Lovin' the "Baby Bump"

I am not caught up yet on my Christmas photos so I thought I would share another "NON-professional" photo shoot that I did.

I convinced one of my best friend's, Kathy into letting me take some maternity shots of her.

I think they turned out pretty cute. Doesn't hurt that she is just naturally gorgeous!

Waiting for the big surprise at the end so we did one of each.

Are you sure this is your third baby????? Wow! Stunning!

ahhh... makes me want another. Wait snap out of it Amanda!!!

Can't wait to meet Tucek Baby #3! Love you guys!

Merry Christmas!

My friend April Moore created this custom card for us. She is a graphic designer and a budding new photographer. Check out her blog and find her on Facebook at April Moore Creations.

We wish you all a Merry Christmas! Enjoy the time with your family and friends.
Tonagels

Decorating the Homestead

I normally love decorating the house for Christmas but I have to confess that this year I was dreading it a bit and was pretty stressed by the end of the day.
Having 2 toddlers that want to "help" with everything and an infant that just wants to be held all the time make it a little difficult to decorate a tree and put up breakable decorations all over the house. So far our decoration casualties include: 2 snowmen candlesticks, 3 ornaments and a few magnetic snowmen that are missing limbs. I'm sure that won't be all by the end of the season.

Here are some pictures of our house all decked out.

Our tree- "Big Bertha" turned out really nice.

My "tacky" tree and tablecloth. I actually LOVE these two things. The tree was in my room growing up and the tablecloth was my grandma's. Plus they look cool in my retro kitchen!

My Fontanini Nativity and our Stockings. I still need to get Brooksie one.

Part of my snow dome collection. Again I know it is a little silly but I got all of these growing up and I love them.

Here is the boy's tree that I let them decorate and redecorate constantly. They are very proud. :)

Some of my favorite ornaments-

Star for Sawyer's birthday.

You know we love tractors at our house!LPHS!!!! Come on, if you are from LP you have to have a "Slicer" ornament! :)
This Tinkerbell ornament came from Walt Disney World when I was in elementary school. I can still remember picking it out.

I love this bride and groom ornament my sister gave me my first year of married life.

I have grown to really love nativity sets. I have a few now. Last year someone pointed out to me that they loved this Mary and Jesus because you don't normally see Mary holding Baby Jesus in the nativity. I thought about that a bit. Having a newborn gives you a new perspective on Mary's role in the Christmas story. Lots of things come to mind- She was so young! She must have been scared and excited all at the same time! Was she worried? I could go on and on. In the end though she was still a new mom and I know the Bible says that she placed him in the manger but I bet she held him just as much if not more. She probably couldn't take her eyes off of him. He was her brand new baby let alone the Son of God!

Christmas Crafts

It's no surprise that I love doing crafts. I was banking on getting a little girly girl that would just want to sit and make things with me all day long. Obviously God had other plans! So... I force my boys to do them with me instead. :)

Here are two ornaments that they painted for Papa Hughie and Papa Sensow. (That is who they chose to give them to when I asked.)

I bought a big roll of banner paper, green and red paint and Christmas stamps. We are painting our Christmas wrapping paper this year. I thought it would keep the boys busy and be a fun activity. Notice I said, "I thought." Yea, not so fun! The boys liked it for about 30 seconds. (like all crafts I make them do!) Then they just ended up smearing the paint all over. They both had showers today after only doing enough paper for one present each. I am planning to just have them keep painting at least one a day until everything is wrapped. If you get an unwrapped present from us this year I apologize. I gave it my best.

Look at the paint all over Charlie's chest!

Breakfast with Santa

This past Saturday we went to "Breakfast with Santa" at our Community Center. To say that it was a little hectic and crowded would be an understatement! Thank you to Ben for giving up hunting for the morning and going with us instead! I would have never survived with all three boys on my own.

Here are a few pictures of our morning.

A long week

I seriously don't know how single parents do it! Ben was out of town for a few days and I am just thrilled that I survived the week. I know a lot of my friends have husbands that work out of town. My hats off to those gals! I was at my wits end by the time my hubby walked in the door. Consequently, I slacked off with getting anything but the necessities done so I apologize to all my friends/family for being a looser and not returning emails/phone calls. I promise to be better this week! Even though it was a rough week I did manage to get a few cute pics.

