Christmas outfit photo op!

You gotta love photo ops with 3 little munchkins... I know Kep does!!! ;)

Christmas Pizza Gang

Isn't this a lovely shot of all our children!?! We have been getting together with these 3 families for the past 3 years, 2-3 times per year, for pizza parties. The first year was very relaxing, as we each only had one child. But, now, there are 11 children 5 and under!!! So, our pizza parties are anything and everything but relaxing! They are super entertaining! We have been trying to get a cute picture of all our children on the couch, so this will have to be our "cute" picture!

This year we decided to skip the $5 toy gift exchange and exchange $5 books, instead. It was perfect as they each got a book of their interest AND it quieted them down for a good 5 minutes!!! Fun times!

Reindeer fun

Aren't these adorable!?! They are super simple for little hands, and- YES- they are from Family Fun magazine! They are supposed to look like the one on the right, but Amanda and I agreed that the one on the left is more cute and realistic! Thank you, Bacon Bits, for a fun morning making reindeers.

Here's the oldest of our 7 children. They are all smiling because these reindeers were fun to make AND because their bellies are full of M&M's, NutterButters, chocolate chippers and pretzels! Very healthy snack that sends them flying into the world of happy loudness but somehow they all landed in the world of tears! I guess every sugar HIGH has to have a sugar low!!!

Here's my little snitcher in his world of happiness. Noah's happiness was interrupted, a couple times, by falls. I don't know how this little guy manages to fall- but he's consistently clutzy. I purposefully stuck him in on a chair b/c they are lower to the ground but he still took 2 hefty falls. I try to be sensitive but, my goodness, after multiple falls per day... it is hard not to laugh or roll the eyes, instead of cuddling him! But, Noah, was the best cookie maker- he kept making cookies til the last one... because there was chocolate to be snitched!!!

Another favorite thing about Christmas

Another thing I love about Christmas are the Christmas cards and letters we all receive. I love catching up with all my highschool and college buddies' families and seeing the new years' pictures. One thing we are doing this year with all our Christmas pictures... is stapling them to a pretty Christmasy ribbon and hanging them in our dining room. I, also, clipped a cute little clothespin on the first family and the clothespin moves down to the next family- daily. Then, as we open our dinner time with prayer, we pray for the "clothespin" family. It has been a great way to reteach the benefit of praying for our friends and family, instead of ourselves! Our boys are, also, learning who our "long-lost" friends are from the NW and MidWest! I can't remember where I read of this idea (some magazine-since that is all I read!!!)... but, it has been a great one for us- this Christmas season!

Hatcher's Pass now has a rope tow!?!

Here's the sideline video crew! We sat on our sleds to watch Parker and daddy test out their new ski invention! Then, Noah tested out the sledding invention. It's probably already invented, somewhere, but it's new to our family! You'll have to see the 2 videos, below!

Savannah loved sledding in her blue throne! It is so handy as she can go down the little slopes all by herself and it never tips!

Isn't that so clever! Don't you wish you, too, were a toddler! It was so handy not to take off Parker's skis and have him hike back up the slope. This, also, gives him practice with a rope tow... for when we take him to a real ski slope!

The sledding rope tow was the best because we didn't have to worry about Noah crashing at the end and then we didn't have to pull him back up 100x! It was pretty funny/silly to watch the sled suddenly stop and then go in reverse! Yep, we sound lazy but it did help both our toddlers (and daddy) last longer and it gave Kep an arm work-out (so, I guess I'm the lazy one)!!! Once the children are all a little older and can walk up icey slopes without falling, 100x, we'll have them walk up their own sleds/skis. But until then, this rope tow makes sledding more enjoyable for all!!!

I LOVE traditions

I guess my favorite thing about Christmas are the traditions that go along with it to remember the REAL reason for Christmas... and that is Christ! Kep and I want to make sure that amidst all the cutesy and glitsy aspects of the "holiday" season- that our children grow up loving and desiring to personally make Christ the BEST tradition in their Christmas.

So, we are still including the "cutesy and glitsy" in our little family traditions, but making Christ the center of them! It just takes a little more creativity and the help of books! I am, after all, a "retired" school teacher so I have loads of fabulous children's books. But, now since I have children... I have been collecting more Christmas and Christian children's books. And, after last year's "after Christmas sales"... I now have 25 Christmas books. So, I wrapped them all up and we are using them as an advent book calendar.

