Noah's Christmas Concert

Noah had his annual Christmas concert for preschool on Monday of this past week. He was so proud of himself for singing all the songs and learning his Bible verse. He was one of the kids that you could hear from the back of the room. This is his best friend, Sam.









The whole group of them. They did a great job.

Thanksgiving, picking out a tree and more.

Kind of in reverse order, but at least I was able to find time to post. I know it has been awhile....no excuse. We celebrated Thanksgiving and we went to get out tree the day after. It is always a great weekend for us to try and get the tree and put it up. Kids had a great time decorating. They are throwing ornaments on the tree while Rebecca is thinking how she is going to move them around once they all go to bed. The kids will put them all on one side of the tree so the whole thing is lopsided. Hey, it's not about perfection but fun, huh?



Nice shirt that Jonah chose to wear on the evening we decorated. I think he has the wrong Holiday.











We caught Noah hiding behind the tree moving around ornaments.













Bundled up and out looking for a tree the day after Thanksgiving.

















Finding a tree we all like has gotten a little bit easier these past few Holidays. Not sure why, maybe it is because it is more about the experience and not just the tree itself.











We all went over to my sister's house for Thanksgiving. My parents were down in Charleston, SC with Scott and Lara this year. Mike and Andrea (brother and sister-in-law) and our family all got together. We had a great meal and had fun with all the cousins. Always a little chaotic at the table with the kids, but someday, we will all look back on this and miss it.






Mike got in on some of the action. Nice apron. I think he must have brought this one from home. I am sure he wears this on cleaning day at the LeRoy household. Yeah right.











Noah has always wanted to be a kangaroo so he could sit in the pouch and come along for the ride.












All of the kids and Rebecca downstairs on Thanksgiving playing a game.













If you have been reading this blog for more than a couple months, you know that these are the two you have to watch. They are always up to something.

Our beloved GG took a trip to Heaven on December 14th

These are pictures of GG celebrating her 94th birthday in October. GG went into the hospital on December 10th and had a lot of different problems going on. As the days progressed, we started to see that she wasn't going to get better. She even told my mom and I that she had a feeling she wouldn't be here by Christmas time. Things changed pretty drastically on Saturday night so we all rushed down there and stayed all night long with her. Her three children were by her side when she took her last breath in the hospital on Sunday evening. We were able to bring the kids to see her on Sunday and Jacob said, "Have a good trip to Heaven GG."We will miss her greatly as she was the perfect grandma. She gave the best hugs and made some pretty incredible pies. Our small family sat around the dinner table Sunday night after we found out and we shared great memories of things we each loved about her. It was a great way to send her off. She was tired, and now she is dancing with Jesus. Another profound thing that was voiced was that she will be in Heaven on Christmas day for Jesus's birthday celebration--what could be more awesome than that. We will miss you GG.

At 94, she would still get excited like a small child.

Babysitting Baby Thomas

Sarah and Josh called the other day and asked if we would like to babysit Thomas while they went to a movie on Saturday night. Sarah said it has been six weeks and she was ready to venture out without him. Of course we said , "Of course not." We were happy to do it. The boys were so excited to help out. Noah and Jonah went and got toys together for him to play with. We didn't really have the heart to tell them that he wouldn't play with much of anything. They all got to hold him and help feed him.




All of the natural instincts never leave when a baby is around.











There were many hands to help out with all of his care.













The kisses were flying around also. Jacob got to help change his diaper and make his formula.












Noah loves being around babies and he does a great job holding him, making sure to keep his head up.











Jonah is a good cousin who tries really hard to take care and protect him.












All of the boys cousins on the Snelling side of the family.













All of the men gravitate towards the couch.












Grandma or "Marna" as she has been names by our children, also got some snuggle time with Thomas.













Changing the diaper is not just fun and games when it is filled. Jacob thought it was hilarious. We had a great time with Thomas. The kids had a good time holding him and watching him. Until next time.

A Fall work day

Noah took this picture of me--great job. It is nerve racking to give your camera to a 5 year old, but they have to learn some how. I had the strap around his neck and both hands on the camera. You can tell by the forced smile how nervous I was.









All of the kids wanted to help with raking leaves the other day so they all pitched in. Noah is a very hard worker. He probably is the one who will stick with a job the longest out of all three of the boys.























Once Jonah came onto the scene, all of the dynamics changed. The competition began for who could rake the most leaves--I liked that!











Jonah, although helpful, did a great job pulling more leaves down from the tree. Even though the yard looks about the same, they were proud of themselves. Hey, life is messy.

Halloween pictures in no particular order

Start with the end of the night when the kids got home and looked at all of their candy. I have great memories of doing the exact same thing. My dad used to take a "tax", a certain amount of candy, for taking us out that night. Now, Rebecca and I sneak some when the kids are in bed. They will never miss it.








