Happy New Year...tomorrow

Yep, there is no way I will even attempt or want to stay awake until midnight to ring in the new year.  Yesterday Cyndi and Brenton came up and brought the rest of the boys Christmas presents and took the boys back with them for the night. While they were gone, Zac and I were able to celebrate our anniversary. We went to eat at Carrabas and then went to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  The movie was long, so as soon as we got home we went to bed and slept until 10 this morning. Gran was able to go to Manchester and spend the night with the boys. I know she loved spending time with them. Her and Cyndi drove up today to bring them back. Then 30 minutes later Dad and Gina showed up to babysit so that Zac and I could go have dinner with Erin and Michael. Erin is about to bust any day and it is New Years Eve, so we thought it would be nice to get out for a little dinner. We had a very nice little break.

 He looks so big in these photos. I'm heartbroken that he will start school Wednesday.

 This is the last photo taken in 2011.

 Last nights anniversary celebration. I set my camera and take a picture of us each year on our anniversary. I'll compile those one day and it will be nice to look back on.

Christmas Day

After church we went over to Zac's parents to have Christmas with them. We got there and the boys went right to sleep while we ate dinner. Once the boys woke up Nanny wanted to do Cooper's birthday from her first. She wanted him to go straight to the kitchen and do birthday before he saw any Christmas gifts, so she stood in front of his presents while we put him in his high chair. He had a cupcake with a candle to blow out and a card. After that we let him go see his Christmas gifts. He played for a while and then we all started going in a circle and opening our gifts. Cooper and Hank got so many gifts, that we have another car load full being delivered Friday!! It was fun though.

 Pretty good form for a 3 year old huh??

 Cooper got a little swiffer and a Dyson vacuum.

 This was Hanks gift but Cooper ended up really loving it.

 Gavin is like a magnet for my kids, as you can see they climbed on him and played with him the entire time.

 Cooper got a backpack for school. As precious as he is in it, I was still a tad bit sad to see him in it.

 Aunt Carol got Cooper a singing Chipmunk and he sings the original chipmunk Christmas song. She nailed it with that gift, because if you know Cooper then you know he loves dancing singing animals.

 Gavin got Cooper a bowling kit and they bowled in the hallway

 Zac and Gavin get some sort of toy every year just for them. This year they got Nerf guns. They immediately opened them up and started pelting each other. Every time Zac would get hit Cooper would cry. He did not like that kind of play at all. Then we all got little Nerf guns in our stockings. Every little boy needs to know how to shoot a gun, so we started teaching Cooper how to shoot with a Nerf gun. He got excited and really liked doing it himself.

And that concludes our 4 days of Christmas. We are now back home to reality and trying to find a place for all of our new gifts. Thank you to all of our parents, we appreciate you guys and thank you for a wonderful Christmas.

Christmas at Papa and Nana's

Friday night we went to mom's house to start our Christmas celebration with her and Greg. We did our traditional Christmas eve finger foods. We always get a huge chicken finger platter from Zaxby's, that is my favorite food of the night. After dinner we put the boys in bed and then we all played games. We played fact or crap (I thought I was winning, but Michael won, then Greg and I was in third place!! Gross, I hate not winning), then we played catch phrase (I'm awful at that game). Hank of course woke us up several times. Needless to say we didn't sleep a whole lot over the holiday. We all went to bed and then had our Christmas morning on Saturday morning. We woke up and started getting ready and I heard Finn, he poked his head through the railing over the balcony and said Nana, I'm coming down! We still tried to do our traditional open one present at a time in a circle. It actually went pretty well. I like doing it like that because it's much less crazy and I can see what everyone gets. We let the little boys go first so that they could play while we all opened our gifts. Zac and I got a big TV for our bedroom with wifi. We haven't had a TV in the bedroom since we moved into the house because Cooper got our old one for his playroom. The boys got a lot of cute toys. I even liked their toys. Cooper's most favorite thing though was playing in the wrapping paper. Zac would grab a ton of paper, run up to the top of the balcony and throw it over and Cooper would scream and wave his hands and laugh. Zac did that probably 12 times while Greg videoed it all. It was a very fun Christmas. After playing and eating, Michael and Erin packed up and headed back home so that they could have Christmas morning at their house. Zac and I and mom and Greg played more games. We played sequence, which we usually end up playing every Christmas. We beat mom and Greg three times.
Christmas morning, we all woke up and got ready for church. Cooper got to church and immediately started charming everyone with that irresistible smile. He was such a good boy in church. I held him in my lap and he fell asleep. Mom had to take Hank out because he got fussy. At the end of the service we stood up to sing and Cooper popped his head up out of his slumber, looked over at Greg and said Papa, then laid back down. After church mom and Greg went to Sparta and Zac and I and the boys went over to Zac's parents for yet another Christmas......To be continued

 It was a great Baby's First Christmas...sweet Hank

 All the grand babies and soon to be one more. Come on Sam!!

 Finn and Cooper in their matching jammas jumping on the couch like monkeys

 In this big box is a Winnie the pooh pillow pet.

 Cooper loves his ball popper and he got and elephant ball popping toy that he also loves

 The boys in the wrapping paper. We did not do our traditional family photo of us all in the wrapping paper.

 No better feeling than seeing your child so excited.