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