All Things Christmas!

Warning...this is a long post!! it's way overdue of all our Christmas fun from last week!!
It started out on the 22nd going to see Santa at a house in tanglewood (the roddams if you are from vestavia and know them) and it was SO fun! They have dancing elves, snowmen, etc and you drive through to see santa! He even gives stuffed animals to the kiddos at the end! precious!! The elves give him a heads up about the names of the children so by the time you come by, Santa is talking to them and knows them by name. Precious!!! These first pictures are when we got home...Wells slept with his reindeer for the week!

Next up was Christmas Eve night at my Mom and Dad's house. We went to a children's Christmas service at 4, then went to their house to do gifts with the cousins. So fun! Max (my nephew) was thrilled with his T-Rex and Iron Man gifts!!

Here is Wells riding his BIG FOUR-WHEELER from mom and dad. He LOVES it and rides all over the house all hours of the day. He is getting good at steering!

Claire got her own princess ride-on toy. She loves it when her brother isn't stealing it. I'm thinking she is not going to be the princess type since she squeals when football comes on the tv and she pushes trucks all over the house! My girl!

This collage is Christmas morning!! Claire's big gift from Santa was her new chair! She always wanted Wells' so santa brought her a chair too! They got a kitchen to share and Wells got a laptop (leap frog laptop...not a real one, don't worry!) They also got placemats, and some other fun things! Santa is a little more practical at our house!! :) Chris laughed that there were bandaids and glasses cleaner in Claire's stocking! Hey, needs vs. wants, right?!

The next collage is from brunch at Robyn's Christmas morning. We always go over to her house to let the cousins play and match on Christmas morning! They share their santa stories and go crazy with new toys! The only way we could get pictures of all four together was to put on a Cedarmont Kids music video (and if you've never heard of these you need them! precious and the kids could watch them 100 times over...or at least we have...they are found at Lifeway Christian store). You can see them doing the motions to "wheels on the bus" in some of the pics...even claire does them! It's hilarious!!!

Next up, was Christmas night at Chris' parents house with his mom's side of the family. We always have a blast. Uncle Kyle gave wells these awesome cowboy boots. He loves his uncle kyle and is in love with these boots! They are REALLY nice boots! He hasn't mastered walking in them yet though.

Yaz and Papa gave him all sorts of goodies, but his favorite was the Llama that he named Captain. He has a slight obsession with llamas. It all started with the "Llama, llama red pajama" book series and it carried on to "captain" the Llama at the Birmingham Zoo. Captain knows Wells since we go once a week! Thank you Yaz for our zoo pass!!! So now he sleeps with his own llama.

Claire got two different dolls and LOVES them. She says "baby" to any doll she sees and hugs/kisses all of them. These are twin dolls that hug each other. That is papa holding her.

Here is Wells with Dance Star Mickey. This is a HIT in our house. Claire and Wells push him all day and they dance right along with him. He sits on our fire place and truly gets played with most of the day!

Here is Claire with her doll that bounces up and down and giggles. Perfect for Claire! Claire giggles often! (does that remind you of anyone?!)

And of course, how could I show you all these pictures without some WHITE Christmas photos!! This is at my parents house on Christmas day. It didn't stick at our house until the 26th, but 5 miles up the hill, here is my parents' house! That cool swing set/house was just built for all the grandkids! They are pumped!!! What a fun Christmas gift for us all! I'm afraid mom and dad won't be able to get rid of all the grandkids now!

Here is our house on the 26th. Claire was still asleep and we didn't get her out in it anyways b/c of ear infections. Wells played for about 10 minutes and that was it! He said it was "too cold!"

They decided to sit in their chairs to watch the snow outside instead!

Claire was in total awe of the snow!

Then our Christmas festivities ended last night when we went to Zoolight Safari at the Birmingham Zoo. It is always so much fun! There are TONS and TONS of lights throughout the zoo. The train becomes the "holiday express" and that is the highlight for the kids. We went with Robyn (my sister), Charles and the kids. What a freezing, but fun night! Oh, and of course the petting zoo was open and we got to see Captain, our precious Llama friend....who spits!

This was an amazing Christmas! We thank God for all the many joys of this Christmas season and we are so thankful that Wells looked forward to reading about Baby Jesus every night and he loved the advent wreath! We pray each year the kids will really "get" Christmas a little bit more. We hope you had a joyful Christmas as well!

