A Christmas to Remember

Hello my dear blogging friends!  I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season.  Over here we were enjoying every bit of our holidays.  In fact, guys, I have a confession to make:  I put our Christmas decorations up well before Thanksgiving.  Phew, it feels good to get that off my chest.  But I seriously couldn’t help it!  I love Christmas decor and I had a little extra time on my hands before Thanksgiving and before I knew it, our house was all decorated!  It was totally out of my control.

Also, I’m a little proud of myself because all of our Christmas decorations either came from a garage sale, consignment shops, goodwill, or just plain given to us.  I think it all came together very nicely!

 

The day after Thanksgiving we surprised our kids with a trip on the “Polar Express.”  Er…excuse me…the North Pole Express (apparently there’s a copyright or something?)  Anyway, a cute little town about 45 minutes away does this great Polar Express themed Christmas train ride where they take you up to the "North Pole" and they give you hot chocolate and the kids meet Santa and they give everyone a bell.  They even give you a ticket and punch a word in it for you.  Our conductor punched our kids names in their tickets.  It was all very cute.

Jake with the conductors

 Waiting for the train to depart

Eating cookies and drinking hot chocolate at the North Pole

Eating markers in the craft room at the North Pole

The boys with Santa.  He's a little creepy to me, but you know, I guess you can't win 'em all.  

Standing in front of Santa's caboose at the North Pole.

 

For the actual day of Christmas we went to Michigan, and go figure, I left my camera at home!  Grrr… luckily, we had Joseph’s iPod with us so we were able to take a few videos, but I was pretty mad at myself.  Here's a little taste of our Christmas morning:

We were only able to stay in Michigan a few days because of complications with Joseph’s work and my kidney stone surgery (oh, did I mention I have kidney stones and I’m supposed to have surgery on them?  More on that later…) Anyway, our trip was cut short, but we were still able to have a wonderful time as I'm sure you did as well.

And so, from our family to yours, Merry (albeit belated) Christmas!!

P.S. Jake just grabbed that candle because he wanted something to hold while posing in front of the tree.  He cracks me up!

And then of course Eli wanted to hold it as well.  Love these kids!

Trenton's Homecoming

My youngest brother Trenton just came home from serving a church mission in Pocatello, Idaho.  Our little family decided that we would take a trip up to Michigan and surprise him when he got off the airplane.  Trenton has been serving for two years, so it’s been a long time since anyone in the family has seen him.  It was such a wonderful trip!  We are so proud of him.

 

 Jake was so excited to see his Uncle Trenton.  He ran up and gave him the biggest bear hug.

Eli hadn't met Trenton yet, so the two of them had the chance to get acquainted.

We stayed for a couple of days in Michigan and enjoyed being with Trenton and hearing his stories, playing games, watching movies, and eating lots of yummy food (and it wasn’t even Thanksgiving yet!)  While we were there we took the kids to the Midland Santa Parade.  Before the parade started there was a 5k.  When we got there tons of people were running down the street, and Jake thought he should join in the fun.  He started saying, “There’s a race!  I’m gonna win!”  I think that must be his Dougherty genes kicking in.  My dad decided he would run along with him.

After Jake realized that he was NOT in fact going to win the race, they turned around and ran right back.

Eli happily watched from the sidelines.

When Jake returned he was so tuckered out that he had Eli push him around in the stroller.

This parade was handing out ridiculous amounts of candy!  I think I'll tell Santa not to put any candy in their stockings this year because they are set at least until Easter!

Jake thought this mini semi-truck was pretty cool.

Midland does a good job of putting on nice parades for such a small town.  The kids loved it!  

It's always a blast to be with the family and we can't wait to go back for Christmas!

October Craziness

Whew, what a month!  October has been jam packed with activities.  We have literally been gone every weekend this entire month.  Here's the recap:

First, Joseph had a dental community outreach clinic in Davenport, IA.  They provided almost a million dollars worth of dentistry for free to those in need.  Since his company paid for food, lodging, and gas for Joseph, we all decided to tag along!  I didn't take pictures, but we had a good time enjoying one of the bigger cities in Iowa...which I realize isn't saying much but we had fun nonetheless!  

The next weekend we had a big wedding to attend!  Two of Joseph's classmates that met in dental school were getting married so my mom came into town and watched the boys for the weekend while Joseph and I had a little getaway of our own for the wedding.  As usual, the boys had a grand 'ole time with Grandma, and we were all sad to see her leave.  She traveled to Ottumwa on the train, and when she was leaving we took these pictures at the train museum located at the station.  

Then the next weekend we went to St. Joseph, MO to visit some of our best friends from dental school.  Jake was beyond excited to see Ethan and Noah and those boys were in seventh heaven all weekend just playing together.  They took us to an apple orchard/pumpkin patch where we picked apples, played on a playground, ran through a corn maze, rode an apple barrel train, and ate apple slushes.  

This is literally the best picture we got of everyone on the hayride...I didn't even bother trying to get a better one.

We loved eating the apples, though!

Finally, this past weekend we had our church's Halloween party!  Our family dressed as dragons and dragon tamers.  

There was a lot of eating.  Every time I turned around my kids were chowing down on some new sugary concoction.  But I figured, hey, Halloween only comes once a year, right?  And Joseph made sure their teeth were brushed extra well when we got home!

Jake enjoyed running around with his friend Crew.  Those boys look like they could be brothers.
(Also, did you notice that Jake's "chains" around his neck have a broken link at the end?  That was my idea...he's a runaway dragon!  I thought I was being pretty clever there.  C'mon, guys, just humor me.)

Then we spent all day yesterday in Des Moines where we picked out some more furniture for our still pretty barren home.   

Of course, in between all the craziness, we've still managed to spend a little time at home.       

The boys "helped" me rake the leaves in our front yard.  We only have one small tree in our yard, so there aren't a ton of leaves, but there was enough to have a little fall fun:

And there you have it!  The crazy October recap.  I hope your October was as full and fun as ours!

Keeping me on my toes

Eli has a very self-sufficient attitude about him, and that self-sufficiency is keeping me on my toes!  He regularly tries to rummage through the garbage to find himself some sort of half-eaten morsel that he can quickly devour without me noticing.  Or, he'll open the semi-full dishwasher with dirty dishes, find himself a cup, and get water out of the fridge.  About a month ago he started kicking it up a notch:

He pulls that chair over from our kitchen table, then climbs up to find whatever snack he wants.  

Then yesterday, he decided that he needed a bath:

As grateful as I am for his willingness to do things himself, I've gotta keep my eye on this one at all times!  Love this kid!!