Jonah was a mummy for Halloween which took a long time to put together. There are more pictures farther down of how Rebecca had to put this together.










Before we went trick or treating, we went to visit the my grandmother or the kids' great grandmother, known as "GG". She is 94 years old and she lives in an assisted living facility. She loved seeing the kids and handing out the candy.









Jacob was Harry Potter, Jonah was a mummy, and Noah was superman on Halloween and a mummy at school the day before during their party. The costumes were fun to put together but took a lot of patients on the part of Rebecca and the kids.








Here is Jonah on Friday morning and they are rushing to get it done with the hot glue fun before school started. Jonah was a little nervous at first with the hot glue gun, but the only one who got burned was Rebecca.









I had to take Jacob to school and come back for Jonah because his costume wasn't done. He was about 20 minutes late for school which never happens. He didn't like that at all. He was a mummy of nerves until he got to school.









Here is the finished product. Not too bad. At the end of the day he said he had to roll in the dirt to make the bandages look older like a mummy. He just wanted to roll in the dirt.

















Rebecca did Noah's the day before when he was celebrating Halloween for his class.













The week of Halloween, Jacob had a Halloween Choir concert on top of everything else. They all dressed up in their costumes and did a musical kind of thing. They had a good time and it was fun to watch.









Jacob as Harry Potter. We forgot to put the scar on Jacob's head so one of the staff put it on for Jacob once he got to school. We couldn't forget the scar. They all had a great day.

Noah's playing soccer

Noah's cousin, Nolan has been playing in door soccer for awhile and he brought Noah with him one Friday as a guest. After that, Noah was hounding us to bring him back. He has so much fun with Nolan and he also found that his friend, Sam is also in the same class. So, we signed him up for the last 5 sessions and he is having a blast. I have never seen him run so much and he is really good. Most of all, he has a great time with his cousin and friend.





Here is Nolan, Sam, and Nolan after playing for an hour. They are so tired afterwards and it is great now that it is winter for them to have a place to run.










Here are all of the little munchkins on the field with their coaches. The coaches are great with the kids. Noah can't wait until Fridays. To having fun in the winter!

Pumpkin carving 2008

For those of you who don't know, anytime there is some event (usually a bad one) in the family, we name it.....and then we attach a date to the end. We started this when I was younger and it seems to work in jogging our memory. Some of the most memorable ones have been Pancake 1995, Thanksgiving 03', and Halloween carving 07'. Each one of them has meaning to us that either brings back good or bad memories, but either way, it now makes us laugh. You may look at all of these pictures and not see the "behind the scenes". Kids are smiling, knives are all in the appropriate hands, etc. What you didn't see was the conversation prior to carving about how it is going to be different this year. All of the kids remembered Halloween carving 07 very clearly. No one wanted to revisit that memory. Last year, we were going to carve pumpkins and then head to a movie (I don't remember which one, but it was supposed to be a good one). Right before we started carving, the kids got in a fight and there were words exchanged along with a physical altercation. After deliberation from the boss and myself, we decided the movie was off and then they all had to carve pumpkins separated by at least ten feet. Hence, Halloween carving 07. the kids all remember this. So, this year, I started out the event with a small speech essentially stating that we didn't want another Halloween 07 this year and they all adamantly agreed. So here are the edited pictures from this year. No major scuffles to report.

My favorite part of carving pumpkins is collecting the seeds and roasting them with salt. It smells great and they are the best. It is tedious, but worth it.

I thought this picture was extra special freaky. I seem a little too comfortable with the knife in this picture and Noah seems to be watching pretty intently. Have a Happy Halloween and may all of your special events not be named.

Do you like the tast of coconuts?

So the kids really wanted us to bring a coconut home from the Bahamas. We were going to try and smuggle one into the states but decided that we didn't want to be detained all due to a coconut. We actually found one on the ground down there and had it in our room to pack, but decided against it. In hindsight, I am glad we did. So Rebecca bought one from the store this week and we cracked it open this morning. The kids were so excited and even more excited to hear me say, "Stand back kids, this could get dangerous." I hacked at it and we drained the milk out first. Then they got to try it.



Noah is the most adventurous about trying things so he went first. They scraped the inside and he tried it and didn't really like it. You can see his reaction in the next picture.










Not so much. He also tried the milk and gave me a look of dissatisfaction.












I was surprised that Jacob tried it since he had been watching Noah, but he did and he almost gagged, which is definitely the Jacob I know.











Jonah was almost sure he was going to like this, but he too, was perplexed by the taste.













As you can see, Jonah is the one in the family who has a background in drama. He really didn't like it and then chased me around the house because he thought I was playing a trick on him. I explained after eluding him that sometimes real coconut doesn't taste like the store bought flakes with sugar sprinkled all over. Another day of experiencing new things.