Flying Santa

A few weeks ago we took the boys to Ben's station to see Santa. Every year Santa comes to the station via helicopter and brings every child a toy. This has turned into our favorite Holiday tradition out here, we just love it! Here are a few pictures from that day, ENJOY!!!

Basement blues.....

A year ago I thought it was going to be so cool to have a basement to store all our holiday stuff, give the boys a place to play in the winter, allow Ben to set up a workout area, and just have a better organized system for all our stuff. Well that dream is gone and its now turned into a nightmare! The whole thing is stupid if you ask me, all it seemes to be good for is flooding and collecting all the crap I don't want in the house anymore. Ben still loves it because its keeping everything out of his garage....yet I still can't park my Tahoe in there. Anywho, since our last flooding a few weeks ago I have this fear of stepping foot down there. That was a mess and took a few days of cleaning and bleaching for me to be okay with it all again. Yes I said bleaching the basement floor, grrrr. Christmas is weeks away and I need to get my stuff out but down on 2 8 foot tables is a grim reminder of my laziness. All my Halloween stuff is still laying out not but away. How can I drag out Christmas without even putting Halloween away, I just can't. The loft upstairs is filled with stuff from the babys room to go down as well. Family will be here in 2 weeks and this all needs to get done before. Ben has duty again this weekend so Im not sure how much help he is going to be and we have soccer Saturday as well. Plus my children think they are going to die if we don't get a Christmas Tree soon and Noah seems to be the only child in school that doesn't have his tree up yet, if you ask him. Apparently thats the talk of the Kindergarten right now and I was told yesterday that "We have to get our tree up fast!" Between all my coughs, sneezes, and sniffles all I want to do is nap but Bryce tells me we don't have time to nap anymore.

So maybe if I get that basement under some control today things might just all fall into place. Wish full thinking but its a start. I'm also determined to get the babys dresser in her room today, the boys book shelf back in their room and maybe take some pictures of the baby's room to post. Anyone want to place bets to see what gets done?

Tree Lighting in Newburyport

Santa arrived in style Sunday to help light the Christmas Tree in downtown Newburyport. What better way to arrive then on a Coast Guard 47' Motor Lifeboat, I can't think of one. The boys were so excited to see Santa on Dad's boat and the big tree. Mom and Dad got lucky that day as well. We arrived to the Station to park and much to our surprise Santa wasn't really ready yet, this could have gone really bad for a little 5 year old we all know but Dad's fast moves got us out of that one. The boys and I hung out locked in Ben's office for a little bit then were off to the pier to wait with about 500 other people. After Santa passed we rushed out to get a good spot to watch the parade, that was until the boys saw Spongebob standing around. Bryce went nuts and had to rush over to give high fives and hugs. With about every other kid in Newburyport wanting the same thing it was crazy. I got out of there alive but Bryce was crushed with huge tears cause he didn't get a hug. Good thing Dad's 6 foot tall and was able to save the day. After Bryce got his hugs we were off again, that was until we happened to pass right by Santa walking the back way to meet the parade. We finally got to the parade and found a good spot but it did take us longer to get there then it did for the parade to pass. The tree lighting took longer then we thought and we were all pretty much done with being crushed into a herd so we took off to Starbucks (right across the street) got some coffees and watched from there. The boys loved it and Ben and I are so looking forward to all the Holiday events we have lined up for them. We walked back to the Station and headed out for dinner before making it home for the Steelers game :)

December 1st

Can anyone tell me where November went? Its now time to trim the tree, hang the stockings, place the lights and get ready for Santa to come. I guess I should get on putting the Halloween stuff away that has been piled up on 2 tables in the basement. This whole being pregnant with #3 is a lot more difficult then I thought it would be. Just trying to keep up with the "daily" cleaning and the boys has been enough to put me to bed by 9pm. But I'm happy to report that everything is going good with the baby. Had a few extra tests run the last couple of weeks due to some small problems but all checked out okay and I'm hoping for smooth sailing from here. We are down to 10 weeks till the little peanut arrives and still haven't picked a name. HMMMM

Other news, we had a great Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving vacation from school, work and cleaning. It was awesome to spend time at home with all 3 boys without having to do or go anywhere. We still had soccer on Saturday but that was about it. We played, laughed, cooked, did some "light" chores and just enjoyed us all being together. It was AWESOME!! It was hard to get back into things on Monday, Noah was late to school and we were late picking him up. Opps! But I think we might have it all figured out today.

December holds lots of fun Holiday things which I'm sure will mean less blogging updates. But I will try my best to post pictures as we go.