The Boys get Bunkbeds!!!

The boys have outgrown their Sesame Street toddler beds, Gabe was nearly too tall to fit in his anymore and their mattresses were pretty worn out and uncomfortable.  We found them some bunkbeds before Christmas, Grandma Marci got them some mattresses for Christmas and some Toy Story bedding.  A couple of days after Christmas we decided to tackle this project.  The kids were having fun trying to help us..

They were sooooo excited!  Gabe was full of giggles and couldn't wait to climb up on his bed.  Sebastian soon followed and I believe he stayed on there for atleast an hour playing with his Sesame Street stuffed characters.  When it was time for bed Gabe was still full of giggles and had a hard time falling asleep, he was so happy and kept saying "new bed, new bed" with a big huge smile on his face.  Sebastian was a bit sad because he had the bottom bunk.  (I know how this feels because when I was in the 2nd grade we lived with my cousin Jill, she and I shared a room and had bunkbeds and I had to have the bottom bunk)

He soon got over it and now he enjoys his bottom bunk.  They have done so well in their new beds and sleep so much better!  

MY BOYS ARE GROWING UP!  :(

Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas to All!

We had another great Christmas this year except for poor Vinnie came down with some sort of flu bug and ended up in bed by 3:00 pm and slept til 11:00 am the next morning.  Not a fun way to spend your Christmas.

On Christmas Eve we went to my grandma Mimi's house to wish her a Happy 82nd birthday and a very Merry Christmas.  After that we went over to my Uncle Scott's house and had a family party there.  It was so much fun to be back home in Utah and to be able to spend the Holiday with so much family.  We had a nice dinner, my Aunt Ingrid made her traditional Sweedish dinner and of course we also had our traditional food (Ham, potatoes, rolls....).  After dinner Vinnie read the story of Mary, Joseph, & baby Jesus from the book of Luke while the little ones played with a nativity set.

After that we did a fun White Elephant gift exchange.  That was good great for a few laughs!  Unfortunately I missed pictures on several people opening up their gifts but here are a few..

I will throw in this picture too, this is from one of our gifts that we took to the exchange..

It was such a fun Christmas Eve!  We got home about 8:30 and the little kids were certainly tired and ready for bed.  My Mom spent the night so she could be here to watch the kids in the morning.  We sent Austin to bed around 11:00 and then we finished up what we needed to do and finally made it to bed around 2:00 am.  The kids woke up Christmas morning around 7:30.  They were so excited to see all the presents and everything that Santa had left out for them.

Austin was in absolute shock because he finally got a LAPTOP, he has been asking for one for years...  Gabe and Sebastian were excited about their new PLASMA CARS, and Abby was excited about her new little KITCHEN, and her CROC PURSE that was in her stocking.

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This year ALL of the presents were opened on Christmas day.  The last couple of years both Gabe and Sebastian has presents under the tree for several days after Christmas.  I think it was a bit overwhelming for them, but NOT this year.  They had a great time and stayed busy all day long playing with their new toys.  Austin escaped down to his game room and played his new video games and with his new laptop.  Abby took a nice nap after all the commotion, I fell asleep on the couch, my Mom snoozed a little bit, Vinnie kept trying to snooze but Sebastian thought he was trying to play with him.  After all of our little naps, the bug HIT Vinnie and hit him hard and off to bed he went for the night.  He didn't even get to have Christmas dinner with us.  :(

Another GREAT Christmas in the books for the Almanza Family!  

(Except for Vinnie getting sick of course)

Santa Claus

I took the kids to see Santa Claus at the South Towne mall.  This was the same Santa that I used to take Austin to when he was just a tiny little guy, I believe when he was 2 & 3 years old and then we moved to Alaska.  This is my favorite Santa, I love the fact that he doesn't have to wear the traditional Santa suit.  Of course he has on his Santa pants and boots, but he wears a cute Christmas shirt with his suspenders.  If you ask him why he doesn't wear the big red coat and the Santa hat, his answer is simple;  don't you take off your coat and hat when you are inside?

The kids did great!  We went on a Sunday morning thinking that the line would be shorter.  That was NOT the case!  We stood in line for 2 hours waiting and the kids did so unbelievably well that the time went fast and it didn't even seem like 2 hours.  Gabe was so excited to see Santa in fact he snuck around the wall where Santa was just on the other side and yelled "SANTA", Austin had to hurry and get him.  Finally when it was our turn to go the boys sat right next to Santa without any hesitation, now Abby on the other hand was not to pleased with this.  I told Santa that it would be best if Austin held her.  They only take 3 pictures and then you get to choose the best one, well the 1st one Abby was screaming, the 2nd one she brought it down to a cry, and the 3rd one she still wasn't too happy but atleast whe wasn't screaming or crying....too bad we couldn't have had one more picture taken because maybe she would have brought it down even one more level and possibly cracked a smile...oh well!  I was pleased with the picture that we got...

Austin is such an amazing big brother and he is so much help! 

Thank you Austin!

SESAME STREET LIVE...

The first time we went to Sesame Street Live was in July of 2008 in Anchorage, Alaska...

