Christmas at the Anvil Club

One of our family traditions is to have brunch with Santa at my parent's supper club. This was going to be Finn's first time actually having to interact with the big man, so I was a little nervous....and I should have been :)

{i have no idea what Finn is doing here, but it cracks me up. He is constantly pointing out and screaming about things. He's a rather loud child, when he gives up his shy act}

{My handsome little men!}

{eddie's favorite part of the brunch...cotton candy! our waitress complimented Eddie on his terrific eating habits...she said most parents gave in and let the kids go for the sweets table right away. Eddie will always chose real food first!}

{my sweet boy. Eddie went right up to Santa and told him what he wanted, in a shy quiet voice that Santa couldn't quite understand. After some repeating, Santa got it and Eddie beamed. Look at his little hands! adorable.}

{Oh, Finn. Frank was holding him while Eddie talked to Santa, and when it was time to get a picture all together, I think Finn practically clawed his way up Frank's back to get away. Don't worry, we didn't torture him for long...Frank grabbed him right away!}

{I think this was the boys' favorite part...singing christmas carols and ringing bells with the piano player! They rocked out}

{hehe...mean Momma motioned for Santa to come over...Finn didn't even notice :)}

{see?! told you! still happy as can be}

{since we were all fancy we took a quick family picture. This one is zoomed in like crazy...apparently my dad loves his giant tree so much he thought that he should get the whole thing in the picture! Ugh. Silly Grandpa.}

This was my last day with my yucky, broken lens. Hoooray!!! Frankie got me a new 50mm lens for Christmas, thank goodness. My old lens would just fall right off at random points, had trouble focusing and was otherwise well past it's prime. Poor lens :( But goodness, I do love my new one. 

Santa visit #1

Right after thanksgiving we took the boys to our first official Christmas event....Santa arriving at our little town!

{finn spotted the big tree all lit up....lights were easily Finney's favorite part of Christmas this year....Santa, not so much}

{admiring...}

{the beautiful theater all lit up! Inside there were carolers and hot cocoa and cookies. This farm town...sometimes it wins me over on nights like this}

{Eddie waiting for Santa to arrive!}

Sidenote: Santa arrived on a very decorated giant snow plow. Cute, right?! Not so cute was watching Santa pull out a ladder to climb out of the snow plow on. Holy hell, it was momentarily terrifying. I thought about averting Eddie's eyes, but we went with it. I just kept repeating "Wow! Santa is so brave!! Good thing he has lots of practice doing this!", but in reality, I totally thought Santa was going to bite the big one in front of all of the kids. Anywho....

{Eddie watching Santa}

All in all, it was a cute little thing. We did one more outdoor Santa arrival party, which I can't wait to post about. That one was seriously awesome. At each one, we just watched Santa arrive, ate some treats and moved on. Thank goodness, because wait until you see Finn's reaction to Santa at our 3rd Santa visit. He could have been traumatized much earlier in the season! 

Thanksgiving, real and fake.

Do you see how much we have to make up for?! All the way back to thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving 2012 was hosted at our house, at the last minute. It was just our little family and Frank's parents and sister, hanging out at our house. We're always thankful that Frank's business gives out turkeys from a local farm to all of their employees (holler, farm life!), this year especially in our last minute planning craziness.

{aw, my cute little table}

{every year we host it is a shit show getting that bird out of the pan. Seriously. Its like every year we're surprised all over again that it isn't as easy as planned}

{family love}

{hello, cutie boys}

{such a mischievous little monster}

{Eddie is blurry, which apparently was the deal with all of my thanksgiving pictures. He really wasn't having the camera that day, so pictures of him cooperating are few and far between}

{Finn is crazy blown out in this one, but I love it. He turned one of the chairs around just so he could watch Frankie do dishes. Finney watched him the whole time! It was so cute}

And, of course, we had our traditional Fakesgiving that weekend with my parents and family. Pictures this year are sparse (Finn is such a busy little munchkin, that most of the pictures are of him, too, because I just follow him around, lol).

{baby chase was still growing last year, but this year stole the show with his hilarious antics. All he wanted was Finn's attention, and Finn wanted nothing to do with him, lol }

{chase was all up in Finney's face with this awesomeness. He was saying "hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!"}

{meanwhile, Finn was much more amused by the good ol' olive on the finger trick}

{of course, my mom rocked dinner (as always), but Finn was especially fond of his own little sweet potatoes and spent the better part of dinner with the ramekin shoved in his face}

{and here's my best eater ever (blurry, ugh!) showing me his favorite thing at dinner.....brussel sprout salad. No joke.}

{were you wondering what Finn looked like after his love affair with sweet potatoes? Beautiful, no?!}

Aw, what a cute little recap. I really loved our Thanksgivings this year...nice and low key, with people we love.

We're Back!!

Hooray!! That was a long break, and an especially hard one since I had so many fun things to write about with the holidays. This week will be one huge make up session, so get ready! We're going to start out nice and simple....by sharing our Christmas card!

I took this year's picture in the field behind our house, one that has seen many a Turza yelling and screaming to 'smile!', 'be nice!', and, of course 'dammit, frank, I thought you were going to help me!!'. Oh field. We love you.

{the front of our card, which had a little tag on it that said "Season's Greetings"}

{the back, which had a little picture of them by the fireplace with the caption 'tis the season to believe'}



Of course, you can see Eddie's letter to Santa above. I plan to have him write it on the card every year so I can keep them forever :) If they're anything like this year's, they will be cracking us up for years! This letter says...

"Dear Santa,

This is my note and it came from our house. I am writing to you to let you now what I want for Christmas. I would like a Batcave. I have been nice this year. I have been naughty too, in the bathroom. {Eddie has a history of causing quite the trouble in the bathroom when he should be sleeping. Playing with shaving cream, cleaning things with my toothbrush (ick!) and so on. But still. Best sentence in the whole thing}. I promise I won't do that anymore. I promise to leave you chocolate chip cookies and milk!

(heart) Eddie"

That little signature kills me every time. The upside down 'e' is the best ever!

Hopefully Eddie doesn't hold it against me when he realizes I've been hoarding his letters to Santa...lol.