On December 1st, they opened the Gingerbread Baby and then we made a gingerbread house- which was a crazy adventure, more to come!!! Then, on Christmas morning, I have a sweet little book called the Baby Jesus. Everyday, the boys get to open one book (after dinner- b/c then daddy is home to enjoy!) and we spend time, as a family, on the couch! It's super fun to watch the boys anticipate it and it makes them eat their dinner a little more speedy than normal. I love how it is getting us in a new tradition of sitting down on the couch for a family story time and then talking about the true Christmas message (in the Christian books!).

I would like to get more Christian Christmas books in our collection, so I will be shopping the "after Christmas sales", again. Here are 3+ books I will be in search of on December 26th, and I'm sharing them with you because they are awesome books that share the true Christmas message; The Legend of the Candy Cane, The Legend of the Christmas Tree, The ADVENTure of Christmas and a few more???!!!

This cute little pile of presents is also an advent calendar that my sweet Aunt Connie bought for our kiddos at Target! Each little door has a chocolate inside- mmmmm- fun way to start our mornings!

This is our first year with Savannah and all our children, so I was finally able to get their stockings embroidered with their names. This is, also, our first time using these cute stocking holders that I bought at Target's after-Christmas-sales, last year. I am soooo excited to be able to shop those same Target sales, this year, in Wasilla!!!

You'll have to read the next post to hear how our first book-opening-night went, it didn't really live up to my expectations- just a tad more memorable!

Gingerbread House adventure

Well, this was the peaceful beginning to our book advent tradition. The boys opened our first book on December 1st. Parker was extremely excited to see Gingerbread Baby as we have not read it for a year! But, after the book was over... our house became a little crazy!

The boys did such a great job decorating our little house. I don't know how it happened, but both our boys are very orderly... they carefully placed each candy on the house! Then, I made the mistake of sticking Savannah on the table, so she could be in the action and, of course, for a blog picture! Well, she was only up there for a split second but she managed to knock over the bowl of tiny little candy balls that bounced all over our dining room floor. This nearly sent our first-born to tears as he thought the candy was now going to be wasted since it was on the floor. And, I received several "I can't believe you set an 8-month old next to bowls of candy" looks from my hubby! Oops, but we got them picked up lickety-split. But, while we were on our hands and knees... Noah was comparing the size of a little blue candy ball to the size of his left nostril. Yep, perfect fit and if you take a big sniff... it flies up!!! Oh my word!

Well, Kep tried massaging the candy down but that didn't help. So, we both thought... "what could make Noah sneeze?" hmmm... pepper! Yep, we waved the can of pepper below his nose but by this time he was too upset and was crying/breathing out of his mouth- not his nose! Then, the bright thought came to me... a bath. Bath time always makes little Noah sneeze and I keep a box of kleenex next to the tub b/c that's when all his boogers are set free! Sorry, if you don't like snot pix but here's evidence that Noah had a BLUE candy stuck up his nose! The bath idea was great b/c it is one of Noah's favorite activities and it helped distract him that he had a candy lodged in the bridge of his nose. And, it helped give mommy hope that we wouldn't be on our first trip to the ER! This would have been ironic since we had just chatted about ER visits with other young families and we still have yet to make an ER visit with our children! (knock on wood!)

Here's Noah giving us a "thumbs up" because the candy did FLY out on the third sneeze, but it was now white and 1/2 the size! What a relief!

And, there's our 3 sweet children with the 2008 Kroon Gingerbread Home! It wasn't the night I envisioned but it did give us a few giggles and a new appreciation for memorable mistakes.

Parker the Plow Santa

This post is for my dad- Parker is working and getting paid!

Parker now has a part-time job every winter... he helps dad with his mini-plow business! Kep plows 8 driveways, then he comes home to pick up Parker to help with the last 3 "family" driveways (Kroons, Grindles and us). It is so cute because he gets super excited about making "moneys", he doesn't call them dollars- for some reason!?! This weekend, he had to wear his Santa hat instead of his striped stocking cap because he is now officially in the Christmas mode- like his mom! I love how he really gets into the shoveling, he gets down and picks up every last pile!!!

So, we'll see what Santa Parker does with all his "moneys" at the end of the plow season!

Santa, his reindeer and Noah!

Here are our festive children... Noah didn't want anything on his head, so he has a car- instead!

Savannah getting tired during her photo shoot!

Savannah tired OF her photo shoot!

I got the true Savannah smile! She's had a 102 fever for the last couple days, so she wasn't crazy about being on the floor- without cuddles, but once I "neeeeighed" like a horse... I got an adorable smile!

