Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving came to us a little late this year. Two days prior to Thanksgiving Josh had a heart procedure called Radio Frequency Catheter Oblation. It's purpose was to help Josh's heart not go in A-Fib anymore (atrial fibrillation/irregular heartbeat). Josh came out of surgery fine and stayed in the hospital overnight to check vitals. He was home the day before Thanksgiving and quietly recovering with lots of rest. On the day of Thanksgiving I woke up a with a stomach bug. I half seriously asked a tired Josh if he wanted to cook dinner, but he just laughed. Between the two of us not feeling well we managed to take care of the kids and sleep off the stomach bug and post surgery tiredness. Thankfully the bug itself only lasted 24 hours, but of course it takes a good day to recover from being sick.

On Saturday we were all well enough to get back on our feet and celebrate the holiday. We feasted on delicious Thanksgiving food and were pleased to be joined by our good family friends, Craig and Kyle. The kids loved the turkey and Lucy sort of participated in the annual dinner by enjoying some squash (she hated it).

For us Thanksgiving is a great time to reflect on the numerous blessings we have in our own personal lives. We have our health, a roof over our heads and great family and friends who not only care for us but also are willing participants in making memories with our children. Life is not always easy but we are grateful that God has bestowed upon us his great blessings of love and happiness.

Halloween

 

Halloween is such a special time for our family. Josh absolutely loves the holiday. I like the costumes. Joey likes the candy. And well Van and Lucy are at the mercy of what I want them to wear.
Joey had his costume picked out ever since last Halloween. He wanted to be a cop and I thought what better way to do a family costume then making us dress as cops and robbers? We featured Lucy as the money bag (in the baby bjorn) and Josh and I as the robbers while the boys took on cop duty.


 Halloween itself didn't go quite as planned though. The night before I sprained my ankle playing volleyball. My mom was awesome and came over that night to help me out with the kids. With Josh working early I had no way of getting Lucy down the stairs in the morning. I ended up going to the drop in clinic to get it examined. No break or tears but a nasty sprain. They sent me on my way with an ankle brace and a prescription.

Thankfully by the time trick or treating rolled around the meds kicked in and the brace did its job so my Mom and I were able to walk with the kids. Joey played the big brother card well and held Van's hand the entire time. They both had a blast getting lots of candy.

Father's Day

I saw this really neat idea on Pinterest to make Father's Day a "Super Dad" theme. Obviously I think Josh is the most amazing father and husband so I wanted to make sure we celebrated him on this fine day.
Joey and I decorated early in the morning and made Josh a delicious breakfast of pancakes, bacon, eggs, and his favorite...english muffins. Joey was super excited to give him his present he made at school: a lovely hand drawn card and Daddy questionaire. His responses made me laugh.

 Later that evening Josh's family came over as well as my Dad to celebrate with a barbeque!

Easter

We were blessed with beautiful weather for Easter Sunday this year. Couple that with actually being prepared with Easter baskets (I forgot last year) and coordinating outfits for the boys, and the fact that we were celebrating the Resurrection, the day was perfect.
We wholeheartedly attempted to do the Saturday evening Mass in an effort to avoid the "crowds" this year. The boys were bathed and dressed, my makeup was done and Josh was all showered after mowing the lawn; but both the boys and Josh were uber tired, so we opted to call it a night and brave the 8am mass in the morning.

Mass was beautiful and poignant and it was a great, early start to our day. Since it was so early Joey failed to even notice that the Easter Bunny left baskets on the mantel before church. He thought they were decorations. Really?! Needless to say, he was eager to get home to see what was left. Van did is normal "I am kind of impressed face." The jelly beans were not a hit for either, but Joey was excited for the $2 he received and even had a good chuckle over the fact the Easter Bunny gave him a Hot Wheels Car he already had. (Insert shameful Mom story here about how I tried to pull a fast one on Joey and re gift a car, I really didn't think he would notice!) Van just liked the plastic Easter Eggs and the shiny new glow-in-the-dark tuckies.

