Happy New Year!

Can't wait for this year ahead. Lots of new babies heading our way! Loved 2012 and all the memories made. Happy New Year friends!

{images via}

Our Christmas Shenanigans

What an awesome week it's been so far! We attended a couple of Christmas Eve services at our church on Monday evening and then headed home for an evening with just each other for company. The boys were eager to get to bed so that Santa could arrive and decided together that, even if they heard the sleigh bells or any such noises, they were not going to inspect. Seeing Santa right there, in person, made them a bit "nervous". We did not forget his cookies and milk in our haste and decided to give him an assortment of edibles, not knowing his preference or even if he had a similar nut allergy. In the end, that was not the case as he went for the peanut butter kiss. 

He brought the boys some wonderful gifts and all 3 were very happy. But the real excited happened at Ouma's house a few hours later, when they unwrapped one after another after the other. They made out like bandits, all in all, and have been playing happily ever since. They are, in fact, so extremely excited about their new toys that I can't get them to sleep in during their little holiday from school. And I know that come next week Wednesday, waking up at 7pm will be the hardest thing Parker has ever had to do!

Christmas Eve ...

Christmas morning!

 Christmas with family, later that afternoon.

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you a beautiful Christmas today!

Love from the Gungors

The Night Before Christmas

Merry Christmas Eve to you! Just a quick outfit to share on this sweet night. I'm 18 weeks along now ... almost half way. Little E joined me for these pictures yesterday and was as entertaining as ever.

{blazer - Target, dress - Anthropologie, bag - thrifted, shoes - Target}

Just a glimpse at a few things that have kept us busy this weekend.
1. Playing with our new toys from Friday's early bash. Old school robots, Play Mobil pirates, Zipflys (which are completely awesome for sledding down our front hill) and IPod Nanos.
2. Creating Christmas dishes to keep for years to come. My sister tried this out first, after seeing the pin on Pinterest, and it worked really well. Just decorate plates, mugs, etc. with permanent markers and put in the oven at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. Great little keepsakes!

Now off to check if Santa is ready to get these kid's presents ready. I'm tired. Sleep well friends!

What We've Been Up To

I've not mananged to have much time to blog this past week but it's only because we've been celebrating a Parker birthday, enjoying a Monty sized Christmas performance at school, cooking, baking, and lastly (on Friday night actually), having a great big family sleepover at my sister's house and our Christmas celebration. It's been a jolly week!

Let's start with Jam's 8th birthday, shall we? He had the great pleasure of eating out for not just lunch but dinner also and he received this fancy telescope from his grandparents. He's been enamored with the stars and planets for over a year now (after his introduction to the solar system in first grade) and with this amazing little telescope, he will be able to see the craters on the moon and Saturn's rings! Pretty fantastic. 

 He also invited his friends and cousins to a swim party at a local indoor water park and received plenty of legos (the building of which is one of his favorite past times) and this cool set of drawers for sorting and storing them. He and Monty spent a while doing just that, Christmas bear helping out a little too.

Best of all for Parker, the snow was falling all day long and enough had accumulated for them to build snow men and snow forts. Jam spent at least 2 hours outside while Monty and I baked his birthday cake.

On Friday morning the family loaded up once again and headed over to our last Christmas concert, this time for Monty and Elliot. Monty played Slim, a really rockstar cowboy. It's his last year at this school and the Kindergarteners usually get speaking parts for their last special Christmas performance. He did an incredible job and we were a very proud family. :)

Little E was a sweet, fuzzy sheep. He didn't do too much singing that particular morning though we were lucky to catch him in a moment of sincere participation here (below, near the lower left). He did do some drumming however, as is becoming customary in our family. Not sure how we'll manage a band with 2 drummers ... hopefully # 4 picks a different instrument!

And here are a few iPhone pics ... 

Parker as a tree in his school Christmas musical 

 Birthday cakes cooling

 Morning after our big sleepover

 Kids playing outside

Preparations!

Final preparations for Christmas are in the works. All the presents are purchased and we've been wrapping like crazy animals! The big boys are always eager to contribute to the process of wrapping all the goodies and it's often a messy but overwhelmingly exciting experience for all. My hopes for neat lines and perfect folds go out the window but who cares! They won't always be my little helpers, I'm sure, so I'll enjoy this while it lasts. 

Monty usually prefers to wrap up several of his stuffed toys as presents for us, on the condition that we immediately return them to their rightful owner.

And little E has spent many waking moments staring into this snow globe, which I brought upstairs 2 days ago. It plays Santa Clause is Coming to Town while he gets all glassy eyed, dreaming of this day to come.