Santa Claus came to town...

Santa came to the Lakeville School Special Education department! Such a fun party - Alex is a HUGE party animal!!!


Alex sat on Santa's lap:





Alex's friend Lydia was there (they ride the bus together):




So was his friend Grant and his little brother:



After visiting with Santa, it was on to games and crafts!


Bowling:


(love the look on his face!)




Bingo with his friends:

Alex made this great doorknob wreath:

Dancing with one of the middle school volunteers:

And a party just isn't a party without treats:

What a wonderful Party!

Swimming Monkey...

Alex LOVES swimming:

His favorite part is jumping into the pool and they made it even more exciting by hanging a huge blowup monkey up for them to hit on their way into the pool:

So much fun watching my little monkey swim!!

Snowed in...

My shiny red new friend:

Southern friends, if you don't know what this is, consider yourself LUCKY! It's a snow blower and is a must have if you live in MN (aka Land of Snow and Ice).


So with a clear driveway and sidewalk, here is how Alex came off the bus today:

Walking on the cleared sidewalk is way over-rated for 6 year olds!

Alex made this candycane ornament at school:

It looks beautiful on our tree!

Snow day...

My phone rang at 5:22 am with an automated message that would make my little man ecstatic - NO SCHOOL, it's a snow day!!


He is enjoying watching Dinosaur Train (a PBS cartoon that we've never gotten to watch bc it's on while he's at school) and eating tortilla chips:

And it's still coming down! We're going to head out after lunch to PLAY!!

Hope you're having a wonderful Wednesday!

Little Elf...

My little elf came home last night to find the tree up and ready to decorate! His excitement made my heart smile!


note to self: buy all new lights at the after Christmas sales! I like my tree to resemble the airport landing pad and had to throw away three strands that refused to work, so need more lights.

While getting all our ornaments out I discovered that I'm a tad bit obsessed with buying ornaments with Alex's name on them! I think it stems from never having ornaments with my name on them as a child (other than the gold ones that you could personalize - need to ask momma if I can have those!) - I have no idea why they didn't make "Jonnelle" ornaments, hehe! Oh well, it's a good obsession to have.

Hope you're having a magnificent Monday!!

My $5 wreath...

I used to have gorgeous wreaths that took me hours to create, but one day I got tired of moving them from state to state and not being allowed (don't ask!) to hang them on my front door - they went to the Goodwill.
Now that I'm in my own house and can hang as many wreaths as I'd like, but have no wreaths and cannot access my craft supplies yet.
What to do? Well, I was at the $Tree buying storage/organizational bins and decided to get the fixins for a wreath. I don't love it but I do love being able to hang a wreath!

Next year's wreath will be gorgeous, but for $5, this is okay!!

Have a fab Friday!

**edited - sorry for the bad photo, the camera cord is still refusing to come out of hiding!

Lost....

we are lost in an explosion of clothes, toys and crafts here at our house! I have pictures to upload, but I cannot find my camera cord (it's hiding with the toaster, my brown mules and the remote to the small tv!).

So here are some pics from my phone, excuse the quality please!

Alex is still loving his karate headband:

He has asked to take karate/kung fu classes when swimming is over and we're going to try it!

I took a little break from moving to get my hair did (went a little dark for some warmth for winter) and hit the Sonic that's far enough away from my house that it's an occasional treat!

Beaujolais Nouveau came out:

The George is the best - Jen and I tasted all three just so we could give you a report - hehe!

Alex lost another tooth (sorry for the creepy picture!):

He's so stinkin cute with his two front teeth missing! The adult teeth are coming in so quick that he won't be asking for his two front teeth from Santa!!

My friend Big Andy came up from TN to help Alex and I move. While he was here, I got him to take me to IKEA (it was my first time, very cool!) to buy Alex a new bed. This bed is a huge hit with Alex!!! He loves his cousins' bunk beds, but mommy's not too keen on how tall the top bunk is that he loves to sleep on when we visit, so this was the perfect compromise! It's a jr. loft bed and he has a nice little fort area underneath. I told him I'd make curtains for the bottom and Big Andy bought him a Vikings night light and locker room sign to go under there too!

