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!!!