A Very Wolny Christmas

Last Saturday we celebrated the Wolny family Christmas. The boys got some wonderful gifts including a Hot Wheels track, playdoh, a bouncy horse, art supplies, Hot Wheels cars, and new Christmas outfits. They also received hand made scarves from Grandma Lee and Christmas ornaments to match their alligator and lion scarves. After opening presents we had a tasty lunch/dinner. The boys then spent the night at Grandma and Dziadziu's while Adam and I went to a Christmas party. We slept in until 9am on Sunday. It was GLORIOUS!! By far the best Christmas present ever!

My wrapping scheme this year

Lots of presents under the tree!

Just. Can't. Wait. Any. More.

Ben opened his presents at warp speed. I hardly got any pictures because he was done unwrapping before I could even pick up the camera!

The first thing Nick did when he opened his scarf was hug it. It was pretty cute!

Bad Aunt. I didn't get any good pictures of Eva. 

A Percussion-ish Instrument

The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers

A wonderful thing is a Tigger

A Tigger's a wonderful thing.

Their tops are made out of rubber,

their bottoms are made out of spring.

They're bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, bouncy,

fun, fun, fun, fun, fun,

The most wonderful thing

about Tiggers is

I'm the only one!

Playland Time!

Friday the boys and I went over to Sylvania Playland. We haven't been there in a long time. Ben is now too big for the toddler area. He was a little upset about that, but he made up for it by the fact that he can now do the inflatable obstacle course and the really big inflatable slide. Nick had fun on the roller coaster and chasing Ben around. Monkey see, monkey do has to do everything his big brother does...

Dancing Fools

The video pretty much sums it all up.

The Day George James Lost His Magic.

Last week was a rough week. To begin with, Ben had some major issues at daycare that resulted in a not so favorable video message from Santa and left Ben a little stressed out. Then he touched George James. George James had gone fishing that particular day with a little fishing pole on top of the fish tank. That was just too much temptation for Ben. He wanted George Jame's fishing pole. So, he took it! And touched George James!!! Well, Ben went straight to his room in hopes that somehow GJ could regain his Christmas Magic. While Ben was in his room, GJ had just enough Christmas Magic to make it back to the North Pole. There the elf doctors were able to save his Christmas Magic. However, when GJ returned the next day, he was carefully protected by the bug catcher so there could be no accidents. He also left a note for Ben asking him to be more careful. 

Merry Christmas to Us

Adam and I got each other pots and pans for Christmas this year. I know, aren't we just soooo romantic... But they are pretty awesome. I'm such a smart girl - get pots and pans that your husband is excited about and then he volunteers to cook dinner for almost an entire week straight! Yup, that was totally worth the money. 

My Bestest Friend

They may be having some listening issues lately, but they sure have been laying on the cute brotherly love a lot lately to make up for it. 

Kid's Christmas Party - Part 4

I ordered some photo booth props for an upcoming Christmas party and let the boys take a few pictures with them. Ben was obsessed with the Rudolph nose. And they only slightly used them as weapons. I took 3 pictures and then took the props away so they wouldn't get damaged, but now I know for the future what to do to get picture volunteers! 

Kid's Christmas Party - Part 3

And next came the most delightful of all - the cookie decorating! With sprinkles! I made some vibrantly colored frosting to go with those sprinkles. There were a lot of frosted faces, sprinkled table and floor and bellies filled with sugar!

Look ma! No hands. Ggggrrrrreeeeaaattt

Kid Christmas Party, Part 2

Next up on the kid party agenda was coloring and decorating wooden ornaments. Tiffany found this kit too. It came with markers and a few glitter glue sticks. This was right up Nick's alley. He loves to color these days. He colored a few ornaments, but his main focus was his hands. The speech therapist in the group even got him to say "Yellow, please". Did I mention that these markers where not exactly of the instantaneous washable variety??

Ben was all about the glitter glue. He put his best creative foot forward and combined the penguin ornament with the wooden ornament by first coloring and glitter gluing the wooden ornament, then applying foam sticks to it, more glitter glue and coloring the stickers. It was quite the master piece. 

Again, we got all the kids to sit and do this one too. It was amazing!! But I think the mommies had more fun :) 

Oh, What Silly Mommies... Part 1

Oh, what silly mommies are we, Tiffany, Kristi and I. We (mostly me), had this great idea for a kids Christmas party of crafts and decorating cookies. It's all the rage on Pinterest - 50 Christmas Activities for Preschoolers, Handmade Crafts, Montessori Christmas Ideas, blah blah blah. But really it's just mommy peer pressure to set you up as a failure when it's not all perfect and wonderful like those blogger mommies make it look. Below, and the following posts, are what it really looks like to Christmas craft with three 3 year olds and one 21 month old. Messy. But, it was fun. As long as you had ear plugs. And alcohol. (just be happy there is no video of these escapades). 

I found a cute Christmas banner printable. I have a printables obsession this Christmas season. All about the free.

I made a bunch of sugar cookies for decorating. I cheated and bought buttercream frosting from the bakery instead of making royal frosting. But I convinced myself that it would be easier for the kids to decorate with buttercream.

After some crazy playing time and eating some yummy hot roast beef sandwiches, salad and fruit, we dug right into our first project - penguin ornaments. Tiffany found some really cute foam ornament kits that are perfect for these guys. They just peel the backs off the foam stickers and adhere. I think Nick may have made an attempt at it, even. The kids all sat and made at least one penguin, which I thought was a major win. At one point though, all four of them were calling MOMMY while Avery was beet red screaming in the living room with the boys and Monster was outside barking. Kristi, Tiffany and I all just put our heads down on the table. Then I opened another bottle of wine. 

Kristi and I had issues getting the penguin santa hats to work out. The kids got all crazy and wild while Kristi and I focused on what we were doing wrong. Turns out, there is a front and back to those crazy little penguins...

Next up, coloring ornaments