Happy Allen Twins Day!

While most people are out celebrating the new year, we are at home celebrating Allen Twins Day, the day our adoption was finalized.  One of the greatest days of my life!

On our way into the courtroom...

In court...

Our new family...

Time to celebrate!!!

25 Days of Blogging...Day 25

Christmas 2011

25 Days of blogging...day 24

due to technical difficulties i can not post pictures today...i cannot even capitalize letters so...come back tomorrow night and i will have lots of christmas pictures.

25 Days of Blogging...Day 23

Looking back at past Christmases...

Christmas 2008 (5 months old)

Cookies for Santa

 

Both boys are more into the paper than the gifts:)

Christmas 2009 (17 months)

All dressed up and no where to go...this is the year we got snowed in at Grandma's house.  They even cancelled church.  The boys were very tired and did not want to do pictures.

Look What Santa brought!

Christmas 2010 (2 1/2 yrs)

One of my favorite pictures.

Santa Claus hand delivered the presents

 What did Santa leave in our stockings?

25 Days of Bogging...Day 22

Another post to catch up from this summer...We tried to start a new family hobby in the spring, geocaching.  We had fun on our few outings, but still it didn't stick.  Our grand total of geocaches found over the summer is 5.  What a disappointment!  We will try again next summer (maybe).

Here are a few pictures from our couple of finds...

Our favorite was in Cocoa Beach, FL

Three of the five were found within minutes of our house, it was nice to get out for a bike ride to find a few.

25 Days of Blogging...Day 21

I remember as a child wanting so badly to meet Santa Claus and give him my wish list.  The only way to do that back then was to wait in line forever at the mall and be willing to pay a fortune for a picture.  I'm guessing my parents were not willing to do that because I don't ever remember meeting Santa.  My how times have changed.  We have started going out of our way to avoid seeing him!

Sunday evening we ordered a pizza and a little bit later the door bell rings, but it wasn't the pizza guy.  You guessed it, Santa came to our house!  (He does every year)  We love having Santa come to our house it is so much fun and one year even Mrs. Claus came which was pretty cool.  This year she was too busy getting things ready at the North Pole.

On Monday, the boys had their preschool program and party and once again...Santa!!! 

25 Days of Blogging...Day 20

Merry Christmas from our home to yours...Love Colby and Jacob

The boys love the playhouse they got this fall as an early Christmas present from Grandpa Greg and Grandma Kay.  They think it is really cool that we put lights on it:)

25 Days of Blogging...Day 19

Today was the boys' preschool Christmas program, once again they did a great job.  It was so awesome to see how much fun they were having singing their songs, especially when they were "tapping long lines"

To top it off as soon as the program was over Colby went over to his teacher, picked up her binder and CD and carried it to the classroom for her.  Those two boys make me one proud mama:)

25 Days of Blogging...Day 18

Today was the boys' Sunday School Christmas Program.  You can't tell by these pictures, but both of them had fun singing.  They stood still, didn't tackle each other (or anyone else), and they both sang!  They did a GREAT job!

25 Days of Blogging...Day 17

Here is the third song the boys are singing for their Christmas program...I think this is their favorite.

These videos take a long time to load so go take a nap, grab a bite to eat, or do whatever you need to do.  when you come back and the video may be ready to watch:)

25 Days of Blogging...Day 16

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...finally!!!

This is our version of a homemade holiday:)  I sewed the stockings for the boys' first Christmas.  This year I decided we needed a mantle to hang them on, so Jeff and I made this simple shelf to serve as a mantle.  Then, I decided if we went through the trouble of making a mantle we should actually have stocking holders instead of taping them up like I've done in the past:)  So, I made those too.

Here it is all put together....

25 Days of Blogging...Day 15

Here is the boys' second song for the Sunday School Christmas program.  I think we need to work on this one a little bit more:)



25 Days of Blogging...Day 14

The video game obsession has begun...

25 Days of Blogging...Day 13

The boys have been busy practicing for their Sunday School Christmas Program.  Here is one of their songs...



25 Days of Blogging...Day 12

One of the highlights of our year was our bathroom remodel.  We had planned on doing this project when we moved into our house 6 years ago, but other projects kept getting moved to the top priority spot. 

Here is what the bathroom looked like when we moved in...

I don't know what part I liked more, the gold floor or the green fixtures:)

In 2010 I gave up and thought that if we weren't going to be able to remodel for a while I would embrace the green.  With a shower curtain and a couple coats of paint we got kind of a funky look...

This year we were able to move forward on the remodel so we ripped EVERYTHING out...

We had one minor incident during the tile installation...looks like a little boy tried to run through the glue:)

Our completed bathroom...

25 Days of Blogging...Day 11

He sees you when you're sleeping.  He knows when you're awake.  He knows if you've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake!

How does Santa know if you've been bad or good?  Some people have known the secret for a while, but we just found out.  Santa sent us a scout elf, and we even got to name him!  After going through about 100 different names and words we all finally agreed on Robby.  So, here is Robby our very own Elf on the Shelf.  He hides somewhere different every morning and then every night he flies back to the north pole to report to Santa. 

 

Santa also sent each of the boys an email with a special little video message.  Each of them watched their video with wide eyes and the biggest smiles I have ever seen.  They were so excited to see that they were on the nice list!

Check out their messages here:

Jacob

Colby

To send a message to someone you know, child or adult, go to www.portablenorthpole.com

25 Days of Blogging...Day 10

Here are the last of my Orchard pictures...

25 Days of Blogging...Day 9

Wow!  I can't believe I am on day 9 and haven't given up on this 25 Days of blogging thing:)  Although, I think I am soon going to be out of old pictures to post.

Here is more Holmberg Orchard fun from this fall.  All kids love playing in the corn boats!