Christmas Celebration #1

Every year Dave's family gets together the weekend before Christmas and does a brunch on Sunday.  We love it because it gives us an opportunity to see everyone and lay low on Christmas.  We always have a blast, and this year was no exception.  Thursday morning, Eli woke up with a high fever, which went away by Thursday evening.  We watched him Friday, and decided Sat morning we were good to go.  So we packed up and drove to Buffalo.  We were also concerned about the 402 through Canada being shut down, but it opened and was clear of snow by the time we got on the road.  We did see two semi's laying on their sides in ditches, windows blown out and everything.  Thankfully, no one was reported injured...incredible since people were stuck for hours, perhaps a day.  Police were out getting people with snowmobiles...insane!

Aunt Wendy and Eli...he was being a stinker!

Aunt Sherry and cousin Josh

The Italian Chef

The sauce that was added to home made stuffed shells....Heaven!

Grandma Claudia made the stuffed shells, and Aunt Sherry made lots of goodies for dessert.

Eli and Josh became great friends.

I wasn't here for this, but I'm assuming some dancing and singing was going on with all the cousins.

This is definitely a "shake your booty" move!

Videos...Singing and Dancing

This is kind of dark, but it's still funny...Bop, Grandpa Stobie, Eli, and Momma rockin' to a Veggietales song!

Dec 12th, Eli had his first choir performance.  He's easy to spot...he's the one sitting down!  The teachers told me they did this just because of his balance issues.  He's a great kid and seems to enjoy choir.  I'm not so sure after seeing him, but I'll take their (and his) word for it.  Eli gets an accidental solo on this one...He loves Jingle Bells!

December Happenings

Oh Christmas Tree!  We put up our Christmas tree and let Eli help us decorate.  He had a blast!  We didn't do a tree last year, so this was his first experience.

He got off the bus after our first snow and ran to the backyard, got his shovel and started shoveling the deck.  He was SOOOO excited!

All bundled up after our second snow...a really heavy, snowman building snow :)

He used his creative mind to put snow in the dump trucks from his sand box and  haul them to the other side of the yard.  Papa and Eli were outside for 2 hours I think.  

Papa's birthday was Dec 7th.  We celebrated the weekend after as a family since his birthday fell on a Tuesday, and that's our date night.  Eli helped with the brownies...

and with blowing out the candles.  He bought Papa a flashlight from the secret Santa shop at school.  It was a very well thought out gift!

Eli's Room

I realize I owe several of you pictures of Eli's room.  I'm not an interior designer, nor do I have much taste...I'm much more about function and using space effectively.  We're still not done-we need to add a second bar in Eli's closet so he can reach his clothes, but we're working on it (along with a huge basement undertaking!).  We decided to move Eli in to the bigger room (our old spare room) because it would have taken up most of the other room.  We didn't change the paint color, which was a dark green color.  Since he loves the color green we decided to make it easier on ourselves.  I still need to get blackout curtains for him, but I can't decide on a color....maybe black?

Eli brings home lots and lots of art each day and our fridge became crowded.  This is our dedicated art wall.  Eli can put up whatever he wants since he can reach the bottom two boards.  And we have our fridge back!

Eli's Many Poses...in under 5 minutes!

While at my parents house, we attempted some family pictures.  Eli wasn't really in the mood, so we had to bribe him with M&M's.  Can you tell which picture we tried to bribe him?

More Thanksgiving Pics and a Radioactive Snowman

 

My mom found these...aren't they great?!

My Dad let Eli run the train.  He loved pushing the button that released the barrels.

Jack chilling on a pillow

Being Goofy...

When we got back I started pulling out the Christmas decorations.  Our fridge snowman (assembled by Eli) looks a little like he bet on a different car winning...not to mention the third eye.  Maybe we should have the fridge checked for radiation!

The Twelve Days of a Large Family Christmas

This is for all of you who have more than the recommended 2.5 kids! LOL

Our Disney Adventure

We traveled to Disney World in Orlando, FL mid November.  We drove 19 hours one way.  Our directions?  Get on 75 South.  Ta Da, you're there!  On the way there, we stopped somewhere in Tennessee, but we drove straight through on the way back.  Of the almost 40 hours, I drove a whopping 4.  This picture is Eli enjoying the hotel in TN.  He was such a great traveler!  I had prizes for him that I picked up at the dollar store, and gave them to him throughout the trip.  And we had our DVD player and 5 movies Eli picked out before we left.  We only watched 2 movies per travel day, so he did pretty stinkin' good entertaining himself!

We went to Disney with my sister in law and her family, my mother in law and her boyfriend, my husband's aunt and her family.  We also met up with family in FL.  We rented two 7 bedroom houses next door to each other only about 10 minutes away from Disney.  Our first trip to Disney was the day after we all gathered in FL.  We had such a blast!

Walkin in.  We knew eventually we'd get to Magic Kingdom, but we weren't sure when...it took us almost an hour from the time we parked!!  That's just crazy!

Aw, what a great bunch of people :)

Great family photo for the albums 

Uncle Tony and cousin Sam

Eli loved riding on Papa's shoulders, but his legs fell asleep every time.

Love these gals...one of my favorite pictures of the trip.

The three amigos

Trying to get Eli to dance with me during a parade.  It was Veterans Day so they had a shout out to the vets in the audience.  Eli was mesmerized by the tall guys.  He couldn't figure out how they were walking.

CJ and Sam locked up...

And of course, Eli had to have a turn!

Sam...what a dramatic fella..I love it!

Oh, ya, just try to keep me locked up!

On It's a Small World

Eli wore his Mickey Ears and insisted we call him Eli Mickey.  Too cute!

The reason we all gathered was to celebrate my mother in law's birthday.  As you can see by the lovely decorations around her neck she turned 60!

My sister in law and her attachment, cousin Molly...the goof next to them is my husband.  And he wonders why Eli's so silly!

Happy Birthday Grandma Karl!

Her gift from her children is a nice snow blower.  She gave a "what did you do" glare in the picture just before this.  No gifts?  Paleez, Grandma Karl.  We couldn't refrain from splurging on you!

Eli LOVES his Grandma Karl 

We drove down Tuesday and Wed, went to Disney Thursday for the day, spent Friday at the house in the pool, Friday night was the Christmas parade (amazing!), Saturday was the birthday party and more pool time, and then we drove back Sat and arrived home Sunday at 4am.  Eli rode his first roller coaster, Big Thunder Mountain, complete with hysterical laughing and putting his hands up.  The highlight of the entire event was when Eli got to meet Tigger and Pooh.  I wasn't sure how he was going to react, but once we found them he told us he wanted to meet them.  So we stood in line for about 10mins.  When it was our turn Eli bolted from beside us and gave Tigger the biggest hug you could imagine from a child that small.  Then he hugged Pooh.  He proudly walked away like he was the king of the world.  We made him go back so I could capture the moment on my phone, since we forgot our camera...Oops!  From then on he has insisted that Pooh and Tigger and Mickey are all his friends.  I've been to Disney a few times and I always remember it being fun, but this was the best trip ever.