and the birthday continues

Celebrating C's birthday again with two more birthday dinners this week. Dinner celebration #1 with C's good friends, Carlo, Evan & Drew. And my good mommy friends, Sarah and Uma!

 What's a birthday without a Leela dinner? Dinner celebration #2: Aarti and Leela brought birthday balloons and all!

 Even a balloon for Justin. And take a look - our Christmas tree is up!

 Colin found our Christmas stockings...

In case you haven't been over in awhile, we have a new art corner. Our walls didn't have much artwork - so Colin and Justin have been busy filling their corner with their masterpieces.

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Justin absolutely loves our Christoper Pop-in-kins (elf on a shelf). He looks for it every day and loves to show everyone where it is. Colin is slowly warming up to the elf.
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C: I am going to wear these pajamas when we go on the Polar Express next year.
me: What do you mean? We may not go on the Polar Express next year.
C: Why not?
me: I have to find out when it is and how much the tickets are.
C: Oh, don't worry about that.
me: Well, tickets cost money.
C: I know. I saved my ticket. It's in my lunchbox. We can use it next year too.
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Jack: (chomping on chips and walking into the living room.)
Colin: What are you eating?
Jack: Broccoli
Colin: No you're not eating broccoli. Why do you always say you're eating broccoli? What are you eating and tell me the truth this time.
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Justin: Mommy...
Me: Yes, Justin
Justin: Awwww aaaahm.
Justin: Daddy...
Jack: Yes, Justin
Justin: Awwww aaaahm.
Repeat and repeat and repeat!
"Awww aaahm" is the noise I make when I kiss his cheeks. I like to believe that it's Justin's way of saying, "I love you." =)
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Tomorrow, November 30th, is Colin's 4th birthday...and he's going to have more of a birthday present than Jack or I ever experienced....Hawaii, here we come!

an Elwell sized Thanksgiving

Family is at the top of our list when it comes to things we are thankful for...and the Elwell family all came to Ohio for T-giving. So we partied non-stop for 4 days straight!

• Grandma Peg had all 7 kids in town. (Chris, Natalie, Pete, Nick, Jack, Matt & Billy)
• Which meant all 13 cousins were here too. (Ben, Rylee, Mitch, Sam, Sarah, Brooke, Reagan, Colin, Justin, Alex, Ana, Anthony & Chloe)
• For a grand total of...drum roll, please..27 Elwells under 1 roof.
• We spent 4 days with the family enjoying Thanksgiving dinner, nature park hikes, meals, zoo trip, Kris Kringle gift exchange, sleepovers, outside time in the beautiful weather, and just catching up with one another. As crazy as it sounds, I also managed to sneak away and make trips to get frozen yogurt and a pedicure! 
• Colin & Justin are exhausted...but in a good way. Nothing beats spending time with a grandma, aunts and uncles who spoil you and cousins who play with you. =)

 Colin's Thanksgiving sign, welcoming Aunt Natalie home for Thanksgiving.

 All of the kids love their Aunt Natalie time.

 Grandma Peg with all of her kids.

 All 13 cousins went on the nature walk. Here is an attempt at a group shot. Craziness, right?

The boys loved playing with their cousins, and the weather continued to be outstanding - so they enjoyed lots of outdoor play. Of course, we had moments where we had to help them share with each other - but we also had moments when we would just stare at them playing and taking care of one another. Love family time.

 Justin absolutely loves his cousin, Ana. Ana is about 8 months younger than J, and she lets him follow her around and stare at her.

 

 We also had a family celebration for Colin's 4th birthday (not until Nov 30). He requested rice krispies for his "cake." Wouldn't you love life if you had this many family members singing happy birthday to you?

Aunt Natalie & Colin. Grandma makes these amazing quilts for the kids - and this year, she gave Colin his quilt! It's amazing - huge, great colors and thick like a comforter. "Grandma made this just for me. I will share it with you if we are in the living room. But it's going to be in my room at night." - C.

We managed to use our our new "Christopher Pop-in-kins" (elf on a shelf) for the boys this year. Colin is not a fan of the elf at all. "Can we poke it with a stick and send it back to the North  Pole?" - C. Justin, on the other hand, loves it. "Elf. Pop. Move?" J's always looking for that elf, talks to it and shows it toys and other stuff.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Hope you enjoyed some crazy fun family times too.

Team C & J

Here's just one example...

Colin, Justin and I were all upstairs (bedrooms and bathroom). I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth with the door open. Justin was walking around saying "Beebee, bee," which means he's asking for his binkie. I responded, "binkies only in bed." Justin kept chanting.

