Christmas Catch Up

Christmas was AWESOME

The boys were pumped for Santa's visit...

Will made his list of three gifts...

Johnny learned how to sing his first Christmas song (Up On The Housetop)...

First up - Christmas Eve Mass (my two cuties :))

 Next up was leaving cookies and milk out for Santa - we learned from last year - this year we just surrendered and let John have a cookie too :)

Christmas morning the boys were VERY excited!

The stockings were a huge hit...probably because their chocolate addict mamma had them full of yummy goodies!

John was super excited to find all the chocolate and sugary lollipops - I still can't believe he made it through Christmas day without a tummy ache...

 Will was thrilled to unwrap his remote controlled boat... 

 John was excited to unwrap his Elmo - then went back to the stocking stuffers haha!

John then unwrapped his most favorite cartoon character of all time - Special Agent Oso :)

 And Will discovered his very first pet - Taz - the Leopard Gecko!

 Complete with a terrarium, T-Rex skull home, crickets, and meal worms (ick!)

 After finally getting out of our pajamas and some more (you guessed it) stocking stuffers...

We were off to Nana and Papa Brown's house for round two!

Instagram Addict

So I am (I think) three weeks tardy with this post so here we have the last three weeks of Instagram photos...in no particular order and with no commentary because  I simply don't have the energy!

Enjoy!!

Christmas Card Photo Shoot - The Rest of the Story...

Our photo shoot afternoon started out JUST LIKE THEY ALWAYS DO...

whining

crying

tantrums

no one had patience

no one wanted to wear their clothes

john refused to wear his shoes

will's pants didn't 'feel right'

oh and to top it all off - this time, I was essentially one armed, trying to orchestrate it all!

I guess that's how it's going to be from here on out though...as I live with all boys after all (not to mention I myself don't really enjoy getting dressed up for photos!)

And so the pre-photo shoot craziness continued from the house on into the car, both kids kicking, screaming, annoyed, tired, hungry, thirsty, frustrated, and John - still refused to wear his shoes so I decided his blue Sauconeys would have to do...(I have no idea where my kiddos get all their OCD tendencies from ;) )

But for some reason, whenever our darling photographer gets us out and about (usually in the middle of a field after a muddy hike) the pictures exceed our expectations!

Here are a "few" bonus photos from the shoot...pay close attention to Will and Johnny B's expressions - they are priceless!  There are some duplicates (b&w as well as color) and I only put ONE caption in - if you pay attention you'll see it...and yes, not to disappoint - Will did some role playing again this time at the end of the session...

Seriously...how much do I love these kids!

They look SO different and act SO different but I love them just the same :)