Fantastic Holiday Week of Awesomeness!!!

So, hope all of you enjoyed the lovely holiday season.  We had quite the whirlwind of excitement around here.  It started out the week preceding Christmas.  We decided to give the boys the gift from us early so they had time to enjoy it before we headed out for lots of celebrations.  The look on Noah's face tells it all, the Batcave was a success!

 

 The weekend just before Christmas, we went up to the lakehouse for a holiday weekend with the extended family.  We had about 20 people staying at the house and it was a blast!  Noah and Sam had lots of quality cousin time and Mommy and Daddy got a break with all the willing helpful hands!

The boys got lots of fun gifts, including remote control cars and a spiderman punching bag.

 Christmas Eve we headed directly from the lakehouse to PaPa's house in Chicago Ridge for a celebration with the Rodriguez side.  Again, Noah and Sam reveled in the cousin time with Nick and Cesca.  

 The boys were lucky recipients of large (4 ft tall) spiderman for coloring, many star wars and superhero items, watches and talking superman and batman guys.

 Then we drove to LaGrange to wake up Christmas morning with the Hewes side.  Noah had been hoping Santa would bring him a small puppy to snuggle (like Sam has) and he was happily surprised with one.

 We had a nice rather quiet morning with my parents and Uncle Josh, and opened a host of Jake and the Neverland Pirate toys, some more spiderman toys, and a giant stuffed Pooh bear.

 Pooh Bear even hung out with Uncle Josh for a nap.

So this week has been spent recovering from all that fun and enjoying our bounty of gifts.  There was some fun with fake mustaches...

 Philie scored us some face paint which Daddy cracked out right away for some fun.

 Wolverine!

 Sammy sat nicely to get the Ironman look...

Since it was just the 4 of us for New Years Eve, we decided to have a "fancy" dinner.  Dress was up to  the individual.  So Sam went with the dapper look for a bit before then changing his mind and ending up in a spiderman costume.  Noah went straight for the spiderman costume (as we never allow them for mealtimes this was a special treat).  I went with a dress and pearls and Mike rocked his jammies.  

 After our fancy dinner of Chinese food and chicken nuggets at the dining room table, we got out a set of 50 glow sticks for a preschool/toddler rave party.

Even Ellie got into the spirit (well perhaps forcibly).  So whew, that was our holiday season.  Wishing everyone the best 2013!