10 years

 Yesterday was Joe and my 10 year anniversary. On one hand it seems like that was just yesterday that we were getting married, and on the other hand it seems like he has always been in my life. We feel like we have been very blessed to have a great marriage. Not always easy, but great. Joe is my best friend and the most selfless husband I know. 

As you may remember, we went on our "anniversary trip" to Florida in September, so yesterday was a pretty low key day. Joe took the day off from work to be with me (and the kids), so that was a fun surprise! Joe went and got me my favorite cinnamon scone from Starbucks and donuts for the kids, and then later that morning we took the kids bowling. I joked that our anniversary turned out to be a pretty fun day for our kids! :) It was a pretty fun day for us too.

 After the kids went to bed last night, Joe cooked us a fabulous dinner on the Green Egg: filet mignon, lobster tail with butter and garlic, baked potatoes, and steamed broccoli. So good!

We had a nice, quiet meal, which is always a plus! :) We had a fun time reminiscing about different years in our marriage and our actual wedding day (I took a cold shower on my own wedding day!!  Anyone remember that?...Mere, Christine?)  :)

Happy 10 years, babe! I'm looking forward to many more!

Christmas 2012

 We headed to Joe's parents' house in Kansas for Christmas. It snowed there the day before we got there, and the kids were so excited to see snow on the ground! You would have thought they had never seen snow before. I think they were a little snow-deprived because we didn't get any snow in NWA last year. Kylah actually said, "mommy, I've never played in snow before!" Poor thing... I had to remind her that she has, but she probably doesn't remember it because she would have only been two and a half.

Joey and Kylah bundled up Saturday morning and headed out to play in the snow.

(One thing I hate about getting ready to play in the snow is the amount of time it takes to get the kids all geared up. And then it seems like they only spend 10 minutes outside and are done. Thankfully, this day they played out there for at least an hour in the morning!)

 Joey found a little hill and Nana had two sleds, so they were good to go!

Joey was sweet and gave Kylah pushes to get her sled going.

Hot chocolate is always good to get warmed up after playing in the snow! (I love their rosy cheeks and sweaty heads!)

That afternoon my niece Hannah came over to play. They all wanted to go out and play again in the snow, so we got them all bundled up (again!) and they headed out. But again, they amazed us and played out their for about 2 hours!  Norah looks pretty cute, but after getting stuck in the snow in Nana's blueberry bush, she wanted to be back inside with us. :)

I love this little snowman that Joey built all by himself. 

Saturday was a nice quiet day with Joe's parents and us. Joe's brother Josh and his family were with Val's family in New Jersey, so it was very quiet. It was nice to have some time with Joe's parents, but we definitely missed Josh and Val (and Joey and Kylah were bummed not to play with their other cousins too!) 

Norah and Grandpa hung out at the pinball machine for a while.

Norah loves playing with all of Nana's snowmen and toys that play music. I'm hoping she didn't break any of them!

Joey got quite good at pinball while we were there.

Kylah always amazes me how she can play quietly by herself for so long (which is so unlike Joey...). She played with all of Nana's different nativities and loved it. 

**Oh, I forgot to mention that I forgot my camera this weekend, so all of these pictures were taken using Joey's new camera (the one he just got for Christmas from my parents.) It's not quite the same quality, but at least we had something!**

 We went to church with Joe's parents and got a family picture after. It's a bummer I didn't have my camera because it would have been a pretty cute picture...

Uncle James and Kylah (he calls her "Crackers", and she loves it!) :)

Great Grandma came over on Christmas Eve. We got her a cozy blanket that we hope she enjoys. Norah enjoyed helping her open it. :)

Aunt Kris is an amazing crocheter(???), and made the girls these awesome scarves and ear warmers. Aren't they adorable?!

We enjoyed seeing Grammy too!  Grammy picked out some fun gifts for our kids!

Cute little ones in their footy pajamas.

Christmas morning was so fun. I was impressed that Joey and Kylah didn't actually wake up until 7. Which means they didn't wake their aunts and uncles up until 7 either. Those poor aunts and uncles with no kids...but they sure were troopers and got up to watch the kids open their gifts. :)

The kids couldn't wait to open their stockings. I love these stockings that Joe's mom makes. She makes them all by hand. She had quite a few stockings to make this year with two weddings and multiple new grandbabies!

Uncle Jeff got some cuddle time with Joey and Kylah.

Joey and Kylah got Norah a big pillow pet to match her little purple pillow pet that she has. She has been quite attached to her little pillow pet, and now she loves the big one too!

One of Joey's favorites...a nerf rifle from Uncle Jake. We have collected quite a collection of Nerf guns over the past few years. Who knew that Nerf gun wars in our house could be so fun?! We have been enjoying those quite often lately!

Speaking of favorite gifts...here is a great video of the kids opening a gift from Joe's parents. I gave Joe's mom a hint that the kids might enjoy these little Dream Lights, since they had seen them in the store and were raving about them...

joey and kylah christmas 2012 from Michelle Manthe on Vimeo.

I found this picture on here when I was looking through the pictures. Joey must have taken it. It is Joey and his Aunt Brianna. I love it, because you can see by his eye that he is smiling. He still has a special spot in his heart for his Aunt Brianna! :)

I failed at getting a big family picture. That would have been fun...

I did manage to get a picture of Nana with a few of her grandkids...

 We made it home safe and sound on Christmas evening.

We had to take a picture of our kiddos and all their pillow pets (the Dream Lights are pillow pets with night lights that shine out the top...)

We had a great Christmas and fun with family.

We can't wait until Easter when Josh and Val will be home and we will have the entire Manthe family under one roof! :)

Christmas time is here...

