Birthday Video

Albert's Birthday!

Yesterday was Albert's 3rd birthday!! He started the day with opening one gift.

It was a train. Yay!
After opening his gift, he had his special birthday cereal (this year was Cinnamon Toast Crunch).

After the big kids all headed off to their respective schools, Albert got out his train and played.

Happy kid!

Talking to Grandma J.

Super smiley!

"Choo, choo!"
Since it was Friday, we went to story hour at the library and Albert insisted that the train go with him. After that, he had his current normal lunch of a peanut butter and nutella sandwich and then headed upstairs for rest time.

He got to go pick up the big kids at school and enjoyed playing with them for a few hours before dinner. Dinner was everyone favorite: tacos!! Daddy even let the kids use the special Star Wars glasses as part of the celebration.

Albert insisted on a "blue cake". We took that to mean a chocolate cake with blue frosting (like Addilyn had) and he didn't complain. Phew! 

Mmm...chocolate cake and peppermint ice cream!!

After dessert was more presents!! He got a pretty special Batman card.

What is it?! What is it?!

Oooo, look...a big box!

A tractor!! This kid really enjoyed his birthday! He told everyone he saw that it was his birthday and that he is 3! He smiled almost the whole day through. Yay for 3 years with our smart, sweet, lovable boy!!

Advent 2015: Poinsettias & Pepparkakor

This time we made toilet paper roll poinsettias. It was a new Advent activity for the kids.

They got to play with paint so everyone had a great time!

See the tongue? He was thinking hard!

Elias enjoyed himself but may have gotten more paint on his hand than on the poinsettia.

Our poinsettias, all glued and glittered and set out to dry.

Addilyn, Elias, and I worked on making origami stars

Elias seemed to really enjoy helping out (I would fold and he would crease). He was very proud of his finished stars.

We tried to make the family pepparkakor recipe using gluten-free flour. It was a little dry and crumbly. We added an egg to half of the dough and that helped the dough stick together very nicely. The egg didn't even affect the texture all that much. Yay for perpetuating (with minor adaptations) traditions!!

Cut!

Another hit Advent activity each year is decorating Christmas cookies. They love spreading on the icing and absolutely covering the cookies in different colors of sprinkles. It's always super messy but one of the favorites!!

Advent 2015: Peppermint Bark & Chocolate Spoons

Since I'm not brave enough to try making our favorite Peppermint Biscotti gluten free, we decided to get our peppermint fix with Peppermint Bark.

The kids got to help break up the candy canes.

It's always one of the favorite activities of the season. Thwack!

We also revisited chocolate-covered spoons.

He was concentrating so hard on getting the toppings just right.

This was the toppings options. It was basically all the open baking chips I had in the house.

I love the tongue!

Continuing our handmade ornaments, we made dried orange slices. Addilyn helped tie all the ribbons.

This one looks like it could have dried a bit more. Either way, it smelled nice and was pretty lit from behind.

Trying out one of the chocolate-dipped spoons.  Mmm!!

Advent 2015: Peppermint Ornaments and Cloved Oranges

For one day the kids had two options for Advent activities.  One of the options was to build an ornament out of LEGO.

I'm not sure how we would go about hanging this on the tree but they enjoyed making it.

Jazz hands!

Playing with cars (inside the jars).

The other activity that day was making peppermint ornaments.

Watching them melt.

All melted.

Full disclosure: I forgot to immediately make a hole for threading string to hang them. By the time I remembered, the peppermint had cooled enough to be too hard. Oops! These ended up being yummy, Christmas-shaped snacks instead.

We also cloved oranges again this year.

The kids seem to enjoy this. Addilyn likes being artistic and the boys enjoy playing with nails. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

Poke!

One of the finished products. Ta-da!

Advent 2015: Decorating that Tree

It took a few days to get to decorating our tree (our nights were busy!) but we finally got started. The boys were entranced by watching Daddy put on lights.

When we got out our lights, we got out the rest of our decorations. Asher was pretty smitten with this car/tree decoration he made with Aunt Courtney last year.

Maybe our music was too loud? I'm not really sure what is happening in this picture.

Our Advent Calendar. Day 4 was apparently being sneaky.

Our tree all lit!

Now it's time for the ornaments.

Thanks kid!

Posing in their pjs in front of the tree.

Albert doesn't know what to do with his hands.

Super happy kids.

Admiring their tree.  Ahhh!

Our tree all decorated. We will continue adding ornaments as we make them throughout Advent but his the first take.