Little Readers!

I realized that I forgot an important part of my Christmas posts. Traditionally, as we drive back to Chicago from Morton on the 25th, we read the Christmas story in the car. I forgot to post that video because it was on Roger's phone instead of mine. 

Rowan is a terrific reader. He tested at a 2nd grade, 5 month level back in October. It was so special to let him read the Christmas story to us in the car with minimal help. Here is a snippet.

Rowan also read Psalm 100 to the our family before we ate Thanksgiving dinner. He looked up Psalms about thankfulness in the concordance in my Bible and chose this one to read.

Sweet Cruz knows all his letter sounds and has for a while. Cruz loves trying to spelling the words on the first grade lowest list. He usually can. All those things made me realize that he was probably ready to start blending some words together and reading. He received a new set of Bob books for Christmas and can read the first two with only a little help. This was his first time reading without me pointing at the words for him. The book he's reading is the first book Rowan read as well. :)

Happy New Year's Eve! Hope everyone has a safe time celebrating.

Illinois Christmas: Part II

Christmas Continued.....

Puzzello Christmas:

Highlights: Great Grandpa got to come home from rehab to celebrate, Aunt Mar's amazing Italian food, legos with cousins and a little bit of Zingo and Monopoly Jr. 

Cousins playing sweetly!

baby Jemma!

Game time with Grampy and Great Grandpa

Obermayer Christmas:

Highlights: Baking sugar cookies, playing Monopoly, Scavenger hunt with Grammy, gift card games and Nick's pizza.

Rowan and Daddy played a rousing game of Monopoly.

Grampy ended up stepping in to help Rowan. If you've ever played a game of Monopoly with Roger, you'd understand why this was necessary. :)

Grammy set up a scavenger hunt.

The boys finally found the prize at the end of the hunt which was I-tunes gift cards located in the toaster. 

Trying on Uncle Nate's police vest.

All the grandkids.

Now we're home, Cooper is picked up from the kennel and we're almost completely unpacked. Thank you to everyone who housed us, fed us and showered our kids with gifts. We had so much fun and are so thankful for all of you. 

Illinois Christmas: Part I

We had a wonderful time in Illinois this Christmas making sweet memories with our family.  As always, the trip just flew by.  Since I haven't posted in two weeks, I'm going to make up for it by overloading you with photos now. 

Extended Obermayer Christmas:
Highlights: catching up with my cousins and the kids getting to play with their "cousins" who they don't get to see very often.

Brothers and Best Friends




The Whole Gang (minus one aunt, uncle and cousin)

Misc:

Baum Christmas:
Highlights: Steak N Shake with Grandpa, making Ninja Turtle ornaments with Deona, playing pool, playing darts and opening fun gifts.










Love this picture!










Rowan was getting so good at the end that he didn't even need help!


Ready to head to Grandma's house for Christmas Eve!


Sweet kiddos took this picture for their mama even though they were freezing....



Christmas with Grandma Spahr:
Highlights: playing Mouse Trap with Grandma, birthday cake for Jesus, being silly with Uncle Randy and Nicole, Christmas Eve church and watching the Grinch.




Love how colorful Grandma's tree is and I love the smiles on these two.


My favorite people in the world. <3 p="">

Sweet Girl got some fun dress up clothes from Grandma.




Yummy cake for Jesus








Love this picture we grabbed with Grandma right before leaving to go to Chicago.

Three Christmas celebrations down, two more to go! :)

"Christmas" Morning

Warning: Long post with a lot of pictures. There were just a lot of details from today I want to remember.

Well, our Christmas morning didn't exactly begin as we'd planned.  Rowan, Cora and I all had various versions of a stomach bug over the past few days.  I figured Cruz would get it next and he did today. He woke up this morning with a temperature of 95.2?!?!? He was also very lethargic and couldn't stay awake.  Never in 6 years of being a mom had I dealt with a low temperature like that.  We almost headed off to the children's ER but decided to bundle him up, give him some liquids and monitor him for a half an hour.  If his temp wasn't up, we were going to take him in.  Thankfully, within a half an hour his temperature was almost 97.  It continued going up as he drank liquids and stayed snuggled up in blankets.  Cruz's tummy still felt crummy though so we put off opening gifts for a while.  Rowan was a fabulous big brother.  He was really concerned about Cruz and did not voice his disappointment at having to wait to open the pile of gifts under the tree.  He "baby-sat" Coco for us, even helping her use the potty.  So thankful for him. 

Much to Rowan's delight, Cruzy decided he was up for stockings.

Loved to see his smile today!

So excited to see which Mario character was in his package.

Love the trademark scrunched nose smile.

We ate our traditional cinnamon roll breakfast with Cruzy sipping gatorade.


Sweet boy even agreed to a tree picture to make his mama happy. He decided he wanted to open gifts on the couch so we moved the rest of the presents from under the tree to the family room.


I'm so proud of him. He looked at his pile of gifts and said, "Wow! this is so many presents!"






Hands down Coco's favorite gift were her Paw Patrol characters. She played with them all day long.


Finally seeing some smiles.


Excited about his Sonic game for the new Wii U.






They all got scooters and were all very excited about them, haha.


Chess Workbook


Tea Set for Sis.

We spent the rest of the day playing with the new toys. Since Cruzy was "couched" for the day, we decided to save the scooters and basketball for another day. Although Rog and I managed to get outside and play a quick game of PIG when the kids were napping/in quiet time. :) The day started out way scarier and more stressful than I had anticipated, however, that made all the smiles and good moments that much sweeter. We have so much to be thankful for.