Awesome holiday fun-ness

We have a lot of fun celebrating the holidays. I never did post our wonderful Thanksgiving day pictures so we will start there. My cousin Cameron and his family joined us for Thanksgiving.

Watching the parade

LETS EAT!

Playing Mario Kart

Playing Disney Dance Party

Once Thanksgiving was over we headed right into CHRISTMAS!!! Our Black Friday tradition is setting up our Christmas Tree and decorating the house for Christmas

Joseph loves these little silver balls 

Putting our angel on top

Our family has a tradition of getting a new ornament representing that last year. Joseph's ornament this year was Mario :) Michael got one that says 2nd Christmas and has a picture of him and his brother in it.

ALL DONE!!!

Outside is all decorated :) This is our first year actually having an outside to decorate. In the past we have only had a balcony or a window.

The first weekend in December I performed in a musical nativity called Before Tonight. We got to perform at the DC Temple.

The Shepherds sang one of my favorite songs!

Mary :)

The whole group

My wonderful hubby and I in front of the temple

The rest of December has been filled with some holiday parties, and some Scentsy events for me. We got some very coveted tickets to the Santa Train.

Waiting for the train to arrive

The whole family!

SANTA!

Mrs Claus

Michael's first candy cane

Joseph is coloring the train book that Santa gave him and Michael is looking out the window

Joseph has his wonderful Preschool program. They sang a few songs and recited the Night Before Christmas. Joseph had 3 speaking parts and he did them completely memorized! He is getting so big we can hardly believe it. We also did some holiday baking including Chocolate Mint Fudge and Peppermint Oreo Brownies. They were both really yummy! On Christmas Eve we will dip Oreos, make Homemade Thin Mints, and make cookies for Santa.

This last weekend my parents came for a quick visit. The visit was short but a lot of fun. First we went to our Ward Holiday Brunch and then off to DC.

The Primary singing "Once there was a Snowman"

Grandpa with his boys

The National Museum of Natural History

After the museum we went to the Lights at Bull Run. In future years we will probably not go the weekend before Christmas... 45 min in line 30 minutes to drive through the lights. They were really cool to see, but I think next time we will go on a Thursday in the beginning of December lol. At the end of the lights the have a Winter Wonderland.

Joseph rode his first roller coaster! Your traditional Christmas Dragon roller coaster

He also got your traditional Christmas light saber!

We also had a little early Christmas and opened Grandma and Grandpa's gifts.

Joseph got a Hulk T-shirt and a Hulk Sweatshirt. This is his "Hulk Face"

Playing Mario Kart with Grandpa

Well that about sums up our Holiday fun activities. Matt works for the next 2 days and then is off for the holidays. Joseph is so excited for Christmas he can hardly contain himself. I will do my best to post some Christmas pictures!

Happy Birthday Michael

Today my little baby turned 1! I cannot believe how fast this past year as flown by. We had a small little family party at our house to celebrate. Michael opened his presents, we had pizza, and then we ate cake. Enjoy the pictures

Joseph made Michael a birthday card

He drew this picture all by himself. He drew balloons, a birthday cake, and Michael wearing a party hat

I did not get any pictures of the unwrapping process (just video) but here are him playing with some presents

Anxiously waiting for Daddy to finish assembling the scooter

Yay!!

Playing with our new car

The birthday cake!!

Yum Yum Yum

Just for fun I thought I would post this picture :) The top one is Michael and the bottom one is Joseph on his first birthday. Apparently these brothers think alike :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICHAEL!!!

Happy Halloween

Halloween Pictures

Joseph's Scary Hulk Costume. This is the only picture I have with his mask, he had a hard time seeing with it on lol

My adorable son

Michael wasn't interested in pictures- he just wanted to play his piano

My boys :)

Trick or Treating. Joseph was sure that no one forgot Michael

Happy Michael! Such an adorable dinosaur 

Joseph helped me hand out candy. I think he almost liked it as much as Trick or Treating itself

Fall Festivities

Its been a fun 6 weeks.
We are officially in Fall. I'm a little sad that the trees aren't the "on fire" look I was expecting from my first Eastern Fall. They are just starting to change their leaves. Some of the trees are beautiful and bold in their color changing, some haven't started yet, and others just kind of lost their leaves quietly without much change (party poopers). I don't have any pretty Fall pictures, but I do have this wonderful sunset picture

We did have a nice trip to Stribling orchard on Sept 26th to do some apple picking. Joseph had a blast!

