Merry Christmas - Part 2

After we did our thing at the house, we headed over to Nick's parents house!

Everyone opened presents all at one time!

Jalen tore into everything he had in his sight!

It was calm before we started and then it went crazy. There was wrapping paper everywhere, but everyone was happy with all their presents!!

Jalen couldn't contain himself when he found out he got Skylander Giants!

Neriah enjoyed eating the paper!

Salah decided to show me her mad face!!

Oma was pleased with her chocolates and wanted a picture with them! :-) Good pick, Jalen!

In the end, we cleaned up all the paper and stopped for a group picture!

Merry Christmas - Part 1

Twas' the night before Christmas and Jalen was getting everything ready for Santa!

He baked his cookies and poured the milk!

 He sat it by the fireplace and even put out some oatmeal for the reindeer!

Yum!

Before we went to bed, we talked about the reason for the season. 

We woke up in the morning and found our Christmas pull-apart absolutely huge and funny looking. But, it was yummy!

 Jalen wanted to open what Mommy and Daddy got him first! He was so happy.

He thought it was hilarious and 'so cool' that he has a Storm Trooper spatula to make pancakes with!

Santa didn't disappoint though! He got his major police station that he's been wanting for forever!

The only sad part of his day was when he said he wished his elf didn't have to leave because he misses the little guy!

Cupcake Wars

On Saturday, December 8th, Jalen took Cupcake Wars cooking class. He got to make the cupcakes and icing from scratch, roll out fondant and cut shapes, grate Hershey Hugs into snow, and decorate his cupcakes. He love his cooking classes. He participates and learns so much. This cooking class Opa came by to watch him. Thanks to Grandpa we will be doing 8 more this Spring! 

Time to Catch Up!

The blog had been down for a little bit and I just got around to getting it back up, so I wanted to do a quick update on everything before we get back to our regularly scheduled programming. Jalen is doing great in school. He is continuing to try his best and enjoys going. He is tracked out right now until January 23rd and is super excited about that. Brooklyn and Ryan both participated in their first Christmas play and did great. I was blessed to be able to attend both of them. They made Auntie proud! Last night, Salah spent the night with us and did great. Neriah stayed until about midnight and went right to sleep for me. It is amazing how fast everyone is growing up. Little Gavin is growing like a weed. He's so spoiled, but I love every minute of the spoiling. Everyone is ready for Christmas. Jalen is ready to see what Santa is going to bring him. We will go to Nick's family in the morning and then my family in the afternoon will come over. So ready to have everyone together!! Elf has been living at our house for the past month and Jalen has really enjoyed having him visit. He's gotten into some trouble while he's been here! Crazy Elf!

Ice Skating and Sledding

In Downtown Raleigh, they have Winterfest going on. It is a real ice skating rink and Jalen had a blast. The day we went it was about 60 degrees. The rink had melted a little bit (or a lot) so if you fell, you not only hit the ice but a big puddle of water. Jalen tried his hardest, but his favorite thing was sledding. 4 times during Winterfest they have real snow and sledding. Jalen was in heaven! He had no clue this would be there and went down it 50 times. Luckily it wasn't crowed.