Leighton goes shopping

A few weeks ago Alicia and I made the trek to Providence Mall with Leighton for a girls shopping spree. I had to share my photo shoot of her with you, she gets cuter everyday!!!








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Nick's Birthday

Last weekend Nick turned 35 so we had a nice family dinner. Here are a few pictures. Notice the cute beer mug candles I found!






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Never too old to sled...

With all this snow we have been getting it was impossible to not get that urge to go sledding. Although it snowed the whole time we were there and it was really cold, we had a great time Saturday afternoon hitting the hills with our tubes. Uncle Zach brought his snowboard to warm it up for Sunday and to show Riley a few moves...I think he was impressed minus that major wipe-out! Buddy came along too and chased after us every time we went down the hill...he even tried to catch a ride on the tube a few times. Everyone had a great time and were completely beat following our escapade. The day ended with dinner at our house for some homemade spaghetti and meatballs and to do a 1000 piece puzzle. It was almost like being 10 again (except the adults could barely walk afterward needed a few days to recover).

Buddy the snow dog

We got hit pretty good with that winter storm this past weekend. Here are some pictures of Buddy playing in the snow New Years day. He didn't want to come back into the house he loved the snow so much. We played pass with the football for awhile and it would get buried in the snow and he had to go nose diving to find it...so cute when he would pop up with the snow on his nose! On another note, Colton likes to eat snow so we have had to teach him all about not eating that yellow snow now that we have a dog!

New Years 2010

We had an exciting New Years Eve over at Heidi's house with a pajama party! We ordered Chinese food (why this is traditional new years grub I have no idea), had some Patron shots, few bottles of wine and lots of games. Catch Phrase again was a big hit, so was guitar hero. This year it wasn't just us and the O'Connells, the Galens, my mom, Corey, Kelly Hunter and her boyfriend Nate, and Phil's friend Beetle joined us. Colton and Riley were the only kids to make it to midnight with the adults. They were really intrigued with seeing this "ball dropping" thing. Unfortunately we counted down with Dick Clark and they didn't even show the ball dropping!!! Very odd...when midnight hit they just showed random people kissing like Dick Clark sucking face with his wife. It really was disturbing for all...did anyone else see that?!?! Yes I could do lots of Dick jokes here but this is a family blog so let's keep it clean...I really wish Dick had that night...ewwwww. Anyways...Happy New Years to all our family and friends...we love you and feel so blessed to have such wonder people to celebrate life and another year with!!!

XOXO - Kelley

Hunter and Heidi faceoff

Riley's new guitar hero idol...Nate

Guess it is time to go home.
He slept until 7:30AM...woo hoo!

Happy New Years!!!

Christmas 2009

Every year is better than the next with kids. This was Leighton's first Christmas, it was so nice to have a baby to snuggle and to also have a girl in the mix for once. This year Colton got a new bike from Santa, which he loves however, I think Santa could have just given him a stocking because the first thing he unwrapped were matchbox cars and once again these proved to be a favorite! We spent a relaxing Christmas Eve at Wally and Alicia's with her parents and sister Amy. Christmas day was a full house over at our place with all the family. Tradition over the last couple years has been to drink into the wee hours of the morning and play games guys vs girls. This year it was Catch Phrase and the girls smoked the guys. They really had no chance with drinking that much jameson and eggnog...lol. The rest of the weekend was spent in our pajamas, we even had the O'Connells over for a sleep over (we stayed up until 3AM doing a puzzle) and Sunday we went over to the Cartmells for dinner since Brandon was home from Miami and we hadn't all gotten together in quite some time. I have yet to take down all the ornaments and the tree...I am rebelling this year...can't Christmas stay for a little longer?!?!

I may have bought her this onsie. ;-)

A happy little dude.

The Kelley's First Family Christmas Photo!

Really though???? CUTE!!!

Matching pajamas but Brayden refused to cooperate for the picture.
Leighton with her cousins. :-)

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!!!

Gingerbread house

This past weekend there was a noreaster here in Massachusetts so we stayed in our pjs all day. It gave us time to bake cookies, wrap presents (Colton learned to wrap this year in school so he helped out...you will be able to tell), play in the snow and build our gingerbread house. Many of the candies mysteriously disappeared with Colton helping...must have been those elves!


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Buckaroo

The other night we played Buckaroo for awhile with the kids. If you have no idea what Buckaroo is you need to watch the video (you should watch it anyways). We had played it so many times that night and pretty much Colton was the person who caused the thing to buck every time. No matter how many times we play he still gets so scared when the thing bucks and literally jumps on someones lap and hugs them so tight. It is sort of mean but one of those things you love to torture him with because it is so funny...does this make me a bad mom? You be the judge and watch for yourself. :-)

Uncle Zach gets his tree

Last Friday night we took the kids to Uncle Zachs to help decorate his tree. He called us from his local waterhole after work with the invite. In a typical Zach way, he left the bar about 20 minutes before meeting us at his house, went to the tree place and grabbed the first tree he saw when he walked in that was all tied up and ready to go. In other words, we had no idea what this tree would look like, bare spots? missing branches? Quite the mystery! We had fun though. Hot chocolate with mini marshmallows (I may have had eggnog and rum) and fresh baked cookies (notice I did not say homemade). In the end I think the tree looked great and Uncle Zach's place is open for business (hmmm...wonder if we should have gotten him some mistletoe).

The Polar Express - pictures galore

Now that everyone is recovered from the Sparkle Parade blog entry from a few days ago (I know, I know, the Moose Queen is a little disturbing), I finally got around to downloading my pictures from the rest of our weekend up in Maine. The next morning the girls got up bright and early to hit the outlets and the guys took the kids to breakfast with Santa at our hotel where they had a cookie decorating station, ornament decorating, pictures with Santa...couldn't have been more convenient! That night we went on the Polar Express out of Portland where we had first class tickets and an entire train caboose reserved just for us! They reenacted the movie as we rode to the North Pole to pick up Santa. Kids wore their pjs and we made a stop along the way while the chefs delivered hot chocolate and cookies (song and all). It was super cute, we sang carols and had so much fun, can't wait to do it again when Leighton is older and can join us. To top off the weekend our hotel also had a pool and the kids really enjoyed that and I liked the hot tub and the bar where Nicole and I snuck off to when the kids fell asleep. It even snowed...ah...love Maine and this time of year!!!

Brayden some how wasn't afraid of this Santa and even posed for a picture...
shocking to all.

This was our Elf who helped tell the story and make our ride fun!

The kids and the Conductor...notice the kids have golden tickets!
We lost these a few times on the train ride...just like the movie...hehe.

All Colton wanted was the bell from Santa's sleigh...thank goodness he got it!

I think all this Christmas stuff wore him out pretty good...what do you think?!?!