Tuesday, December 29, 2009

A Christmas Celebration!

Wow what a Christmas. We did a bit of traveling but still had plenty of time to hang out at home and enjoy each other and our new gifts. On Saturday December 12th we had our Lenning family Christmas where there was I think a record of 45 people in attendance! Thanks Denis and Ginger for hosting! It was a great time!!



Then on Christmas eve we had our pizza dinner and the kids opened their present from us and the ones from each other. We had a blast playing with the games they got before bed. Christmas night was a bit crazy. Cole was up screaming at about 1:30am, after I got him back to sleep we heard Nathan tip toe down the stairs at 4:30am and finally decided to get up with them around 6:30. Not bad considering. The boys tore through their stocking stuffers and we had to hold them back before they started ripping through presents! All in all, presents and breakfast were completed by 7:45am....well before most people even think about getting up. The toys were a hit though. Some of their favorites included sum swamp, a robot arm, 'Vert car' (Sabre from battle force 5), any and all battle force 5 related toys, legos, and the long awaited shirt and tie Nathan had been asking for.

Before picture:







Cole really was happy with his 'vert car'!

And After:


We spent Christmas dinner with dear friends and the kids had a blast playing with all of their toys. I'm horrible and didn't even get 1 picture of that celebration. Pam if you have any shoot them my way!

Then on the 26th we had our Melcher family Christmas. The boys loved seeing the mass quantity of toys under nana's tree! and of course being able to play with their cousins who they don't see too often. Some other favorites from that party were legos, remote controlled helicopter (even though this was meant for Nathan, I think Chris has just as much fun playing with it!), boggle jr, clue jr, more race cars and tracks, and the fur real puppies. I honestly didn't think they boys would like them but Lance feeds his and puts it to bed every night!



Lance loves his new cousin Molly. She was only 3 weeks old!


Chris got some awesome personalized cutting boards! Super cool! Thanks dad!


Our little family


Lance and Cole with some gifts:



and Nathan giving a thumbs up to his swing k'nex!

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Long overdue update & Lance's 5th birthday

So I've neglected this thing! So much has happened in the past few months....Nathan starting kindergarten, Lance starting young 5's, Halloween, Lance's birthday, the arrival of my precious niece, and preparations for Christmas. Let's just start by saying the Decker's are doing wonderful over here in snow land (it's only December 10th and already we're on our 3rd snow day!). The boys are loving it! Nathan had a great set of conferences a few months ago as did Lance. Nathan is almost reading and Lance learns new stuff nearly everyday. Cole is wild as ever, wishing he was a 'big boy'. Although potty training will still be the death of me. I've lived with the fact that...it will just happen when he's ready....whenever that will be!

Anyway, most recently I guess was Lance's 5th birthday. He could not wait to turn 5 since all of the kids in his class are already 5 (being that close to the Michigan cutoff, he was certainly the youngest). We decided to have everyone together at nana and papa's house since his special day this year fell on Thanksgiving!