Tree Trimmin' Time!

Time to trim the tree... and Noah is noticeably excited about it! Another one of our Christmas traditions is to give our children a new set of PJs to decorate the tree in! The boys each had their bowl of ornaments for the tree, and they really got into it this year! Mo-mo bought the boys their favorite movie character ornaments. Parker got his Kung-Fu Panda ornaments and Noah got his CARS ornaments.

The tree is lit and full of cute ornaments, so now the BOYS (not me!) got to sleep by the tree with dad! First, we watched "The Grinch", to calm them down!

And, here's our tree!!! Parker keeps telling us, "this is the bestest Christmas tree, ever!" And, he's right... it is our best one ever, in our li'l Kroon family! You might notice that there are clumps of ornaments, but that makes it even more special- it's not perfect, but it's sweet!
Now, all my boys are out putting lights up on our house and split-rail fence. It's such a "Christmasy" day as huge snowflakes are falling and I'm putting out all the rest of our Christmas decorations! I LOVE this time of year!

Christmas Tree huntin'

Christmas traditions are the absolute best! Every year, I go shopping early in the morning on $aving$ Friday (some people call it "Black Friday", but I think that sounds depressing!) and Kep gets out all our Christmas decorations. Then, once I'm completely exhausted and I'm finished finding all the deals... we go cut down our tree! Yesterday marked our 6th year of marching through the snowy Alaskan woods to cut a tree. Therefore, we have never had a Christmas tree that would make the cover of any decorative magazine... but, it's always homey and homely! There are many benefits to our Christmas trees, as they:

• only take 1 minute to "saw" down! In Washington, my family used to go to a beautiful tree farm nestled in a valley of the Cascade Mountains. There were so many gorgeous, full trees that it took a 1/2 hour to choose and then 10 minutes to saw through the LARGE trunk!
• are free! We always get one tree for our living room, one tree for Mo-mos living room AND one tree to put lights on in our front yard! Good thing, they don't cost money because I love Christmas trees!
• show off every ornament because of the great gaps between every branch! And, the branches are so flimsy, they can only hold one ornament at the most!
• are very lightweight! Parker can even help pull the trees back to our truck!

Each year, Christmas gets more fun as our children are old enough to remember our traditions and appreciate them. This year, we sang "Oh, Christmas Tree" on our truck ride to get the tree!

Thanksgiving Ice Biker and Jumpers

We spent another yummy Thanksgiving at Popeye and Mo-mos! Thank you, Mo-mo, for all your scrumptious preparations.

Here is a video of Parker and Noah loving time out on the frozen lake. On our way over to their house, Kep loaded all the snow gear, skis and sleds. Then, Parker requested for his dad to throw in his bike, too! I tell ya, this boy is a true-Alaskan... it doesn't matter; what the temp. is, what the conditions are, or what the activity is... you just do it! So, Kep cleared the ice from the gorgeous new snowfall and then the boys played hockey, again, and Parker rode his bike!

Noah turns 2... Lightening McQueen Style!

Noah woke up at his normal time BUT to a bowl full of cake batter! This is how every birthday should start for our little man- 2 spoonfuls of batter. The day got even better for our sweet-tooth-boy as we went out for a donut. Of course, we didn't get the old-fashioned (non-frosting) donut because it is Noah's birthday! He picked out the raised donut with gobs of green-goo-frosting, gummy worms and M&Ms. And, he ate every bite. I wish I had my camera b/c his face was smeared with green goo and it did kind-of stain his face for a couple hours!!!

Noah's 2nd b-day continued to get better as he woke up from naptime to his figure-8 racetrack cake all frosted! It's supposed to have green sprinkles around the sides... but I ran out of time and I couldn't figure out how to make them stick without making a huge disaster of the chocolate frosting! Thank goodness, my little bday-themed-cake-attempts are always exciting for my boys!

Ohhhhh, our car-lover Noah could not wait for the race track to be opened so he started driving a car on the box! This li'l guy could push cars around all day so this b-day theme was a dream come true for our Noah!

Everyone was all "eyes" (even Savannah) to Noah's new Lightening McQueen "stock" racecar track! If any of your boys are into cars... I highly reccommend this gift for Christmas- it's from CostCo and it is very kid-friendly (and adult-friendly, as you can see!)!

And, the night ended, rather late, in a new set of old-man Lightening PJs. Noah also got the adorable Lightening McQueen slippers but we are still working on convincing him that they are cool to wear. Right now, he's not too sure about putting cute puffy cars on his feet!!!

