Christmas Eve with the Cline

We always spend Christmas even (evening) with Kyle's side.  We went to mass at 4:00 at a Catholic church nearby.  It is not our home church but because it is close to Kyle's parents and has a 4:00 service we go there each year.  This is our 3rd year.  Prior to Cooper's arrival we would go to Ennis for midnight mass after we finished with Kyle's family.

We always eat first and this year the food was amazing.  We always do appetizer/snack foods.  I wish I had taken pictures because there were so many good recipes.  I will try to share some with you soon.

After food we take pictures.  Right around dinner time Cooper medicine wore off and he was running a fever again so he was pathetic for the pictures.

Group shot

The boys with their great-grandparents (Casen's enthusiasm makes up for Cooper looking drugged up)

Casen got the cutest monkey from Mimi and Grandpa.  It is perfect for his monkey themed first birthday!

Cooper and Casen got a Elmo that gives hugs

I love this pic of me and Casen.  (Casen had spit up so much that he was soggy so we decided to put him in his pjs early.)

Cooper showing Casen how to play with his new toy

Some of these pictures are out of order because some are from my camera and some from Uncle Ron.

Sylvester Christmas

The Sunday before Christmas we celebrated with my mom's side of the family.  We normally do it no the Saturday but we had the Lord of the Rings wedding.

We had the party at my cousins house/barn.  It was the perfect place for this amount of people and the weather.  We all had a great time and lots of yummy food.  I wasn't great at taking pictures but here are the ones I did take.

The kids ready to open presents

Quinn looks very excited!

Adelynn is so cute!

Sweet baby Matthew

My sweet boy with Aunt Lusa

Marley and her mommy

Baby Eli!

Macadoodle

Cooper got Monster band aids, a monster blanket, and a Monster's shirt.  He has worn the shirt every couple of days since he got it.

I wish I had taken some group shots but we just didn't.  It's like wrangling cats at this party.

The party was so nice and I can't wait until next year.  We already know that we are getting at least one more great-grand kid next July!

Pictures with Santa

We took the boys to take pictures with Santa this year and when I got ready to share the pictures I realized that I never shared pictures from the past two years on my blog.

 

The below is a picture taken with my phone of a picture I have. These were taken at day-care.

 

Last year we took Cooper to see him on Christmas Even and after just a 15 minute wait it was our turn.  We bought the cd of pictures so here are all 3 of the ones we got.

 

 

I love this one.

 

I think this is a great Santa Claus

 

Here is 2013 and I was not thrilled with the Santa but since we waited until Christmas Eve (I like this tradition) there isn't anything you can do about it.  Cooper was running a fever and tired. Casen just wasn't sure what to think.

I wish Cooper was also looking at Santa in this picture.

 

I am the mean mom that would have almost rather they were crying than looking like deer caught in headlights.  Whatever.

Santa and school

Here are some pictures of the boys the day of their school parties. This is in Casen's room.

 

 

Seriously the matching looks on their faces cracks me up! Wish this one wasn't blurry.

 

Cooper found another toy and climbed in the chair and said 'I want to take a picture with this'

 

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Christmas Eve morning we went to the mall to take pictures with Santa.  Last year we only waited in line for about 10 minutes and this year we walked straight up.

 

The boys were in a bit of a daze in the actual Santa pic but this was afterwards.

We took Cooper for a 'good job cookie'.

 

He always says cheese but looks away!

 

I will share their actual picture with Santa soon.

Cold, croup, and the flu. Oh my!

A day or two before Christmas Cooper was running a fever and his lingering cough got worse. Kyle took him to the dr because we were worried it was RSV but luckily just a cough and cold.

Last Saturday Casen woke up with a horrible cough. My BIL watched a video of him coughing and recognized it as croup. We managed his symptoms over the weekend and the doctor confirmed it as croup on Monday.

I have been dealing with allergies and what I thought might be the beginning of a sinus infection. Yesterday my mom found out that she had the flu. This morning I woke up with a major headache and my whole body aching. I went to the doctor and they confirmed I have the flu also. 

I am getting tamiflu and some Facebook friends suggested I check with the boys pediatrician on any preventative care. Their pediatrician called in a preventative dosage of tamiflu also.

I am praying that I just have a mild case of the flu, that Kyle and the boys don't get it, and that my boys take it easy on me as I recover.

Time for a nap 

Happy Friday! : (

NYR #2- Long Term Plans

I have had items on my long-term to-do list for a while now and I haven't taken care of them.  When you see the list feel free to judge, because I am kinda ashamed.

Here are the items and I already have a plan-

January- Sign up for life insurance.  We took care of Kyle's a year ago, but for some reason didn't do mine.  I have already printed out the info so I can discuss it with my mom soon.

February- Draw up wills for Kyle and I.  I was going to do this back in the summer and didn't.  Then I thought I could get it for free through work, but that was only if you did the life insurance.  Now I am going to take care of it after the life insurance.

March- Setup college funds for the boys.  For some reason this sounds overwhelming to me because I have heard there are lots of different ones and I don't know what I want.  I don't know if my kids will go to public universities or private.  I don't know if they will stay in Texas or not.  What if Cooper doesn't spend all of his etc...I just need to sit down and read through some info already. 

April- Review my retirement accounts.

May- Review Kyle's retirement accounts.

June- By June I want to have a list of all of our various accounts and put them in our safe. I take care of paying the bills and anything with finances.  If something were to happen to me I want Kyle to be able to easily figure things out or at least have some place to start.


These may seem kinda morbid, but really they are just things that need to be done. The good thing is that once they are done I shouldn't have to really worry about them again. Maybe in future years I will review/update all of the above items in January if needed.

New Year's Resolution #1-My Blog

I have several New Year's Resolutions (NYR) and I am going to share them with you as I have time.  They are not in order of importance.

The first NYR is my blog.

I am going to blog as I want and when I have time.  This past year I was not sure which direction I wanted to take my blog and it caused me to stress out (yes, I am always stressed and I am trying to work on that).

Some people have a public blog and even make money off of it.  My blog has had advertisements on it for almost 2 year (in April) and in that time I have made $25 total! Not anything to get excited about.  Now to be fair that is a free $25, but the funny thing is that I have not received the $25 because you have to reach $100 before they will send you any money. So I may never reach $100 and therefore I haven't made anything off of it!

Because I had a public blog and advertisements I was trying to be a 'smart blogger.'  That meant only one post per day, not too wordy (not very good at that), and other things.  Well when you have a lot going on that is hard to do. Especially after the holidays when you need to blog about 5 different Christmas parties, NYE, sick kids, and every thing else going on in your life.

So I am not worried about being a smart blogger anymore.  This blog is about documenting my life and our memories.  This is where I keep up with what my boys are up to and all of their milestones since I don't keep baby books.

Get ready for more than one past a day or only one post all week.
Get ready for randoms posts that just document a conversation I had with Cooper.
Get ready for lots of pictures.
Get ready for posts where I rant about being stressed once a week! I will try not to.
Get ready for posts about whatever is on my mind.

Basically I am going to enjoy my blog and post as I want.  I am going to take the stress off of this blog or at least try to. At some point I will post about Christmas and I promise that one day I will post about Cooper's second birthday.  It may not be until a week before is 3rd birthday as the guilt overwhelms me but whatever. 

So here is resolution #1! I might be sharing my resolutions into February! You never know!