soon as they were up they each got to decorate a cookie to eat.  I thought they might want to help a little more than that, but it really was about them more than Santa!

Bentleyville

                                             

We spent the weekend in Moose Lake at Chris and Sasha's house. We were excited it worked out for us to head up there, so we could make an evening trip to Duluth to see Bentleyville, a Chrismas light extravaganza. We made reservations at Grandma's first, which ended up taking an hour and half. It was a good thing Chris brought quarters so the kids could ride the motorcycle and horses. We got the kids in their pj's and snowsuits and headed out in to the rain after that, to see the lights. It was warm, which was good, but I could have done without the rain! The kids had fun eating cookies and drinking hot cocoa, and seeing the lights. The biggest hit for our kids was the Thomas the Train section!

We all noticed that it's actually getting a little bit more relaxing to hang out together, because the kids keep themselves occupied. It certainly makes us look forward to hanging out this summer!

When we got home we spent time making a Gingerbread house with the boys.  I discovered they are both very sneaky with candy.  I had to keep a close eye on them!

Cmon' on Dad!

Oh Kale…This little bundle of energy can go from being a huge stinker (not listening or having an accident in his pants) to simply a bottle-rocket of giggling fun in a matter of seconds.

Kale’s most recent means of getting you attention comes in the form of saying “Com’on Dad,” in his excited little scrappy voice. He will follow up his request with a “Tackle Daddy” or “Cars” or “movie” request…and a long-drawn out “Pleeeease!”

He has the ability to turn a frustrating parenting situation into a fun little wrestling match. He is a peach when he’s had a nap, but the second he’s up he literally runs out of his room looking for Nolan or the next piece of furniture to climb on. He’s also become quite the cuddler, but those times seem to come and go pretty quickly.

The bed time routine has become a bit of a struggle, so hopefully a star-projecting nightlight pillow he’s getting for Christmas will help calm him down a little bit. Right now he’ll make a couple of visits out to the living room in order to check on us while we wait for him to fall asleep. Bunk beds are looking to be the next logical step, but we’ll have to see.

Of course, as I write this, I’m flying back from a work trip to North Carolina and Kale’s been acting out a lot while I’ve been gone. Skype is good for seeing each other; but it doesn’t do much for giving hugs. It’s going to be fun at Christmas to see how he and Nolan react to new toys and having to share even more!

Santa! I know him!

The boys had a nice visit with Santa again this year, at our daycare Christmas party at Lord Fletcher's.  We had a nice brunch, follwed by the Santa visit, and then a mini concert by some carolers.  This also happened to be the same day as the big 12 inches of snow, so the time it took us a lot longer than normal to drive over to Ridgedale to our Build a Bear event.  Nolan asked Santa for a skateboard, motorcyle and a race car.  Shock of all shocks, Kale asked for the same thing!  He really looks up to Nolan!  This year at Build a Bear Nolan picked out a rainbow bear, dressed it in a Twins outfit and named it Nolan Gregory Bleck. Kale picked out a bunny, dressed it in Lightning McQueen pj's and named it Peanut Butter. 

Proud

Never had I felt such a sense of pride that I had rising from my chest. My little boy, at 3 and ¾ years old was standing, along with 40 or so older Sunday school kids performing their Christmas program. Nolan hadn’t allowed Tricia or I to practice at all during the previous weeks. We had heard about the small, confident steps he was making during the Sunday school practices from his teacher. He started out sitting on her lap, with a stuffed animal, then as the weeks went by, he began to sit with the kids, do an action here and there, then he was singing and doing the actions at the same time.

As the program began Tricia and I sat in the second row off to the side. Nolan walked into the sanctuary, in line with all the other well-dressed kids. He was wearing his Christmas shirt, tie and vest, along with dress pants, socks and shoes-he looked so mature! As he found his spot on the risers he found us looking at him, and with a beaming smile and a wave we sat down, waiting to see how well this was going to go over. I had taken him to practice the day before and after sitting on my lap for the first half I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.

As the songs started, you could see him moving his lips and following the lead of the other kids around him. He began to get more confident, and his singing and movements continued to get more pronounced. I was literally beaming inside; I think the smile on my face was bigger than the one he had on his! I felt absolutely proud. He was so stubborn, and wouldn’t let us help him, and then he surprised Tricia and I with a real treat.

I can only hope that this simple concert and the feelings it created in both of us as parents is only the beginning. I honestly wanted to cry, just in the excitement around seeing our little guy up there, surrounded by kids much older than him, singing away. It was truly the first, in hopefully a long line, of being able to see our little guy do something amazing.

Following the ceremony Nolan was given all sorts of praise from the parents and grandparents who were there. Two weeks after the concert while we were waiting for church to start a woman from the congregation went up to Tricia and told her how cute she thought Nolan was. She said it made her think for a moment that she should have another kid!

Tree top

I took the boys to an ECFE tree top decorating event tonight.  I wasn't sure I was going to go after what happened at the Polar Express event, but I did, and thankfully it turned out a lot better!  We are now the proud owners of a tree top filled with decorations the boys made.  It's cute, but is shedding needles like crazy!  Makes me feel better about our decision to put up a fake tree every year!