Colin: I'll help you get them Justin. (Colin goes into J's room and gets his binkies out of the crib and gives them to Justin.)
Colin: Stay here Justin (Justin stays in his room, and then C comes to the bathroom)
Colin: Mom, I'm going to give you some privacy. (then he closes the door so I can't see them anymore.)
Colin: C'mon Justin let's go downstairs and play. (At this point, I'm assuming that J has his binkies and they are sneaking downstairs.)
Me: (Then I hear both of them giggle and run down the stairs. I didn't say a word. I just wanted them to be good brothers. And yes, when I got downstairs, Justin had both binkies. He saw me and ran away.)

Polar Express 2011

Oh yes. It's Polar Express time! Train, elves, treats, North Pole, Santa, conductor = Colin & Justin happiness

 The elves kept us busy on the train ride to and from the North Pole...reading the Polar Express and singing Christmas carols

 Justin needed a hug every now and again. Just plopped himself right onto Colin. =)

 The conductor stopped by to check our tickets.

 The North Pole was amazing. Full of reindeer, elves, snowmen and most of all, Santa.

Santa boarded the train and asked the boys what they wanted for Christmas. Justin gave him a stare and Colin wanted stamps, stickers and a walkie talkie.

• "The North Pole was shorter this year. There was more North Pole last year." - C
• "There was a police car at the North Pole." - C
• "Poop," as he pointed to his diaper - J (enough said)
• In one activity, an elf went to each child and had them say "ho ho ho" in the microphone to see who had the best. When it was Colin's turn, he said "ho ho cucumber," and the entire train started laughing. He was so proud of his little "joke." Must take after me! =) 
• Justin's highlight was a chocolate chip cookie and milk.
• Colin's highlight was the conductor and singing elves. It was his first time sitting on Santa's lap, too!
• And in case you were wondering, Jack & I did fairly well for a 2 hour train ride with sugared-up children.

Signs of Christmas

We received a catalog of Christmas cookies in the mail...
me: Ooo, these look good.
Colin: They look good. But we don't need to buy them.
me: You're right. We don't need to buy them.
Colin: Because we can call Grandma for cookies...

So we called Grandma and made a date for cookie making...

 

And this should be evidence of how wonderful and peaceful our day was. Justin completely enjoying his cookie and the music....


Thank you so much for a great day!!! The boys loved every minute of it and couldn't wait to tell Jack all about their cookies.

Colin asked Jack for the Santa hat...It's safe to say that we're ready for Christmas!

On a separate note, we went to a birthday party at Playground World & the kids had so much fun climbing, sliding, jumping and playing on the displays. It was one of the first parties that C ran off to find his friends - and stayed with them for the majority of the time.

 

Cleveland weather has been outstanding this season! And sun = happiness. Loving every moment.

Week updates...

ECEC hosted a math fair this past week - and it was a ton of fun. Different stations included using stamps to recreate domino tiles, rolling dice and identifying numbers, singing number songs, sorting small, medium and large pictures, predicting hold and cold items and more. Colin was so inspired that he created his own math fair once we got home. "Mom, I think we can invite all of the ECEC friends to our house for my math fair." - C.

It was a busy, busy week of work for us + Saturday for Jack. So we were excited to spend some family time together. The weather was fall-tastic (again!) so we took full advantage and headed outdoors. Off to the zoo..and, oh my goodness, we were in for a treat.

If you look closely, you will see the lion on the right devouring a groundhog. That poor groundhog wandered into the wrong area.... We did not witness the attack, but we did witness the aftermath - how the 1 lion didn't share his groundhog with the other, the other lion getting mad and ultimately, the 1 lion flinging that groundhog around to eat it. Jack & I wanted to keep watching - but Colin told us, "I'm ready to go now. Can we see the baby bears?"

 So we went to see the new baby bears next.

 My baby bears. Love them.

 We also made a trip to Grandma's. Oh, how I love a little physical labor in the crisp air. haha. Actually, working outside was so peaceful and wonderful...but it is a lot of work. I have no idea how she keeps up with all of her land. We all helped with raking leaves.

 Colin & Justin were the leaf crunchers. Can you find both kids in this picture? The boys always love time at Grandma's house. But today was special - great weather to run around, mandatory rolling in leaves, tractor watching, airplane spotting and brownies. A great afternoon.

We also sprinkled in a visit to the playground. What can I say? If Ohio gives us good weather, we've learned to appreciate it and spend every possible moment outside enjoying it!

Look, Justin can climb this now!!! In case you weren't aware, that's in the official "big boy" category. It's one of the first things he can climb that Colin climbs. He was grinning from ear to ear and was so proud of himself!

I loved watching him try and try and finally get it. So yes, I did take a video too.