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.

Road block

I edited pictures, I composed a post in my head. I finally...FINALLY...sat down to type it and post and and I get a message that I've used up all of my photo memory and I have to purchase more.

road block. speed bump. big ol' pain in the ass. whatever you'd like to call it, there it is.

I honestly haven't looked into this and don't care to right now. I'll eventually bug Frank about it and I'll be able to share my cutie boys on turkey day and some more random iPhone pictures, and then of course, the Santa party we're going to tonight. Eventually I'll get there. But seriously, damn google. I don't want to purchase more space! I want free space! Isn't that the point of this?? How frustrating.

Basketball Diaries

This kid is mighty cute....

But in the interest of keepin' it real, the kids is not going to be a basketball star. Mark my words. 

With the holidays coming up, we opted out of hockey this session. Which left us a) wanting to keep our super physically-oriented boy busy and b) not pay out the nose for some sort of organized activity. Enter: mom's job at the Y! Thank goodness. One night I wrangled the sports director and half begged him to let Eddie join the little basketball league, even though they've been playing since October. He agreed (woot!) and even put Eddie on his team. The first day was a little rough, with him not quite getting the concept of a game. The next class was a little better.....and, well, a "little" is probably pushing it. He loves the running, but the concept of defense and offense is completely lost on him and he mostly spends time picking his nose, chasing down who ever he is supposed to be guarding or holding both hands above his head under the basket to catch a rebound....usually on the wrong side of the court. 

This past class was their picture day, and even though all of my common sense told me NOT to buy the pictures, that this was a one time sport that he isn't into, I'll be damned if I was able to refuse once I saw his big ol' smile when holding that basketball. UGH. So I got the cheapest package. Fast forward to the actual playing of basketball that day and the above coupled with a cold and a cough meant that my boy was, well, less than great. He spent a quarter on the bench (all of them take turns) and after he went in for his turn in the last quarter, he came meandering over and announced that he didn't like basketball and was a much better at cheering....from the bench. 

Moral of the story? We're sticking to hockey from now on. Oh, and I'll be sure to post his picture when we get it. Now...anyone have any really great gift ideas for Coach Dave, the sports director? I totally owe him one!

October/November phone dump

{row 1: fall fun at goebbert's...feeding giraffes and meeting zebras}

{row 2: finn's boat, bouquet i made, wedding 1, finn cheering on keith in the marathon, wedding 2}

{row 3: wine favors from wedding 2, my beautiful friend vicki dancing, stinky face, lunch time science and finney}

{row 4: finney, eddie and his girl, finn's magic mike impression, eddie and pumpkin fest, suited up for hockey weekend in america}

{row 5: eddie, the map master at the zoo, eddie and ethan with the polar bear, finney checking out the polar bear, my little tiger finn and happy as can be with two fish sticks}