Perfect

I love to take pictures. I took this picture of my loving husband and my 4 amazing children last week on Father's Day. I have looked at this picture over and over and over again.

 I love it. 

I am crazy in love with the people in it. 

It is a perfect picture of each one of them. I started to get sad that I wasn't in the picture. I have thought, "If I could have just slid right in next to Jon, it would have really been the perfect picture." But the more I have thought about it, the more I realize that I am in the picture. I am a huge part of it in fact. All of those perfect little expressions are being directed at me behind the lens. So even though I might not be physically seen, I am there.

Yep, it's perfect.

Birthday Girl

Ava turned 1 last week ("say what???"...I know.)

Do you know what she got for her birthday?

Lots of things.

A fever. A runny/stuffy nose. A cough.

She is finally starting to act like her old self again thank goodness.

You know, it's not until she is sick and then not sick that I really realize what a happy, sweet baby she is. I have just been spoiled. I am grateful that she is healthy. I am grateful for her snuggles (she is the only one of my kids who will snuggle when she is not sick.) I am grateful for her giggles. I am grateful that I am not paying for formula anymore.

But most of all, I am so grateful to be her Mom.

Seriously.

December to Remember

Here is our Christmas card.

We had 3 different shoots to get it done.

I think it was worth it.

The day after Thanksgiving, we (all 5 of us) woke up sick. Flu sick.

We were a NyQuil commercial.

We were sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, suffy headed and fevered.

We were miserable.

By Sunday, we were feeling a little bit better but not enough to go to church. We decided to get out some crafts to pass the time and to get our halls decked for Christmas.

I found these simple, cute craft kits at Target and they were perfect for Chloe and Beckham. We made garland and ornaments for the kid's tree and door hangers for their bedrooms.

It is so fun watching how different they are when they get creative.

Chloe is messy but efficient.

Beckham is tidy and slow.

It was a fun afternoon.

I think that Mr. Poort has a little bit of OCD.

Everything has to be categorized and in its place in every aspect of life.

Miss Chloe would do crafts all day every day if she could.

She loves to create.

Miss Ava's new trick:

No, not eating off of the floor (she has been doing that for a while now)...

She is now a stander!

See...he had to put everything in a row before he could even think about starting to create anything...

The benefit of having a backyard with mature trees is the leaves that fall to the ground. Chloe spent hours and hours raking leaves into piles this Autumn. Because of all of the wind, her piles would get destroyed daily and so everyday she would grab the rake and start making piles again.

(I should say that the wind AND Beckham were the destroyers of those piles.)

While we were at my parent's house one day, I left the room for a few minutes and came back to this.

Hmmm...I wonder who gave her that.

Busted.

She almost finished the whole thing by herself.

You can tell that she is child #3.

I would have probably freaked out if Chloe had sugar at this age.

(not to mention...eating food off of the floor??? Gasp.)

The kids (and I) were SO EXCITED to decorate the house for Christmas.

We decorated the tree together (with a little adjustment by me so that the tree wasn't bottom heavy)...

We cranked the Christmas music up and drank hot chocolate.

Beckham's favorite Christmas song this year? "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree"

Chloe's? "Santa Claus is Comin' To Town"

Jasper, our Elf on the Shelf, made his appearance on December 1st. Chloe was so cute with him. Every day (and I mean EVERY day), Chloe would talk to him, leave him notes/lists and even made him a green hat. She was so happy to find him wearing her hat everyday of his stay.

The kid's threatened each other all month with telling Jasper about the other's bad behavior.

It worked...which meant that I didn't have to do much reminding.

Genius invention.

Miss Ava in her "Baby's 1st Christmas hat." She wouldn't keep it on so I had to distract her with food.

Beckham turns everything into a vehicle of some sort. Here, he is using a snowflake ornament to drive his motorcycle.

I love boys.

Me and Jonny P at his company party.

I love this boy the most.

Christmas Morning

The kids were up by 7 a.m..

I love the commotion of Christmas morning.

The laughing and giddiness is contagious.

I told Chloe and Beckham that if they made bad choices that Jasper, our Elf on the Shelf, would take away 1 of their presents...their favorite present. After she was done opening her gifts, Chloe came and whispered in my ear that she had tricked Jasper. She said that she had purposely told him that her favorite gift on her list was a coloring book (when in fact it was a doll house) and that she didn't get one for Christmas.

She fooled him.

Probably the worst gift ever. Beckham L.O.V.E.S. Transformers. He watches the old 80's cartoons on Netflix all of the time. Santa thought that Beck's big gift should be the biggest Bumblebee Transformer made. What Santa failed to think about was the fact that Transformers need to transform. I love this picture because Beckham was confused as to why his Dad couldn't figure out how to put Bumblebee back together again.

This toy is now totally assembled but sits quietly on a shelf until Beckham turns 10 and can transform it himself.

Aunt Amber and Uncle Kyle gave these to Chloe. They had no idea that Santa was bringing an empty doll house that needed some tenants. It was perfect.

Santa probably could have just given her a bag of these and called it good.

Buying anything for my parents is kind of hard. If they want something, they usually just go and get it for themselves. This year, we decided to transfer all of their VHS tapes to DVD.

There were tears.

Mission accomplished.

The rest of the day was spent eating and playing and going to the movies and eating.

ALL done in our jammies...yes, even the movie theater (we looked awesome in all of our "matchiness" if you were wondering...)

The Night Before Christmas

When we arrived home from our train ride, we showered, washed jammies and cooked.

My family met at our house for our traditional chili dinner and gifts.

After we ate, we gathered around my brother, Jason, as he read the biblical account of the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. We read this every year on Christmas Eve. It breaks up the scriptures with hymns.

After we finished the "We Three Kings" song, we went to the front room for gifts. We finished up the night by making Oreo truffles for Santa (I heard this is his new favorite).

It was simple and fun.

After we cleaned up, everyone but me, Jon and Ava went to my parent's home.

Jon and I stayed up until 3:30 assembling stuff. I already had everything wrapped weeks before Christmas, but didn't assemble anything until that night.

We loaded everything into the car and traveled to my parent's house and went to bed at 4 a.m.

Why do I do this to myself every year???

Mark my word, next year will be different.

(probably not).