Gabe was 2 1/2 years old and Sebastian was only 8 months old, so with that being said they were just little guys.  Sebastian was way too little to even comprehend what was going on around him and Gabe was just starting to understand.  We had front row seats, one would think that these would be the BEST seats but I must say they weren't.  It was really hard to see the characters when they were at the back of the stage, BUT the cool part about the front row was when the characters came down off the stage and danced around the kids.  The picture in the left bottom corner is of the Count giving Gabe a high five!  He was a bit timid of these life size characters that he is use to watching on TV but at the same time he was pretty excited.

I have been saying for a while that it would be really cool if Sesame Street Live came again now that they are older.  Well as I was driving in the car one day listening to the radio I heard a commercial announcing that Sesame Street would be here in just a few days....WHAT?!  I was so excited, I raced home and got online to find tickets.  I found tickets for opening night but quickly realized that Vinnie would be out of town that weekend and couldn't go with us but Grandma said that she wanted to go.  

I made sure to get tickets up a little higher (lower bowl) so we could see the entire stage throughout the show.  The kids had such a fun time and the boys were in awe.  It was fun to watch their excitement this time.  Austin was a trooper and hung in there for the show, he is a 12 year old boy and this is not really his thing!  LOL!!!

So Much Fun!!!

I HAVE A 12 YEAR OLD????

 It is hard to believe that it has been 12 years.  On one hand these past 12 years have gone by so fast but on the other hand I just can't believe that it has been that long ago that I became a Mommy!  What an incredible young man my son is growing up to be.  He is so handsome, smart, funny, dorky, silly, tall...yes very tall!  He is taller than me, I know this doesn't sound tall since I am only a towering 5'3 but when your child grows taller than you, it seems REALLY tall.  

Austin has to share his Birthday month with 2 younger siblings, Sebastian and Abby.  This year we had a joint family party for Abby and Austin since their birthdays are only a week apart.

This was the first extended family birthday party he has had in years, I think since he was 4 or 5.  So it was really fun for him to celebrate with cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, great grandparents, and of course siblings and Mom & Dad.

On his actual Birthday he was with his other side of the family, the Conrad's.  His Dad brought him home that evening.  Vinnie was out of town so I made plans to take Austin out to dinner,  Grandma was going to come over and watch the little kiddos but it snowed and snowed and snowed that night, the roads were not safe for travel.  Austin and I ordered some pizza and then I handed him his birthday gift from us (Mom & Dad).....an iPod!!  He was so excited, this will have been his 3rd iPod in a year.  His first one froze so we sent it in and they sent him a new one, the 2nd one he dropped in the toilet and it never worked after that and since water is not covered under the warranty he was out of luck. So now, 6 months later he has a new one.  The upside of this is the iPod's are much better now and have more features than before.  He had a great 12th Birthday!  It didn't end there, the snow storm had stopped by the next day so Grandma came over and watched the little ones and Austin and I went to Texas Roadhouse for his Birthday dinner.

Happy 12th Birthday Austin!

Time to put up the Christmas Tree...

(This is what I used for my Blog header for December)

We had so much fun putting up our tree this year, everyone helped!  Last year, Abby was of course only 1 month old, Gabe and Sebastian had no idea what was really going on, in fact they only cared about taking the ornaments off the tree as soon as we hung them up.  Vinnie was working nearly everyday so he wasn't there to help so it was just Austin & me.  NOT this year, we were all there!  Sebastian really loved looking at all the ornaments...

and Abby liked to give him a hand...

Here is cute little Abby in her Christmas dress....

Abby's 1st Birthday!!!!

Has it really already been 1 year?  The time goes by so fast!  This past year has just been a whirlwind, it seems like my little baby girl was just born and yet she is already walking all over the place, getting into things, and talking!  Her birthday fell on a Friday this year but we had a family party for her on the Sunday after.  She and Austin shared a party, since his 12th (yes, I said 12th) birthday was the following week. 
She had her one year check up on Nov 22nd, she weighed 20 lbs 5 ounces and was 28 inches tall.  Dr. Bosworth said that put her in the 75th percentile for her height and the 50th percentile for her weight.  He said that she was tall and skinny.  She had a healthy check up and everything seemed to be right on target or even a bit advanced.  She has her 8 front teeth (4 on top and 4 on bottom).  She loves to dance, at the sound of any music she will start to sway side to side, so cute!  She is a good little eater, she will try almost anything, in fact she really seems to like steamed broccoli.  We switched her over to whole milk without a problem, she seems to like it just fine.  She loves to give kisses, wave, clap, and she loves to carry a purse.  She is such a little doll!








She didn't really seem to care too much for her birthday cake.  She took a few dainty bites but didn't want to make a mess I suppose.



 

 


Happy 1st Birthday Abby!



Sebastian's 1st day of pre-school

Sebastian has been involved with the Jordan School District in the early intervention program since shortly after we moved to Utah.  He has had a developmental specialist come to our house once a week to work with him on his speech and prepare him for pre-school.  You have to be 3 years old to go to school.  We found out that he will be going to school with Gabe and they will be in the same class.  He turned 3 on a Wednesday and started school the following Monday.  He goes twice a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays.

He was very excited to have his own backpack.

Every Morning he walks Gabe out to the bus and gets on the bus to check it out and then gets off and waves to Gabe...BUT, today he gets to go with him...

Daddy was a bit teary eyed watching his Baby boy go off to school on the school bus.

And here you are home from school, you put your finger to your mouth and said "hmmm"

You had a great day at school and Teacher Salli said that you did everything you were suppose to do and you participated in all activities, YAY!!