Christmas 2015

I know, I know I am super late with this post.  But life has been crazy, WONDERFUL but crazy.  We have a snow day today so I am using this day to catch up!  And I have vowed to blog every day of our up coming week off! I am missing too much and this cannot go on.  So I will catch up on things I have missed in December and January and then it will be a week full of fun!  So let's get started!

 Even though our Christmas season did not seem so "Christmasy" due to the weirdly warm weather and no snow, we still did our usual Christmas traditions!  We couldn't miss the Festival Of Lights!

The kids loved seeing Santa!

And we even got a family picture!  I will say that the Christmas tree area was not the same without snow but we loved it all just the same.

We did some Christmas caroling at Elderwood.  Even though G.G. is no longer there, we still enjoyed singing for the residents.  And the kids loved hanging out their buddy Harper.

The kids did an amazing job in their dancing Christmas show (as usual)!  Oliver's class did the Polar Express and he nailed it as Tom Hanks!

And Claire did an amazing job in her hip hop number!  I can't even take how old she is getting!

Oliver was pumped and ready to rock!

He loves his ladies.

Claire just wanted to hang with her buds, she didn't really want me hanging around taking pictures.  She is killing me.

And it wouldn't be Christmas without our annual Train Ride!!!!

The boys had a blast!

And of course, that day it was FREEZING!!!!

But I think everyone loved it just the same.

I love that all of our families get together for this!

Harper LOVED seeing Santa!!!!!

I could seriously eat her little face.

All that cold was worth it to see Santa!

Komos with Santa.

At this point, they were both done with the cold.

The kids were thrilled to have Cozy back for the season.  Well, that is until she ate some of Oliver's gingerbread house that he made with Daddy.  Oliver kind of lost his mind about it.  He kept crying and yelling, "WHY WOULD SHE DO THAT?!  WE WORKED SO HARD ON THAT HOUSE!!  WHY?!?!?!"  So Cozy showed up the next day with a brand new gingerbread house!  I know that she felt terrible and I can assure you this will never happen again ;)

We also had my cousin Leah's baby shower in this mix as well.  It was a beautiful shower and I still cannot believe that my baby cousin is having a baby!

And now onto Christmas!!!!!!!  The kids are so grown up this year, I cannot even take it!

We had another wonderful and relaxing Christmas Eve here at our house!

The kids love seeing their big cousins.

And of course, Papa.

Ladies and red lipstick ;)

Then Santa showed up!

Oliver was pumped to see his buddy!

Claire was too!!!!

Komos with Santa again.

Grandma and Grandpa with Santa.

Nana and Papa with Santa.

Uncle Greg with Santa ;)

Then we all loved playing with the stuff Santa brought for the kids.

 Uncle Johnny and his partner even made it on their dinner hour for a quick dinner!

Uncle Greg had fun helping the kids toss the "Reindeer Dust" on the front lawn to attract Santa's sleigh.  Even though there was no snow, they still saw it ;)

Claire put on an amazing mini concert and played us some of her songs on her violin.  She is doing so well with the violin, I am so proud of her!

THEN SANTA CAME!!!!!!!!!!

Claire was thrilled with her American Girl doll!

And Oliver was pumped about his new phone!

After we played with our new toys,

And made some crafts...

We headed over to Nana and Papa's for Christmas day.  

Claire loved jamming with Uncle Bill.

Then we headed over the Grandma and Grandpa's for some more fun! 
Camden loved his first Christmas!

Komo girls all dainty.

Now, the real Komo girls!!!!

Then we wrapped it all up with our annual New Year's celebration!

The girls had a blast!

And so did Oliver!

I loved using my Nonny's champagne glasses to ring in the new year!

Champagne for us and sparkling grape juice for the little ones.

Two grown up girls.  I cannot even take it.

The Cappellis

The Komos

Love this girl!!!

We all enjoyed our yearly couples dinner!  Forgive the terrible cell phone pictures, I was using a selfie stick!

We had a great time!  It is so hard to get together now because of kids, work, and just being busy but I am so glad we make it a point to do this!  We always have a blast!

 

It was another amazing holiday season.  I truly enjoyed just being with family and good friends!  I am so blessed and lucky to have all of these people in my life!!!  Bring on 2016!!  My resolution this year is to "Be the person you want others to think you are."

Art By You

The kids had a great time taking a painting class over the weekend!

This was Oliver's first class and he was beyond excited!

Claire and Giada are old pros but they were pretty excited too.

They couldn't wait to get started.