Yea! Daddy is home!

Big Eyes! Little booger still won't smile at me. He tries so hard but can't seem to get it all the way.

Ben was teasing poor Sawyer by putting his bear up on the deer.

Yes, I do put him down on occasion. Rare but it does happen. Can you blame me??? He is just so snuggly it's hard to let go of him!

Charlie's battle wounds- Lump on his forehead from a bed post, black eye from running into the dishwasher and a cut finger from Sawyer biting it (Charlie offered him a piece of candy and he accidently bit his finger instead of the candy!) So sad and funny all at the same time! Poor kid!

The boys watching Polar Express last night. It was so nice to just lounge around. I try to be really strict with not watching much TV but the Christmas season is a different story. Too many fun kid's cartoons!

I couldn't resist...

I know I will be paid back for this some day but I just can't resist showing off another "fabulous" license picture.
If you remember I said I wouldn't post the identity of the poor person in the photos and I am sticking to those words.

Feel free to enjoy a good laugh and look back at my HORRIBLE license picture. Seriously it is the worst! I had to hand it over twice this week at the doctor's office and I just cringed.

peace out, a

ps. Hugh your wallet is on the counter. :0)

LIttle boy blue

Just some sweet pictures of my baby boy. I can't believe he will be 8 weeks old on Wednesday!

PETA fans cover your eyes!

The testosterone was flying around the house a few weekends ago when Ben and Hugh both got bucks! They begged me to put them on the blog. They may make fun of me and my silly blog but deep down they love it. :)

I can't post this without mentioning that my husband- AKA "Great White Hunter" shot a handicap deer this year. Seriously! It had only 3 legs and the antlers are all wacky! Someone please tease him about this since I am a super supportive wife and would NEVER EVER mention that he shot a poor little innocent animal that was defenseless since it couldn't even run that fast. Don't tell him I told you any of this information.

Proud Hugh and his normal (non-handicapped) buck!

My dad got a buck the next weekend and my brother a doe. Sorry I don't have bloody pictures of those. I'm sure you are all really disappointed.

Weekend with the Tonagels

Last weekend we spent the day at the Tonagel homestead to spend time with the boy's God-parents- Joel and Mal-Mal. They moved to South Carolina (sniff sniff) this week. Joel will be going to school for the next two years while Mal is a Sugar Momma. We are trying to convince them to start their own blog!

The guys hanging out in the hot tub. Can you tell they are related???

Papa Hughie watching a cartoon with three of his grandsons.

Kathy and Hugh with their 4 grandsons. They are now 8 for 8 with boys and another boy on the way for Greg and Amy! I think we are starting our own "Tonagel Militia" or something.

Good Manners

We try to stress good manners at our house. I have started making the boys say at the end of each meal, "Thank you Mommy for breakfast. May I please be excused?"
This morning Charlie said, "Thank you Mommy for breakfast. May I please be excused? Oh Wait! You didn't get me my breakfast. I got it out. So... Thank you Charlie for breakfast. You may be excused."
Ben and I died laughing!
We are off to cut down our tree and decorate the house. I can't wait to see our "Griswald" tree. Ben always chooses a doosey! They usually end up with comical names like "Big Bertha."

When Nana's Away...

the cousins will play! (Nana was out of town when all of these photos were taken.)

A few weekends ago we had the chance to catch up with some of Ben's cousins- Matt, Courtney, Nolan and Meredith Richards. They recently moved back to the U.S. from Italy this past summer. We were anxious to get all of the little cousins together so they could have fun and the adults could catch up.

Here are the boys holding a WWF wrestling match.

Sawyer discovered a HUGE bag of mini marshmallows in the kitchen and decided to have an indoor snowstorm with them when we weren't paying attention.

When Courtney and I discovered what they were doing I said, "Quick! Just turn around and pretend we didn't see that. I don't want to deal with it yet!" :)

Sorry Nana! I owe you some marshmallows!