Merry Christmas

This year we enjoyed our first Christmas in our new house. Grandma was here at the beginning of December and helped us get into the Christmas spirit by baking cookies with the boys.

 

In our new house, we have a nice big living room to put up our tree in. It is nice to be able to decorate it all the way around.

Aunt Emily spent Christmas Eve with us and spent the night so she could be with us Christmas Morning. We had a great time opening presents. Bennet let Evan be the designated present opener, which suited him as he only had eyes for the candy Santa left in his stocking.

Daddy made a delicious traditional Kraczek christmas breakfast. Later we headed up to Maryland to have dinner with our Kraczek cousins. It was a very merry Christmas.

Visit from Grandma

Grandma Heather came out to help after James was born. Unlike Evan and Bennet, James decided to come early not late. Instead of having to go home right after the baby came home from the hospital, Grandma was able to spend time with the new baby the whole time she was here. James and Grandma became fast friends. James' first smile was for Grandma after about a week of her being here.

Sweet Baby James

James Stanley Kraczek was born at 3:19am, Nov 11, 2015. He weighed 7lbs 6oz. He was exactly a week early. Both of his older brothers were so late that Mommy had to be induced, so when this little one decided to come on his own, it took us by surprise. Not only did he come early, he also came quick. As a result, mommy thought longingly of an epidural as she stared at the emergency room sign across the street and clutched baby boy Kraczek in the front seat of the Mazda where he was just born.  We called an ambulance and, after waiting for ten minutes, the pareamedics took us the remaining 400ish feet to the hospital. Luckily, there were no complications and Mommy and little James were just fine.

Big Brother Evan loves having a new little baby around and is so sweet to James.

Big Brother Bennet doesn't really care that there is a new baby around as long as he still gets the attention he wants. He loved that Daddy took time off from work to help mommy with the new baby and only wanted Daddy to be the one to play with him.

We love our new baby boy and are so excited he is part of our family.

Trick or Treat x3

We kicked off the Halloween festivities this year with some pumpkin carving.

Evan got to carve two pumpkins. One with Aunt Emily at her work party and one at home with Daddy and Bennet.


































Evan wanted to be a Lego Minifigure this year and Bennet still fit into the Dinosaur costume I made him last year, so I only had to make one new costume this year.

When I was a kid, I only went Trick or Treating once, on Halloween night. For some reason, these kids get to go beg for candy at least 3 times in a two day period. At least they get more use out of their costumes.


Our first Trick or Treating event was at Daddy's office. Every year, they invite the kids to come into the firm and trick or treat around the office, prior to having a little party after. The kids love going to go see Daddy at work and they get a lot of candy too.

After Trick or Treating at Daddy's office, we drove straight to our Church Halloween/Trunk R' Treat Party. Even with Mommy taking most of the candy we collected at Paul's office and redistributing it at Trunk or Treat, we still came home with more candy than we started with.

The next day was officially Halloween and we were very excited to go trick or treating around our new neighborhood. The kids had a great Halloween. I think next year instead of being afraid of running out of candy I will aspire to run out of candy.

Camping

Evan has been begging us to take him camping for over a year and we have just never got around to taking him for one reason or another. With the weather getting colder we knew we needed to make it happen sooner than later. We waited to tell Evan that we were going camping till he got home from school on Friday. He knew that we had a surprise for him after school. When he got home I opened up the trunk of the van and pointed to the tent, sleeping bags and lantern and asked him to guess his surprise. "Camping?!" He was so excited.

I had everything ready to go so we drove straight to the campground. Daddy got off work early and met us there for dinner. We had a delicious dinner of salmon asparagus and potatoes in a foil packet that Bennet loved (he is our resident fishmonger). I was in charge of packing it all, setting up the tent, making the fire and cooking dinner. Paul was in charge of spending the night in a tent with Evan. I think I got off easy. At 8 months pregnant sleeping in a tent did not sound like a good idea, so Bennet and I went home to sleep in our beds.

For dessert we had the traditional smore's. Evan liked the ones we made him but he had fun catching his on fire.

First Day of Kindergarten

Evan started Kindergarten this fall. On his first day he was a little nervous but was excited about his new red backpack and shoes with red shoelaces. Mommy was a little more emotional than she thought she'd be, Bennet was wondering where his big brother was all day (E'en where r uuu?), and Daddy wondered how he got so old, but it all turned out fine. Evan had a great first day and he loves riding the bus.

Moving

Old House

On the morning of July 1st, we were notified that we would no longer be able to stay at the house we had been renting for the past 5 years. Our landlords wanted it back and we had two months to find a new place to live. We were shocked and a little nervous about finding a new place, packing everything up, and moving, but after a quick and stressful search we were blessed to find a great house for our family to live in.

New House

Taking apart the crib

We decided to buy a house instead of renting again.

Daddy was really busy at work, so Mommy had to do all the packing; however, being 6 months pregnant, Daddy did all the heavy lifting. On moving day Daddy had to do all the moving also.

Evan and Bennet helped out where they could.

The Hoard

Because we had to do some renovations in the basement lots of stuff had to live in the livingroom for a while, which mommy affectionately called the hoard. Once we moved in, we wasted no time fixing it up and making this house into our home. With almost daily trips to Home Depot, Mommy has patched, repaired, sanded, and painted nearly every room in the house. It is now all coming together and we are looking forward to spending lots of happy years here.

Boy's room before

Boys room after