Happy Birthday Brody Daniel!

 This crazy boy is 4 years old! I cannot believe it for one second!!! He was SOOOOOOO excited to FINALLY have his birthday! He kept saying, "After Jesus birthday, it's mine!" He woke up to balloons, birthday banner (fist debut of the banner!!), cinnamon rolls and apple juice in the real glass! ;) For lunch the birthday boy choose to eat at our favorite Mexican place :) YUM!

 Then on to the party! We've incorporated something new to the Kaelber kids bday parties......NO THEME!!! So liberating, so "cost effective" so laid back! We took Brody to Hobby Lobby and he choose the colors of plates, napkins, cups and silverware and those colors were transferred to the cake colors. Blue, green and orange were the pick this year :) Then off to Aldi for B to pick his snacks he wanted to serve. Marshmellows, M&M's and (brace yourself) BBQ Chips (ICK!!!) but he really wanted them! ;) 

 How adorable is that cake!!! Just the number 4 with his name! Again, simplicity is the new norm here!

 Had some sweet friends over and it was a jammed packed, party filled home :)

 I put together some really cheesy games, but really the kids know how to play. Next time, probably no games. The party was from 3:30-5:00 (at least that's what the text message invite said, again simplicity!) Around 5:30 I was noticing no families were leaving. So......Mike made a pizza run and the party continued through dinner and straight to bed time! All 10 kids even ended playing in the kid's room leaving us adults on our own. So B's bday party turned into adult game night! I hope this is a new trend to birthday parties! A small little incident did happen. A chair was pushed into Brody's forehead, blood everywhere, gashing hole in my sons forehead! Mom's went everywhere trying to find all my first aid supplies (kinda convienent to have moms all over!) as we tried to close his gash. Poor guy! I went back and forth if this was ER acceptable or not. I choose not to take him in, but I soon regretted that decision. He's almost healed now, but he will have a pretty cool scar. A nice present from his bday, right?! That aside, a super fun party and day celebrating our first born!

And to end with a super cute pic of my "pre" teen ;) Wearing my boots, hat on and cell phone in hand. Oh my little girl, SLOW down! ;)

Christmas

Cant believe Christmas has come and gone! Here are just a few snap shots of our last few weeks :)

 This picture above makes me laugh! Santa sent packages in the mail for the kiddos. Just look at everyone's faces to grasp what they all were thinking and feeling ;)

Oh my Parks! He doesn't crack a smile for much ;)

 Decorating sugar cookies. Such a mess, soooo much fun!!

One of our Christmas traditions is a pizza movie night. We order pizza, eat it on the couch (this NEVER happens, that's why it's so special!) and watch a Veggie Tales "St. Nicholas". This might be one of my most favorite traditions. I LOVE how much joy it brings the kids to not only watch a movie, but watch a movie on the couch WHILE eating dinner!! Crazy!! :)

 In our Christmas Jammies! :)

Then our Christmas traveling started. We ventured 12 hours to Wisconsin the first part of the week to Mikes parents house. The cousins met us there and so it was some crazy fun! Learned 2 big life altering things. The first, Brody gets car sick :( Lots of puke many times in the van. The second, Parks Man is allergic to cats :( Within 10 minutes of being at his parents house his eyes were swollen! Poor guy! He survived great on Benadryl and Zyrtec.

And of course, LOTS of snuggles from Grandma :)

It was cold, cold, cold in Wisconsin. But, NO snow! What a bummer!

We then headed 4 hours down to Iowa. In Iowa, we stay at a great hotel and were curious if we could make staying in a hotel feel "Christmasy"? The answer is YES you can! Mike thought I was a crazy person while packing :) We had a tree, garland, paper garland, stockings, my favorite Christmas coffee mug and plate, hand soap, candles, lots of lights, some of Brody's artwork from school, and books. We truly felt and looked festive! :)

We brought all our Christmas Eve traditions to Iowa and it was a ton of fun!

 Santa even know exactly where we were ;) Right, this looks great!

We had a great Christmas! No, I don't want to travel every year for Christmas. Yes, I would still love to get away to the beach for Christmas. But this week away was super fun! We all needed a "break" from regular life and this trip did it :)

Santa!

Santa came to the hospital! Love this Santa! His eye's turn you into a child again and make you want to sit on his lap and tell him everything you want for Christmas. He makes you really believe! :)

 NO tears this year! Brody had so much he wanted to tell Santa but couldn't get his voice above a whisper ;) Aubs clung to daddy's leg until we said, "Smile" and she shot this beauty at us and Parks just started this jolly, red man down.

Brody even got to hold Santa's cane!! I've never seen this smile on my boy before. He was busting at the seams with excitement and nervousness! 