Oliver just kept saying, "I am an artist!"

He was pretty serious the entire time we were there.

Notice his concentrating face!

I love how their pictures turned out!!!  They look great! I can't wait to hang them up!

Halloween

Another Halloween has passed and it was another great one!

Right before Halloween we had a wonderful surprise!  Claire was chosen as the Kiwanis Club's Terrific Kid!  They had a big assembly at her school and we were invited to come and see Claire receive her award.  I am so proud of my girl!!!  And yes, they sent her a new award with her name spelled correctly.

After the big award it was time for the school's big Halloween bash!  This year Claire was Mal from The Descendants and Oliver was a devil.

Claire was very busy with her friends and didn't want too much to do with me this year :(

Oliver was also busy with his buddies but he was still ok with having me around.

And he took a couple of breaks to do some crafts with Grandma.  Daddy has to work and Grandma was more than happy to take Daddy's ticket for the big bash!

Oliver loved working it on the dance floor.

And he was thrilled to see his teacher, Mrs. Filsinger!

Then he took a break and took his friend Allie to a "special place". 

I did get to go into Claire's class earlier in the day to help out with her class party!  I loved every second of it!

Finally, it was Halloween night and time to trick or treat!  The Cappellis came over and we had a delicious dinner before we headed out!

The kids looked awesome!

I love these guys.

Oliver's make up looked awesome.  The design was all his idea!

Claire looked so grown up!  She had me straighten her hair and she put on a little make up.  She looked gorgeous.

 Even the Moms dressed up, a little.

The weather was beautiful and after a nice walk around the block we counted our loot!

It was another great Halloween!!!!

FALL FUN

Last week was the usual hustle and bustle of the work/school week.  And this weekend was full of fall fun.

We had a great time celebrating Nana's birthday this weekend.

The kids loved celebrating for Nana and picking out their own special presents for her.  Claire picked out a beautiful change purse and Oliver picked out some fuzzy red gloves (after he decided against the plastic bat).

Mark and the kids made a special cake for Nana!

 And of course Uncle Johnny made everyone laugh all night long!

And Greg tried his hand at some photography.

We are so busy but it is so nice when everyone can get together.

I was really busy taking pictures this weekend but the kids and I snuck in a quick trip Zittels. 

The kids loved all the spooky stuff!  Oliver was a little stand offish but once he realized everything was plastic he was ok.

The kids loved feeding the goats and Oliver demanded that I take his picture with the goat.  So here is my son, choking the goat at Zittels farm.  I swear the goat was not hurt.

Miss Amy came with us and the kids loved hanging out with their buddy. And she saved the day because I forgot my wallet :(

We even snuck in a visit to Baby Camden!  Claire can't get enough of this baby and Oliver loved reading to him (again).  

Then today we finally made it apple picking. This is one of my favorite traditions and I was so excited when the kids mentioned how much they wanted to go!  Hopefully they will always feel that way!

Claire picked all of her own apples this year!  She is a pro.

And Oliver was beside himself that he could climb up the ladder all by himself to get some apples.

Me and my favorites.

We even got a family picture!  May not be our best but here we are!!

It was a great weekend and having today off was so great.  It was just so nice to have an extra day to hang out with my favorite people.

Week In Review

It was yet another busy week but I don't want to get behind in blogging (again) so here goes.  

We have been crazy with the beginning of school activities.  Here are the kids on picture day.  Notice Claire is holding a violin!  She is thrilled to be starting violin lessons this year!

We had the kids open houses too.  I absolutely love open house.  I love sitting in the kids' desks and getting to see where they spend their days.  I also love getting to know their teachers!  But my favorite is all of the cute stuff they make!  Here is Claire's "About Me" page.  I love that she wants to go to Paris!

I read through Claire's writing journal and I loved what she wrote about her summer vacation!

Oliver's open house was great too!  His teacher is wonderful and I loved seeing all of his artwork!

Oliver seems to be adjusting just fine to Kindergarten.  He won the Monster Drawing contest!!!

He was beyond excited to tell me all about it when he got home! They said his name over the loudspeaker and that about blew his mind. That day he also got to ring the "clean up" bell, hold the gerbil during story time, and take a walk with Mr. Clark.  He told me, "IT WAS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!!"

On Thursday this little guy joined our Komosinski gang!!!  Camden Scott is absolutely adorable and perfect in every way!!!!!

I even got to have a great Bookclub meeting with my favorite readers!!! 

So far the year has started out wonderful!!  I can't wait to see what 2015-2016 brings!!!