 This is why I don't like to get behind on blogging....it takes me forever to catch up! :)

A few Friday's ago, Meredith hosted a little Christmas party at her house. All of the bigger kids were in school, so it was just the "little" kids and the moms. It was pretty funny trying to get a group picture of the kiddos. This was the best we got. :)

 These two crack me up!

Kylah and Addison were having fun being the "big" kids.

I had Kylah take a picture of Andrea, Mere and I. She did pretty well!  How fun are these hats?!

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Norah cracks me up. She likes to find random things around the house and put them on. Usually it is about 10 items from Kylah's dresser (all at the same time.) This particular evening it was Joey's goggles.

A few weekends ago we watched Joey's friend Connor. We are friends with his parents from church, and Joey and Connor went to preschool together, so they know each other pretty well too. The boys had a great time playing together, watching a movie and eating popcorn!

Connor's little brother, Caden is a little sweetie. And I think he has a crush on Norah, so that's pretty cute, too! :) 

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Since my parents will be in Jamaica over Christmas (I know, rough, right?!), they sent our kids their Christmas presents in the mail. Joey and Kylah were so excited to see a big box being dropped off on our porch! I made them wait until Norah woke up from her nap.

Here they are with their gifts. Joey realized his was the smallest, and I had to remind him that sometimes the smallest gifts are the best. He agreed with me after he opened it! (By the way, I love Norah's little face in this picture...I just want to squeeze her little cheeks!)

 Kylah got a real Cabbage Patch doll. She named her Hannah "because she has blonde curls and is so pretty like my cousin Hannah." I thought that was pretty sweet! She loves her little Hannah and treats her like a real baby. She gets buckled up in the car and put to bed at night in a "crib" in Norah's room just like a real baby. So cute!

My parents got Joey a real camera (which he absolutely loves!) They wrapped it up in this little kid toy phone box. He was a little confused when he first unwrapped it.

 

 And then he figured it out...

 Joey has been carrying around his camera everywhere. It also takes video, so he is constantly videoing too. The girls are pretty intrigued with it as well.

Later that afternoon we made and decorated Christmas cookies. I learned from my past mistakes and didn't make very much dough. It seems like I always make too much, and they lose interest after decorating a few cookies. I think we only made 2 dozen, and that seemed like a great amount. Norah was decorating her cookies too, and by "decorating" I mean eating the frosting by the spoonful.

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Here's another example of how funny Norah is...she came out of her room stark naked after a bath with Joey's DS and headphones. 

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This past Friday night the Adair's came over for our annual Christmas gift exchange with the kids. Joe started a new tradition of making a fabulous meal on the Green Egg. He had a list and everything, and I did nothing for the meal. Quite a win for me! :)

Connor got Joey a new Nerf gun. They had fun having a Nerf gun war in the house. They are such boys, and it really is fun seeing what games they play.

These girls have a lot of fun together too. It seems like they both got the memo to have an awkward smile for this picture! :)

 The kids dipped pretzels in chocolate and decorated them. They didn't last very long...

 And before you know it, here was the scene at the table. I love that the littlest kids stuck it out way longer than the big kids! (Although Matty and Norah were pretty much just eating the chocolate and not decorating...)

I had to document Andrew's first MumMum for Meredith. :) Hard to believe this little guy is 6 months old!!

Here's a picture of Joe's finished meal...beef tenderloin with shallot and garlic butter, lemon herb shrimp, twice-baked potatoes with smoked gouda and grilled scallions, and steamed broccoli. It was f.a.b.u.l.o.u.s!

 

What a fun night!!

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Joey has two more days of school, and then he is off for Christmas break. He's pretty excited for his break.

This morning Kylah went to a birthday party that included a tea party and Build-a-Bear. We have never been to Build-A-Bear, so she was pretty excited. She picked out a white bear, and then of course, we had to pick a fun outfit for her new bear! :) She named her Wedding Bear (because she is white...)

Joey was a little bummed that he didn't get to go, but he had a good attitude about it. Joe and I have been wanting to do something special for Joey because in this whole first semester of school he has never had his card changed at school, he has always been on green (meaning he has always obeyed his teacher and never gotten in trouble). We thought that was pretty special, so this afternoon we thought it would be fun to let him go to Build-A-Bear too!

He picked a dog, and then dressed him up as a police officer. He named him Officer Pete.

Norah's a singer too

Before Kylah had her concert earlier this week, we had her practice for us at home a few times with the microphone we have here.

Ever since then, Norah has been wanting to sing songs to us too, and she always must have the microphone! :)

Kylah Christmas program

 Kylah had her preschool Christmas program tonight. She looked beautiful (thanks to Nana for the beautiful Christmas dress!)

Kylah had a solo in the program tonight. We weren't sure how she would do in the spotlight. We usually have no doubt about Joey wanting to be in the spotlight, but we were thinking she would get shy and not want to sing in front of the crowd.

She definitely proved us wrong and did great on her solo!

Joey sat by me and cheered Kylah on.

Can you believe that Joe's mom and Grammy came down tonight from Kansas just for the (30 minute!) program. Amazing.

Grammy loved on Joey.

Of course we had to get a family picture since we dressed in Christmas colors. 

I love these three kiddos so much!

The kids were so excited to see Nana tonight when she walked in the door. Norah pretty much jumped from my arms into hers, and thankfully she was willing to catch her! :) Thanks so much for driving all this way for the program, Nana! We love you!

 Kylah and Grammy in their beautiful red outfits.

Norah looked pretty sweet in her outfit tonight, too.

We are so proud of you Kylah! Way to go! :)