"Guncle Brad"

Well, tonight is the last night, for a few weeks at least, that the kids will only have me putting them to bed! It looks like Matthew COULD be home until the New Year! HOW AWESOME would that be!?I am really looking forward to the holidays. I feel so blessed to be living in Richmond near my family. I have so much Christmas shopping to get started on PLUS I am starting from scratch on our Christmas decorations so I have to FINALLY decide on a color scheme I am willing to stick with for a long time :) That is tough for me! I have never bought a lot of nice ornaments in the past because I wanted to wait until after we had kids. This way, I can buy ornaments that have meaning behind them and when the kids are 30 years old they can look at them and remember their childhood. I am sure that sounds really weird to some but I loved seeing familiar things like that when I was growing up. I think that decorating and the food and family memories is the BEST part of the Holiday season! :)

 Another AWESOME thing about this week, we were FINALLY able to get the swing set up that the kids got for their birthday( at the beginning of October)! I hated having it in the garage just waiting to be put together! There have been some BEAUTIFUL days in the past 2 months and a swing set in the backyard would have been perfect! Thank God for my brother in law ( who is super handy ) He spent two full days putting it together by himself. I was so thrilled that he was able and willing to help us get it done. The kids got on their swing set today and it was great to see their smiles as they went down the slide or climed the rock wall! I think they are going to really enjoy having it for a long time to come. :) I even took a couple of pictures of Brad putting it up. I plan to put those in their baby books so they can always remember how Uncle Brad ( or "Guncle Brad" as they like to say) put up their first swing set. It was cute that he was the first person they asked for when they woke up this morning.

Madi and Landon were so fun this afternoon playing with each other! I tried to get a little video of them playing in Madi's crib while I vacuumed etc upstairs. they were wrestling each other and giving each other hugs and kisses and then saying "awe" as they tilted their head to the side and then they would start laughing. I guess we say "awe" every time they hug each other and I just didnt notice it! Funny how at this age they repeat EVERYTHING they hear or see so it is a great way to see yourself through your child's eyes which can be good but sometimes a little scary! :)

I posted some pictures for everyone to check out. It has gotten SO tough to get pictures of Landon because he is always smiling really big and saying cheese when he sees the camera! LOL, oh well.

Enjoy the pictures! Just in case I cant post until next week, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!!