These smiles are a big step up from last year ;)

 Wow, I'm a little behind! Not sure how a whole month has gone by! It goes by faster and faster! Well if you go back with me to Halloween, here are my little critters. A dinosaur, pumpkin and Spider Man :)We have a costume bucket and so they picked out their costume for the night. We really never knew until the last minute what they were going to be because they kept putting on different costumes :) Doesn't Parks just looked thrilled :)

 Our church does a fun carnival that we went to. Lots of games, TONS of candy, tears to be had when we left because of the fun! It was even better this year due to daddy being able to walk around with us the WHOLE time. We didn't have to share him one bit due to him not being a Pastor at the church anymore! LOVE having daddy with us :)

 Love this family ;)

 Now just some cute pics :) We gave the kiddos an old camera of ours to take their own pictures with. Life behind their eyes is ADORABLE! We've done many photo shoots with their Planes and babies :) We've even seen some pics pop up of every day life. Me feeding Parker (delete that one!) and me going to the bathroom (OH MY!!! no words for that!). We've been talking and teaching about what we take pictures of now ;)

 Mike and I got away for our anniversary trip! Two nights away to Branson, Missouri! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE time away just us! We really didn't do anything exciting but whats the greatest is having NO schedule and getting to talk to my husband uninterrupted! :)

 This little man is almost 10 months old! How can that be!? He is the cutest little crawler we've ever seen, has no interest in standing up, is SO independent lately! He flat out refuses to be fed by a spoon, he wants to do it all on his own. Parks Man continues to be one laid back boy and just goes with the flow of our crazy lives. He loves the attention he gets from Aubs and Brod and truly puts up with anything they do to him ;) Praise Jesus for how big he is (just over 20 lbs!) because if he was smaller, he would be crushed ;)

 We have packed up fall and have gladly welcomed the Christmas Season! Each year just gets better and better with seeing it through the kid's eye's! Mainly Brody right now, but he is SO excited about Jesus birthday and Santa coming! He's been asking some crazy cool questions about Jesus and Santa. We are not downplaying Jesus at all, He is why we have Christmas. But, we are including Santa also. I love Santa and the mystery and excitement behind him. Lots of my childhood memories include the shear excitement of Santa. Anyways, enough said. We do both, and I'm proud that we do both!

And I guess this is how we watch movies around here ;)

My Auntie Jodie came to visit. What fun we have when she is here. Somehow she makes each of us (seriously) all feel spoiled!!

 We hadn't been to the zoo sense Brody was the only child! So it was long overdue! Spent a beautiful afternoon at the Tulsa Zoo.

 How crazy is that bear?! He about made us pee our pants or give us heart attacks (you choose who almost did what?!) This was definitely up close and personal!

 Then over Fall Break we went camping with about 5 other families! So much fun!

 The weather was perfect, the huge group campsite we had was awesome and everyone had a blast!

 We didn't see much of Brody all weekend. He was either too busy riding his bike around the campsite with his buddies or playing in the back of this truck. He re-surfaced during meal times.

 Parker even had a little buddy for the weekend! He really doesn't have too many of these, so it was so sweet to watch them "play" ;)

 Brought our leftover 4th of July fun ;)

 Nothing better then a chilly, family, campfire snuggle!! :)

 Not even 5 minutes out of the park heading home and B asks, "Can I please go to sleep?" Oh sweet kiddos, they were WIPED!!!

Pumpkin Spice is in the air!

We did things a bit backward this year. We bought the pumpkin first (the deal at Aldi was too good to pass up, $2.67!) We cut it open and were so super excited for the kids to dig in. Well, below Aubrie's face says everything she and Brody were thinking ;)

 Don't let Brody fool you, he has a spoon that he is digging with!

 Once we gave him the chore of pulling out the seeds, he warmed up a bit to the "goo".

 This next picture is one of my favs! Cute kids right? Well, Aubs girl DID NOT want to take it AT ALL! I really wanted the adorable picture. She truly was throwing a fit when I found these words spilling out of my mouth (kinda like I had no control), "I will give you candy if you smile!!" She turned off her screaming, plastered this "cute" face for just long enough for this smile! Oh my girl!

 And now is real life! :) Ha!

 We then headed to the pumpkin patch! We've never been to this one before and it was SO fun! Hay bales to walk on!

 A corn pit to jump around in!

 A sweet Parker to snuggle :)

 A huge slide to fly down!

 A real pumpkin patch. We actually picked pumpkins off the vine! Because we already had gotten our big pumpkins at Aldi's, we all picked out a small tiny one to represent out pumpkin family :)

 Love my sweet family!

Auntie Meghan even got to come! I love fall!