Our Christmas 2012

As always, we had a wonderful Christmas here at Casa Tuescher. We always do Xmas eve at Kurt's parents and have yummy appetizers and open gifts. I think we managed to surprise Grandma and Grandpa with Nooks =) Kurt and I both worked on Xmas eve, but he got home before me, pulled everything out and sorted so it was not much work for me when I got home. The little boys got Kindles and lots of legos, Parker got lots of golf items and Arielle was happy with Uggs, a Coach purse and her Pandora bracelet. Then its off to my parents for more food and gifts!! Santa did not forget Kurt and I, he got many things off of his wish list and I added 4 charms to my Pandora bracelet and got a piece of luggage that I wanted----which really will benefit Kurt, its smaller so he won't hurt himself lifting it when I go on girl's weekends, LOL

Handsome boys on Christmas Eve

Love my little boys (who are 7 and 9, they don't always appreciate my use of the word "little") dressed in matching outfits. I have to enjoy it while I can, they are close to out-growning this stage. These were taken on Xmas eve, right before the opening of gifts commenced.

Charlie's Back!!

And he picked up some new tricks at the North Pole during the off season...

Annual Christmas Card Ordeal

They weren't all keepers. My apolgies if you're on our list...

Seeing Santa at the Fire Department

Last night was our annual visit to see Santa at the Fire Department--we've been going since Paxton was only a few months old!! This year Beckett was really prepared--he brought his list on a yellow legal pad! Paxton always has his memorized: LEGOS! The kids always get a stocking filled with treats (up until this year there were always peanuts, but no more, and I totally understand why) and new this year was a little wrapped gift as well. Paxton got a lego fire kit (how fitting, right?) and Beckett picked a board game. There's always goodies and punch too. Usually Daddy lets them explore the trucks downstairs for a while, but he had to get back to work last night, so he owes them a trip =)

Videos from Santa

We have believers here, and I love it. (Although with Paxton being in the middle school, I'm pretty sure this could be the last year of his innocence involving Santa). A couple of years ago, a friend told me about PNP, or "Portable North Pole" where you can go, enter a few pertinent facts about your child and they will create a video from Santa. Watching the kids faces as they watch what Santa has to say to them is priceless. He "knows" that Paxton is supposed to be trying his best when doing his homework and that Beckett is supposed to by working on being nice to his brother. He knows just where we live, so he can find up on Christmas Eve too. There is also an option to make a video for a naughty child, but fortunately we've never had to click on that option =)

Cousins!!

For Thanksgiving this year, the little boys were fortunate enough to get to have some cousin time! Kurt's cousin lives in Minnesota, so the kids unfortunately, don't get to see each other often enough. But its fun when they DO get to! Carson is an athlete's athlete. And Beckett? Well, Beckett is NOT. But Carson was so patient in showing Beckett the right way to throw the football and didn't get annoyed once they he only caught about 3% of Beckett's crappy throws, HA!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Turkey day to all!!!!! We'll be enjoying the day with family, the way I wish everyone could....

Cyber Shopping!

I was starting to feel a little stressed about the upcoming Christmas season. I hadn't done a bit of shopping and didn't seem to have many ideas on what I should even be looking for. I am NOT a Black Friday shopper. That scene is NOT for me. I just KNOW I would be headlining the nightly news on every network as the shopper who got shanked while lining up outside of a Toys R Us at 4am in order to save $3 on a lego set. Yep, not that big of a risk taker. Plus, I firmly believe that as the big day draws closer, stores will do anything to get consumers through their doors with plastic in hand in order to move merchandise---including slash prices to Black Friday proportions. I FINALLY got some cooperation from a few people on my list and last night/this morning while working, I got busy on some websites and made an incredible dent on my list. EVERTHING was on sale, a few things at 50% off even and I got free shipping on every item I got. AND, by late afternoon today, I had gotten email confirmation that every gift I bought had left the warehouse and was on its way to me =) I still have to hit brick and mortar stores for some things, and I do that on a weekend shopping binge with my bestie during the first weekend in December. Starting to feel good about this years season now!!

July 4th & Matching Shirts

Can it BE a 4th of July without little boys in matching shirts? No, I didn't think so! I'm not a HUGE fan of the skull fad that is EVERYWHERE in children's clothes, but I did think these patriotic boneheads were cute in their tophats and shades =) As usual, Kurt had to work for the festivities, so as usual, we camped out on Uncle David and Aunt Mary Lou's deck to catch the light show. This year was extra fun because Piper and Carson were there too! I stunk at getting any pictures of the 4 of them though! Suffice to say that they all had a good time together!

St Patrick's Day

See, I TOLD ya'll I missed posting about a whole bunch of stuff!!! WAAAAYYYY, back in March, I went to my BFF's house for the weekend (she lives in the Quad Cities, I made the mistake of introducting her to her husband and his job has a stinkin' residency requirement!) I'm able to make it down to stay for a weekend a few times a year, and one of them happened to be over the big Irish holiday weekend. Davenport/Rock Island host a big parade every year, it starts in Illinois, crosses a bridge over the Mississippi river and ends in Iowa (it's the only parade in the nation to utilize an Interstate!) Well, this year it was UNSEASONABLY warm. Like 80 degrees warm. In March. In Iowa. Needless to say the turnout was incredible. Most of the parade entries have beads (think mardi gras) to hand out and the people lining the street to get neck-ful's of beads were in the tens of thousands. Patti's hubby is a firefighter in Davenport and we walked with their entry and passed out beads. I don't even know how many thousands of strands we had to hand out, but we got rid of them all---and that was just the one entry! The sight that greeted us when we crested over the bridge was unbelievable: people as far as you could see. They were on rooftops, parking garages, vehicles--anything to make themselves a little higher. Beads were hanging from tree brances (no leaves on the trees yet!), street signs, power poles and lots on the necks of little kids =) We had a wonderful time (and yes, the celebrations continued in an adult fashion afterwards). I think it'll be a LONG time before the stars align again to allow for such a gorgeous day.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

To you all! I hope yours was as wonderful as ours was. Yummy food with loving family. And none of this "sitting around the table checking emails, sending texts or catching up on facebook on either laptops, blackberrys or iphones". Heavenly.