I had Easter pictures done of the boys earlier in the week with the awesome shirts I found at Goodwill and the matching ties I sewed. Ashley, of course took the pictures. I should have known better than to try getting them taken at a park though. Both the boys just wanted to play, but Ashley was able to capture a couple of candid shots along with a lot action ones. Ashley always captures such amazing pictures of my boys. She has quite the eye. I can't wait to use the rest of the shots around the house and have a plan to use some of them in the boy's bedrooms! Here are some of my favorites.

I did pat myself on the back for keeping Joey's size 6 Converse from when he was Van's age because they fit Van swimmingly and Joey always rocks the Converse.

Later in the afternoon we headed out to Yelm to have an Easter celebration with Josh's family. We enjoyed delicious sandwiches, salsa, festive deviled eggs and a very sweet carrot cake I made. It was delicious and rich and oh so wonderful. Mom put on a highly competitive Easter Egg hunt in the front and the backyard and it consisted of some of the eggs filled with gold dollar coins and one very special egg with a $20 bill in it. Josh found the big one! Whoop whoop! Since the weather was so nice the boys also took an airplane ride on Dad's new Twin Comanche while the girls stayed back to chat. After they came back we rounded out the day by playing a very fun game of Whiffle Ball.

Fourth of July

This year we decided to hold the First Annual Callon Fourth of July Barbeque. We all love Independence Day so much. The mix of good food and fireworks makes it something we look forward to every year.

I decorated a whole lot with DIY crafts and signs. I did so much in fact that I was able to fill an entire rubbermaid with all the fans, can flags, signs, and woodblocks that I made. My favorite decoration was the pennant fabric flags. It took a lot of time and work but its something that will be sturdy and hold up for years to come.

Josh took this as an opportunity to spruce up the backyard. It had significant problems with the landscape and the grass quality. With 7 yards of top soil delivered (I rocked that pile with my mad scoop and dump skills), the grass was evened out and prepped for grass seed; which is in the process of growing right now. Josh also added in a fire pit and numerous flowerbeds and a garden. Josh was the master designer of the backyard but left all the grunt work to our friends and Joey and I who spent every spare minute working on it. Josh's back (and I) doesn't allow him to do heavy lifting and manual labor. Joey was such a trooper and the best helper we could ask for! See for yourself!

I wish that I took more pictures of the party, but I got highly distracted as per usual; but here are some.

Crafts

In an effort to be more unique with gift giving and to save some money I attempted to make some of the gifts we gave this year for Christmas.

I like sewing, but am not really great at it. I have the basics down, but I struggle with sewing in a straight line and I have no idea how to hand sew, even though I've been shown numerous times. These infinity scarves ended up being really easy to make but it was hard to get the concept down to begin with. I ended up "sewing" the last two inches of seam I couldn't complete on my machine with seam glue. Best.Stuff.Ever.
I like that scarves are light weight and are more springy in color. These scarves made great gifts for several girls on my list.



The wreath came to me in one of my mid shopping sprees at Joann's. Originally I was going to make this wreath wrapped in ribbon, but the beautiful bold colors of yarn caught my eye and my creativity took over. I matched some fat quarters to make the rosettes and sewed the hanging ribbon. This gift went to my Mother-in-Law for her blue room.

The jars were complete spur of the moment gifts. After wrapping the wreath in yarn I realized the possibilities were endless when it came to yarn wrapping. I used old canning jars and spaghetti jars to wrap yarn, ribbon and twine with. The back two jars went to my Mom since she likes blue and the skittle ones of course went to Andrea.



I am glad to say I have quite a few Harry Potter lovers in my life. Both pieces were ideas I got off of Pinterest. The framed art is nearly the same with the background words being lines from the books. The glasses ones went to my brother and sister-in law, Jason and Katy. They loved it so much they decided to make the theme of their nursery, Harry Potter. The other art went to my future sister-in-law Ashley.