After Alex got out of school on Tuesday, we loaded up in Big Andy's truck and headed to TN!!

Alex was king of the back seat with his blanket, Nintendo DS, my computer to watch videos on and his cool arm-rest with two cupholders!! Even though it was 1000 miles and two days, he did better than I did on the trip!

We made it to my sister's cabin Wednesday night in time to roast hot dogs and s'mores in the fire pit. Had a wonderful Thanksgiving day on Thursday and on Friday Alex went to see the Nashville Predator's Hockey game with Uncle Stevie, Logan and Connor!!

Alex was SO excited to go to his favorite restaurant with his cousin Connor:

Not having his two front teeth didn't slow him down one bit when it came to eating hot wings!

Saturday was football day at the cabin, where we mourned FSU's loss and celebrated the Vols' win!!

Before we knew it, it was time to head to Atlanta to jump on a plane back to MN.

We made a stop at Truett's for one last Chick-Fil-A sandwich before going to the airport:

(it's in Morrow, GA - right down the road from where I used to live in Rex and work at Carrabba's!)

It was such a great trip! We loved being with our family and are so thankful to Big Andy for helping us move, driving us to TN (stopping at multiple breakfast locations to ensure that we both got what we wanted!) and getting us safely to the airport!

Thanks for popping by!

Keep Calm and Carry On...

I've seen a few prints on blogs lately that say "keep calm and carry on" (and one of the fab Kirsty Wiseman's that says "keep calm and eat cake" - LOVE it!) and really want it to be my mantra!

We may not be very calm in our house but we are carrying on! Alex is really loving wearing jerseys lately and was excited to wear his MN Golden Gopher's jersey today since his friend Max is going to the Gopher game tomorrow:

Such a handsome lil man! He made me smile and filled my heart with such joy this morning as he sang and danced to the bus!!

Yesterday started moving days for us:

We are moving only 5 minutes down the road and Alex will get to stay at the same school - answered prayers!!

My Etsy store had a little pop of business - the two adult sets of scarves/hats sold (one the first day I listed it!), so I need to get knitting as soon as we're settled!

Thanks for stopping by!

Trick or Treat...

Ding dong, my first trick or treaters were my fave:

These are our super cute neighbors, Ryan as Super Man and Jack as Darth Vader!

(Jack, Alex, Ryan and I would call Ryan Super Baby while we were swinging this summer because he was always so sweet to use the baby swing so that Alex and Jack could use the big boy swings. So we really played it up, singing "SUPER BABYYYYY!" when I'd give him a big push...him being Superman just makes me smile, reminding me of a super fun summer in our backyards!)

Our group shot:


And he's off:

He used his sword to point the way to the next house!

Traded Daddy his sword and bucket for the flashlight, this boy loves a flashlight!

Alex, Jack and Ryan had a great time and their Daddies were great troopers taking them to lots of houses!!

We ended the night with worms and brains (spaghetti and homemade meatballs) while watching the Vols play an awesome game and then getting an extra hour of sleep before church...such a great weekend!

Coming soon...

Halloween pictures! But Alex's dad took my camera home with him on Halloween, so hopefully I'll get it back tonight and have pictures of Blue Ninja with his friends, Darth Vadar and Superman to share.

Until then, I'll leave you with a fuzzy picture from my phone of my sweet lil snaggletooth cutie:

His two top teeth have been looking like a bucktooth bunny since his adult teeth are trying to push their way down and late last night he finally lost his one, which made for such a fun morning today! The tooth fairy needs to get a stash of cash (had four $1, a $20, a $50 and a $100 to choose from...he was just fine with $4 and is looking forward to buying a video game with it - I think we need to work on the value of money!) because we have many loose teeth in that sweet mouth!

Hope you're having a terrific Tuesday!

Fishy, fishy....

It's swim time here for Alex! My mom and his swim instructor have both said he must have gills, he LOVES swimming and can stay in/under the water forever!

This smile melts my heart:

Alex was happy to see his Dad come watch him:

He's having SO much fun:

I just love watching him, he's so happy in the water...what a blessing to have a sweet lil fishy!