29

Today I celebrated my first day in my last year of 20s.  I can't believe I am 29 today.  I still feel like I'm 17.  When I get a chance to go out by myself and I look for my car in the parking lot I laugh.  I look for a minivan.  I feel like my parents let me take the car out for the night.  I guess today, turning 29, proves that it ain't no parents car... wait yes it it... I'm the parent.  YIKES!

My mom is home for a little while and offered to watch M&G so Hubs and I could go out to dinner. As nice as that was I had my heart set on spending the entire day with my 3 gorgeous boys.  After the babes nap we ate lunch and got ready to go out.

We packed in the car and drove to a place in PA called Peddlers Village.  It's an area with boutiques and at this time of year beautiful Christmas lights.  There is a kids area with an indoor carousel, arcade, foam play area, and toddler play place.  

We got out of the car and Hubs and the boys started walking to the Giggleberry building.  I grabbed my camera and started taking pictures with the building in the background and my 3 handsome boys 'running' to the building.  I snapped 3 pictures and then looked at the screen to see what I got.... NO CARD is what the screen said.  I can't believe that after unloading my brothers senior pictures yesterday I never put my memory card back in my camera.  (If I had my 'old' camera bag it wouldn't have mattered, I have 2 small cards in there that would have be good enough).  O'well.  It was actually nice not having to try to grab my camera here and there... but it was sad not to get pictures of them on their first carousel ride or in the play area.

After our 2 hour play time we bundled the boys up and headed outside to see the Christmas lights.  We brought along the boys new wagon for them to ride along.  They loved being in their wagon.  They were bundled in layer after layer, a jacket, hat, mittens, and two soft warm fleece blankets were piled on top of them.

It was so sweet watching the boys look at all of the lights.  They really enjoyed their wagon ride.

After an hour of walking we piled back into the car.  (We were going to eat there but the line was so long).  We drove about 10 minutes to a really pretty diner.  On our way home Hubs stopped at a gas station and picked up little coffee drinks and a box cake.

After dinner we ventured home, changed into jams and put the boys to bed.   When we came downstairs Hubs cut us some cake and sang Happy Birthday to me.

It might not sound extravagant, but I had SUCH a wonderful birthday!  A great way to start my last year in my 20s.

More Christmas

A while back Hubs saw a train table on the side of the road.  He came home and told me about it.  He was going to pick it up but it was too big to fit in his car.  I told him he should go back and check it out.  He said if it was in decent condition he would grab it.  We figured if we didn't like it we could put it back on the side of the road and offer it up free the same as the old owners did.  

When he took the table out of my van I couldn't believe how big it was.  We laughed and were pretty sure we wouldn't be able to fit it anywhere in our little house.  The one place we thought it could go was where our Christmas tree was.  We figured we would put it in our already full to the brim garage until after the tree came down. 

Just yesterday I begged Hubs to take the tree out of the house.  He was shocked!  I don't allow the tree to come down until after the New Year.  I especially have never let it come down before my birthday.  This year I was begging for it to come down the day before my birthday.  I really wanted to get the train table in and all of the boys new toys put away.  I couldn't stand walking around them or on them anymore and the boys were having a really hard time playing with such a huge mess around them.  

Hubs took out the tree and brought in the train table.  It JUST fits.  The table is in perfect condition.  There were a few stickers around the outside and some crayon marks on the table top.  Nothing that a Mr. Clean Eraser sponge and a little bit of elbow grease couldn't take care of.  Actually I barely had to put elbow grease into the cleaning of this table.  That's how nice it was.  

Here's the table all clean and ready for set up.  

Here's their table all set up with some toys.

 The boys got a Chuggington train set from one of their Uncles.  The middle train set they have had for a while now.  That was their twin uncles set from when they were young.  On the left is a few Thomas pieces that they got for Christmas from their twin Uncles.  Under the train table are these two great big drawers.  The drawer on the right is housing all of the boys balls.  They each got a new package of balls from my cousin that contain a football, soccer ball, and basket ball.  With those 6 new balls the ball no longer fit in the bucket that they use to be in.  The drawer on the left is housing the boys new train set from their Grandma and Grandpa (Hubs rents).  We didn't want to open that one quite yet.  I began to, but then saw how much putting together it needed and just put the box in the drawer for the time being.  Also in that drawer are all of their cars and trucks.  I love how big those drawers are!

The table was all set up for when the boys came down from their nap.

They played nicely for a while.  Then the table was a disaster, but hey, that's what it's there for.  Sometime I have to remind myself that a kids mess is ok.  Who am I kidding... you should see the rest of the house... a kids mess... what about MY MESS haha!!

M & J Senior Pictures

My brothers are home from boarding school for Christmas break.  I can't believe that they are going to be graduating high school this May.  It's crazy to me!  Since they were home I was able to take their Senior pictures.

I'm sorry, I always have a really hard time narrowing down which pictures to post.  So like always here is a picture overload of our photo shoot this afternoon.

Since I had them together I started off with taking a picture of them together.  It is not very often they allow their pictures being taking.  I was really expecting this to be a brutal experience.  I was pleasantly pleased that they happily cooperated.

 The next grouping is of my brother J.

This set is of my brother M. 

I'm not sure why the pictures are a bit blurry on the blog when they weren't at all blurry on the picture viewer I have.  Hmmm.