Happy 2nd Birthday Noah! We love you and are so thankful for the JOY you bring to our lives!

And, "thank you" (family and friends) for spoiling our li'l guy with your love and car gifts! Our boys will be lost in 'car fun' for days to come

Kep's got a skiing bud!

I'm pretty sure this is Kep's favorite day (in a LONG time) because his 4 1/2 year-old boy, finally, tried skiing! Kep is from a family of skiiers, so it would just be natural for our boys to also want to ski! Right???... NOPE!!! Not until.... today!

So, Kep took the boys outside to sled and snowshoe in our new fluffy snow. They had a fun time doing this for awhile, until Parker asked for Kep to put his skis on him. (this is complete crazy-talk for our little guy) I can only imagine how shocking this was for Kep b/c usually he has to beg Parker to even TRY on his ski boots and that usually ends in tears! So, before Parker lost interest and this was merely a dream for Kep, he ran into the garage and grabbed all the skiing gear. Which, they managed to get on without any fussing! Then, he brought him out to the gentle "bunny" slope in our front yard for Parker to try downhill skiing! You would have thought he had been skiing for the past 4 1/2 years b/c he just glided down the little hill, like a champ! Not only was Kep proud of his boy but he was relieved that Parker finally chose to try skiing (all on his own) and the skiing ended in smiles... not tears! Woohoo!

I guess, Kep and I are still learning our lesson as Parker's parents... if we would just wait for "it" to be Parker's idea, then the experience would be much more fun and rewarding for everyone involved!!! Great job, Parker! :)

New box of toys

We are trying to organize and cut back on toys before more toys take over our house! Noah turns 2 on Monday and Christmas is just around the corner and we don't know what to do with all these toys! So, while we were sorting through toys... I found this other bucket of baby toys and Savannah was so pleased to be plopped right inside it! She stayed busy for the next hour- it was perfect!

Hockey boys

The boys had an absolute blast playing hockey (in snow boots) with Popeye and Mo-mo!

Kep and his dad shoveled/plowed this awesome skating rink on Kep's parent's lake. Then, Noah, got a (short) ride in the shovel... it wasn't his favorite thing!!! I thought it looked like a fun idea! :)

Noah had trouble seeing the black puck on the black ice and he kept getting frustrated (rightfully, so!) when Parker would hit the puck before he could get turned around!!! So, we gave him a bright yellow puck! Then, Mac got sick of waiting for all of us to toss him the tennis ball... so, he went to li'l Noah. The 2 of them entertained eachother! Mac would drop the ball... Noah would hit it with his hockey stick... Mac would fetch the ball- and so they played! It was very cute!

Our smiley li'l pink snow bunny loving time with Mo-mo!

Go Savannah Go!

Our little G-girl went to her first (and my first!) cheerleading competition last night! Savannah got this adorable Green Bay Packer cheer outfit from the Andersons. Their son, Brent, is in our youth group and likes to give Kep a hard time for being a Seahawk fan! So, much to Kep's dismay :)... I thought she should wear the outfit to the cheerleading competition. And of course, she was a major hit!

Laura is the gorgeous (true) cheerleader and we cheered her WHS team into getting 2nd place- it was so fun! When I was in HS, I would watch the cheerleaders, instead of the football game- even though I dated the quarterback, heehee!!! And, that is still what I do! Kep loves to make fun of me and he thinks cheerleading is a true waste of time! But, that will just always have to be something for us to disagree on! He, also, seems to think that this will be the only time that our daughter will wear a cheerleading outfit! I say if Savannah; wants to be a cheerleader, if the skirts are long enough, if the tops are SUPER modest and if there are no cheer boys on the team... then she can do it! It will be funny to see which one of us changes our mind!

It was super fun (and LOUD) to go to this competition with 3 of my youth girls. I have been working with these girls since they were in 6th grade and I am so encouraged to see how each of these 3 little ladies have turned out beautifully- inside and out!

Noah the nurturer

Both our boys adore their little sissy, but Noah is especially precious with her. He finds so much accomplishment out of helping Savannah eat, giving her a binkie or giving her a toy to keep her from fussing. I had to take pictures of Noah feeding a bottle to Savannah at soccer "practice" because he was beaming (and proud) from head to toe. I love the caring heart that God gave to our little Noah- Parker and Savannah are fortunate to have such a sensitive and sharing brother!