Christmas with Mom & Dad

We had our first Christmas celebration of the year at my mom's house with my mom and dad. This was also Zoey's first ever family Christmas and the first year all four boys played together on the same level as little boys. They aren't babies anymore and it happened fast. Barrett absolutely adores his cousins. Logan is his best friend and he thinks Remi and Roen hung the moon.

Growing up, Christmas was by far the most exciting day of the year. The three of us couldn't wait for Mom and Dad to tell us we could uncover our eyes and run to see what Santa brought. It was overwhelming happiness and will always be at the forefront of my childhood memories. As adults, we continue the big Christmas tradition with our family that now includes our own children. Our four boys, baby girl, and one baby boy on the way are now the center of our parents' Christmas tradition and it's a very special day.

Thanksgiving 2016

Thanksgiving 2016 was a fun day full of quality time with family. Family is what I am most thankful for year round, so this day was just another reminder of what life is all about. I'm blessed to have spent my 29th Thanksgiving at my Gran's house with all of my family.

Halloween 2016

What better way to start out the new year than catching up on holiday blogs? Our first holiday season with two littles has proven to be way busier than I ever imagined. Here are the memories I want to remember from Halloween 2016. Halloween fell on a Monday so it was low key with trick-or-treating in our new neighborhood for a little while then going to Na's house to trick-or-treat. We invited Pops to come with us. Barrett loved every second and especially loved getting to meet new people.

At one house, Barrett said "Well how was your day today??" He talks to everyone like they are his best friend. One lady asked us if he was Buzz Lightyear last year and said she remembered him because he was her favorite! We were all shocked! At another house we all sat back while him and Logan trick-or-treated by themselves. Logan was finished and ran back while Barrett stayed up there way too long. He finally turned around and with a big smile yelled "I GOT A LOT!!!" We all laughed. Halloween makes me appreciate having little ones so much. The costumes, trick-or-treating, and excitement about candy and all things spooky just wouldn't be the same without these precious little babes. 

He wanted to hold my hand while trick-or-treating. Holding onto these moments of four-year-old Barrett. 

October

October marks the beginning of the best holidays, and there's just something in the air once the Fall season arrives that screams comfort. Family gatherings, pumpkin carving, costumes, sweatshirts, boots, the changing colors of the trees...oh, I could go on and on about my favorite things of Fall! October 2016 was a fantastic time for us so I dedicated one giant blog post for some of my favorite moments to remember.

For some reason, Barrett has always had a special connection with Halloween themed things. I have always had certain books out that we read around each holiday, but his Halloween books are year round favorites. In fact, on his fourth birthday I told him to pick out his very favorite books for me to read him and he picked all Halloween books. He loves Jack-o-lanterns, skeletons, ghosts, and a new recent favorite is zombies. I introduced him to the movie Paranorman (the movie Steven and I saw in theaters the night before Barrett was born) and he's obsessed. For fun, we made October 1st a little celebration. Barrett wanted to wear his skeleton pajamas and new jack-o-lantern beanie for the occasion, so this was his look all day. I made some amazing cheddar ranch potatoes and we watched Nightmare Before Christmas while dancing around the house.

Zoey turned eight months old on October 2nd. I took her monthly pictures, but she was tired and recovering from her awful stomach virus. September was unkind to our family and Zoey's expressions are pretty much how we all felt. So. Little. Sleep. 

Fast forward a week, Zoey is all better and we are ready for FUN! We celebrated Steven's birthday in true Steven fashion by starting out our night playing games at Dave n Busters. We had a blast just the two of us! This was our first date in a long time and we definitely soaked it up! I broke the record on one of the games and then kept beating my own high score, so we racked up a ton of points and got Barrett a Pokemon character stuffed animal. It kind of made our night :) We went to Mi Dia From Scratch and had so much fun we missed our movie. We decided to live it up and go downtown to a winery to wait for the next showing. We saw The Accountant and it was hands down the best movie I've seen in a while. The night was perfect until we had to go pick up our kids from my sister's and Zoey decided she wanted to play until 3 am. Steven passed out and I stayed up playing with her. Date night buzz kill! This was the night I decided we will get a sitter to come to our house from now on!!!

We finally made it to the pumpkin patch toward the end of October. We had a day dedicated to go as a family, but it happened to be after a terrible night of sleeping, or lack thereof, from Zoey. We were just too tired, so we settled on taking a few pics of the kids in the backyard with their new pumpkins. Thankfully, my mom went with me and the kids one Saturday while Steven was working. Barrett had fun in the bounce houses and we got some cute pics, which is always the goal, right?

One of the best days of October was celebrated at my Gran's house. We went to celebrate October family birthdays, including Madison's 20th and my mom's 60th, but unbeknownst to us all, my sister had a HUGE announcement. She surprised us all with a pregnancy announcement, and we were all in tears! On the verge of starting a second round of IVF, she and her husband were shocked to find out they were pregnant...naturally! We were all overwhelmed with gratitude and excitement that she was able to experience naturally getting pregnant, and also that we get to add another little sweet baby to our family.

We also celebrated Halloween with the great-grandparents on this day so they could see all the kids in their costumes and trick-or-treat. They got to paint pumpkins in Gran's garage and splurge on eating candy, which made up for the torture of taking group pictures.

My favorite October memory was the Saturday night before Halloween. There were a lot of events going on we thought about attending, but decided to have a family night in and carve pumpkins. This was our first time carving pumpkins and it definitely won't be our last! We had so much fun carving a jack-o-lantern in the backyard blasting Halloween themed music. Barrett wouldn't touch any of the gooey stuff, but he was fascinated with the whole process. We introduced him to Michael Jackson's Thriller and danced around our yard like we had a privacy fence! Little Zoey just took it all in sitting in her walker on the porch.