The light switches are a personal favorite. I used Harry Potter font that I downloaded this summer to make our movie premiere shirts and my Silhouette program to cute the words out of vinyl. "Lumos", in Harry Potter terms means to use your wand as a flashlight and nox means "off". Hence the light switch. The black letter one went to Jason and Katy and I used the other part of the vinyl transfer to make one for myself using glue and glitter.



I really had a lot of fun making the gifts, but next time I need to allow myself more time. Nothing like finishing up gifts last minute on Christmas Eve!

Christmas!

Christmas time was crazy this year!
Well not really, but Josh and I definitely felt pressed for time the couple of days before the 24th and 25th.
Josh took his "Santa" duty pretty seriously this year and I dedicated every free minute to making some of the gifts.
We started out the the Christmas Season trimming the tree and decorating with lights out doors. The latter took over 3 weekends to do because someone kept adding to the display. =)







Of course a visit to Santa was in place, including a presentation of Joey's "collage" Christmas list.



A Christmas lights drive with Hot Cocoa.



Check out this awesome light display we found. The picture doesn't do it justice.



Joey handed out his very own Christmas Cards and candy cane to his preschool friends.



And we can't forget to the Christmas Pageant his preschool put on. We were so proud of his singing skills.



It got a little weird on Christmas Eve Eve when Josh set up his wrapping station. Is it bad that he wraps gifts better than I do?



No Christmas Eve at the Callon's is ever complete without a Family Shooter.



Goofy Callon's.



Santa came by on his sleigh to recheck his nice list before setting out to deliver presents.



We couldn't forget to leave milk and cookies out for Santa and carrots for his reindeer.



It was a "Silent Night, Holy Night" for Van when he fell asleep under the tree.



Santa was nice enough to leave a thank you note to Van and Joey.




Joey was pretty excited to open Santa's Gifts Christmas morning. Although if you ask him he was more enthralled with Grandpa's gifts. Verdict is out on how "Santa" feels about this revelation.



Van even joined in on the fun of a lobster and steak dinner. Not really. But he did watch us enjoy a delicious Christmas dinner.

Advent "Calculators" and Christmas List

Mistletoe anybody?


The Season is upon us!

We love, love, love Christmas time around here.

Josh goes all "Clark Griswold".

I try to do some fancy decorations in the house.

Joey makes numerous Christmas list for Santa.
Well, they are more like Christmas list collages cut out from all the store's Toy Books they send out in the Sunday newspaper. Heaven for little boys, and a nuisance for us.
Try as we might, we've explained that a list to Santa is just a suggestion, not a guarantee. For Joey, he thinks it will all be his. We even told him Santa is poor. He counters that the elves make the toys, so it's free. Clever kid. He also makes list for Van too, because "Van asked him to." =)



*Disclaimer- Joey has this new thing where he blinks when the camera flashes. Try as he might, he can't keep his eyes open!

Van just likes looking at the lights on the tree. And eating....and pooping....and snuggling....all the time.




But all is right in this holy season. Going to a Christian Preschool means that Joey learns more and more about Jesus and what Christmas really means. We try to tell him about the Nativity, but it is like he doesn't get it unless it comes from Ms. Biermann. And that is ok. He comes home with a new song to sing every day about Jesus.

We have gotten to the point that at Joey's age we can really start sharing about the meaning of Christmas and he is a full participant in the celebration. I put up the Advent Calendar and he loves counting down the days and getting a special treat each morning. However, he calls the calendar a "calculator" which is really confusing to the people he tells about it.



Equal to his excitement of the calendar is his love for Christmas lights. Josh and Joey spent many cold days outside getting the lights set up just right. With the additional help of Craig and Josh's Dad, the lights are up and look wonderful. Sure there may be some "questionable" lighting set up. For example the plug for part of the Christmas lights comes out of a ginormous light bulb in the garage. But there is something about bright lights that make our hearts happy.

Happy Thanksgiving 2011

Turkey Leg? Check
Delicious Pumpkin Pie? Check
Good Wine? Check, check, check....
Callon Cup Fun? Check



Van's first Thanksgiving!



Entertainment by Joey.



The Girls.



The Boys.



Callon Cup Winners.