Oh, my sweet Ethan has been reading to his younger siblings quite regularly lately.  I love it and so do they!

By the way, we just purchased a new computer and I do not yet know how to edit my pictures.  Everything is so different!  So red eyes will have to shine bright and pics. will remain uncropped until  I learn!

It does seem crazy to do so while my babes are so young, yet I want them to grow up here not be grown when it opens.  I am trying and succeeding most days to enjoy this process and still have time to soak up all of my three little ones goodness!

After two full days of phone calls to anyone and every one at our city hall, I decided we needed to get out and play among the trails close by.

I love how they are all happy doing their own thing.

What a big hill!

Nature really does do a body good!  I will remember as these days get busier to get out  and enjoy our world and the chance to refresh.

We all fell in love with our new nativity set from Mama Made.  Madeline took such joy in rearranging the pieces daily.  She was always so careful to place Jesus in the middle of it all.

Christmas Eve was spent with family, attending church and baking cookies along with Moosewood’s cauliflower cheese soup.  Yummy!

The children took such pride in preparing treats for Santa and his reindeer.  What magic childhood brings.  Madeline wanted to give Santa an apple so he could be healthy!

Sweet Max enjoyed the wonder that this season brought and squealed with delight as he opened his gifts.  He was slow to figure things out, but soon had everything down!

What a happy child.  Ethan has enjoyed his wooden swords he was given last year, so we decided to add a pirate’s dagger to his collection.  We bought them from Nova Natural Toys.  This is such a lovely company.

Madeline received a collection of homemade hats from my mother.  She just loves them!

As we move into the new year, I want to pause and remember all that this month and year brought us and meant to our family.  I am left with the feeling of wanting to linger just a tad bit longer in this season before it is gone.

I hope that your family was able to soak us some of the magical goodness as well.  I wish you a very happy new year.

They really are such an easy thing to make, taking less then 30 minutes per pant.  Madeline’s are a bit too tight, oops.  Hers have cute little owls on them.

I saw this idea for an adorable polar bear and the kids set to work.

Ethan rarely deviates from an example, however, Madeline’s bear was a tie dye creation straight from the 60′s!

I also set out supplies for the children to create a santa.  Madeline decided to add big glasses.

I just love how thick the beard is!

I love how these turned out!  I chose to make holly like antlers instead of handprints, since it may have been a bit too hard to get a good print with this squirmy babe of mine.

Here is the link to the adorable ones we made a few years ago.

I love preparing the birthday child’s spot at the table with special things for them to find when they awake.

Here she is on her way to find her surprises!

I love that she wanted to wear her crown all weekend.

She asked for Grammy to join her in cake decorating.  I baked a super healthy cake and it tasted really good.  We iced it with chocolate peanut butter.  This was a healthier alternative to icing and it really added something to the cake.

This cake turned out exactly how she wanted!  She was able to share it with a few cousins and friends at our traditional Chuck E Cheese gathering.

We celebrated with her friends the next day at an indoor playground.  We opted to serve fruit, muffins and simple gingerbread men.  To decorate them each child was given an individual pack of chocolate peanut butter or almond butter and raisins or SunDrops, a healthier version of m&m’s.  The children loved this activity.

Instead of gifts we  chose to have an ornament exchange.  This was such a big hit!  We have always had a book exchange at her parties as an answer to her not getting too many gifts right before Christmas.  We all enjoyed the new twist.  We passed the ornaments each time we sang jingle in the song Jingle Bells.  I love that each child leaves with something as well and not a bunch of plastic things or candy in a goody bag.

She chose to have hummus, lentils, sprouts and pita pockets for her dinner!  What a good dinner it was.

Her main gift from us was this balance bike from Kazam.  We did a lot of research and this one won out.  She loves it and has wanted to ride non stop!  I love that this is such good quality that Max will be able to use it in a few years.

Happy Birthday my love!  Oh, how you melt my heart!

After they were finished, I simply sewed a ribbon on each sack for easy tying.  This would be a great beginners project.

I have also seen felt garlands on the web for a while.  Madeline and I created this one for our tree.  We were quite satisfied with our new beautiful decoration!

Happy crafting!

Oh, how terrible I felt trying to snap this photo.  What a cruel tradition!  I assure you he was fine and even laughing when it was all over!