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!