Apple Picking

Michael sleeping through it

Our picnic spot

Oh look! A family picture!!!

Joseph and his best friend Ava

For the past 2 weeks we have had Bruce and Kathy visiting. Joseph took them to his favorite restaurant- Chick-fil-a. They also went to his favorite park, Castle Park (as you can imagine it is in the shape of a giant castle). We went to Alexandria to visit Daddy's work. We couldn't stay too long because I think my 2 children were a little distracting. Joseph made sure to leave Daddy and his office a picture on their white board. Sadly most of our plans got rained out :( but we still had a good visit.

Reading together

Daddy at work

 
Joseph is LOVING preschool. He is always very excited to go to school, and he is loves showing off his art projects. He is really into Superheroes right now. He is a big fan of the Avengers (especially the Hulk), but Superman and Batman have their place too. Matt has also introduced Joseph to Ninja Turtles and Star Wars Rebels- both of which are HUGE hits.

His new Superhero Costume

Michael is growing in leaps and bounds. He is 11 months old today. He has 8 teeth to show for it and is SOOO close to walking independently. Right now he can stand for a few seconds and walk with his shopping cart. He still loves listening to music. Joseph was always a singer, Michael dances :) He is pretty darn cute.

Walking!!!

Happy 11 months Michael

Brothers playing together!!!

There isn't too much going on for Matt and I. Matt finishes up his training academy for the US PTO this week. He loses his nice cubicle with a pretty view. Now he gets a cubicle that he must share with another examiner. He also doesn't get a window. I told him that he needs to take a picture of his pretty view and then put it up on the wall of his dungeon... I mean cubicle.

I am filling up my Fall schedule with Scentsy. I have an event almost every weekend until the second week December. I am also a part of a local choir that is going to sing up at the DC Temple in December. We are going to perform "Before Tonight" for Christmas. It is a lot of fun and I am singing with some really fun people.

I believe that is all that is going on here in the Divelbiss family. We are looking forward to Halloween. Joseph is going to be the Hulk and Michael is going to be a dinosaur. I will be sure to post lots of pictures.

As summer comes to a close

We have had a great Summer and we are kind of sad to see it go, I say kind of because I'm really not going to miss the days of the temperature being in the 90s with humidity that makes Illinois feel dry! Joseph is really sad to see Summer go because it means the pool closes. We went to the pool at least 4 times a week and Joseph already misses it. He asked me when it will open again. I told him it would be open again next Summer when he was 5. He responded, "When I'm getting ready for Kindergarden!?!?"- it was kind of a "holy crap" moment for me.

Labor Day was a pretty relaxed weekend for us. Matt had a 4 day weekend, so we were all pretty spoiled. As our lazy weekend ended, Matt headed back to work and Joseph headed off to Pre-K. He loves his new Preschool. He is attending 4Rs Preschool and I think he'll have a good year. 

Michael has thrown us all for a loop. I must have missed the family meeting, but Michael has decided at 9 months old he no longer wants to take a morning nap. It was an instant switch and Mommy just has to deal with the schedule shift (and the resulting cranky child). However, only 1 nap gives us a little more freedom in regards to our out-of-the-house time... He is also eating a ton of food- when he wants to. Consistency is not his strong suit. Today I LOVE grapes, today I don't want them. Wow this pasta is my favorite. Ewww I don't want this pasta. GIVE ME THE SIPPY- nope I want a bottle today.... so what does my child like to eat- I have no idea... nothing or everything depending on how you look at it. However we have discovered he will eat just about anything as long as he is sitting in my lap and I feed it to him whatever I'm eating. The high chair is mean and don't even THINK about putting him in a restaurant's high chair! 

I am not doing too much, just trying to keep the house standing while maintaining most of my sanity. I'm trying to book some Scentsy events and parties being that I had to leave all of them behind in Illinois. Matt is loving his job at the Patent and Trademark Office and will be out of the first part of his training in about a month. 

Here are some pictures

Playing in our tent

Our 9 month picture

Walking along furniture- ugh I don't know if I'm ready for that

Mom's First Day of Pre-K picture

Joseph's First Day of Pre-K Silly Picture