Weeks Two and Three of Advent

Sorry I didn't post last week...some little hands misplaced my pamphlet from church! I got another today so here we go!
Last Sunday was The Shepards' candle- JOY
"The Shephards' candle reminds us of the joy and celebration of the shepherds, as they shared the experience of Christ's birth. Our joy does not depend upon our circumstances, but rests in our relationship with God through Christ Jesus." Here are the readings for last week:
Luke 2:1-10, Psalm 103, Psalm 150, Luke 1:46-55, Luke 2:25-38, Psalm 100, Revelation 5:11-13

This Week is the Angels' candle- LOVE
"The Angels' candle remind us that just as the angels were messengers proclaiming Christ's birth to the shepherds, we are God's messangers proclaiming Christ's presence to the world. Because of the deep love Jesus has for us we can be messengers of Christ to others."
Sunday- Luke 2:8-14
Monday- Philippians 2:5-11
Tuesday- Luke 3:15-18, John 1:29-34
Wednesday- Acts 13: 16-39
Thursday- 1 John 1:1-10
Friday- Matthew 28:19-20
Saturday- Revelation 19:11-16

Enjoy! And I hope everyone is enJOYing their Christmas season so far! We are around here for sure! Chris and Wells go looking at lights for 20 minutes every night before bedtime and both kids are obsessed with everything Christmas! Wells tells us every morning as soon as he wakes up that Jesus is born and that he wants to see Santa. At least he gets the reason we celebrate a little bit! :) Hopefully each year they will both understand more and more. We LOVE it and are really enjoying this month. It's by far my favorite Christmas thus far. I feel like a kid again! :)

Advent Begins today!

An "Advent" is the coming or arrival of something. We had a very neat opportunity tonight with our church family on this first Sunday of Avent. This is definitely starting a new tradition with us. The children's department of the church, which is amazing, put on a night to make Advent Wreaths for our homes. We had pizza, made the wreaths (with little help from Wells), sang some Christmas songs (which the kids loved), and the children's minister gave a brief description of what the candles meant and the importance of starting the Christmas season focused on Christ. It was SO much fun! The kids loved just being around other children, singing, putting in a few twigs, eating (claire), lighting the hope/prophesy candle, and seeing the dark room light up! For those who are not familiar with the candles and their meanings, there are five candles. There are three purple, one pink, and one white. The first candle is a purple candle and it symbolizes hope/prophesy- The promise of Messiah and of His return. The second candle is pink and is the JOY candle- God coming down to dwell with us. The third candle is purple and stands for love- Proclaiming the coming of Christ to all people. The fourth candle is purple and stands for peace-"God is with us", and the fifth candle in the middle is white and stands for the purity of Christ and that when He returns it will be as King and Lord over all. Each Sunday begins the next week of Advent and you light the next candle. The fifth/white candle is lit on Christmas eve. I strongly encourage you to study this further and talk about it with your kids. It can be a time of celebration for the entire family to remember those who longed for the Messiah, to anticipate Christmas Day, and to look forward to Christ's bodily return to earth. It was so exciting for me to focus on this with my family today and I got teary tonight realizing how truly blessed I am. I do not deserve all that I have. My biggest prayer daily is to focus on CHRIST this season and all that He does and has done for me...beginning with His birth. Here are the scripture readings our church suggests for this week if you want to look at(i'll post new ones each week of advent):
sunday/today: Genesis 12:1-3,
Monday: Isaiah 7:10-14
Tuesday: Isaiah 9:2-7, John 14:27
Wednesday: Isaiah 11:1-5, Revelation 5:5
Thursday: Isaiah 61:1-3, Luke 4:14-21
Friday: Micah 5:2-5a, Luke 2:1-7
Saturday: Matthew 24:36-44, 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18

here are some pics of the night (from the phone unfortunately)
claire is clapping to the music...notice the glasses are gone. another pair down the tubes! off to get new ones tomorrow!

Wells had a blast, but was hard to contain!

Here is the advent wreath. It looks much better
than we thought it would!!

Merry Christmas everyone! The decorations
are up, the gifts are wrapped and under the tree (for now!)
and I only have two to go. I told you I'm enjoying the
Advent/Christmas season!! I pray we all do!

new post below and hopefully a thanksgiving post soon... i know, out of order!

A Visit With Friends!

We had such a great time last Sunday catching up with good friends who live in Boston. Mike, Sandi, and Avery Reinold visited from Boston with Birmingham friends all weekend. Mike and Chris used to work together and Sandi and I became fast friends! They are so great and we were so sad to see them leave, but they were excited to get back "home" in Boston where they grew up. And Mike has a really cool job there as well!! We were so honored that they chose to spend some time with us as they were only here for a quick weekend. Avery is only a couple of months younger than Wells and they played GREAT together! We would have weekly playdates if they lived here! She is tiny just like him and they had funny/spunky personalities! Thank you Mike and Sandi for such a fun Sunday and it truly made our week!! :) We love y'all!

Okay...so we staged this one, but how hilarious!
They both love the iphones so it worked!! :)

Big talkers...just like their mommies!

Lots of FIRSTS in November!

This has been a CRAZY, but exciting month around the Sheheane household! Last week, Claire began cutting FOUR teeth (three molars) so there was no sleep. Then she decided she was going to talk some and started saying mama, dada, baby, dog, and even thank you somewhat clearly! It was hilarious! She is trying to talk up a storm (just like her brother and yours truly). This week, she jumped right up on her walker and pushed it all over the house! I thought surely she'd lose her balance or get going too fast....but nope! Here she is so proud of herself! Maybe she'll really walk on her own soon. I don't really care either way :)!


Then we have Wells who also has BIG firsts! He really wanted to bring his tricycle indoors and since it's gotten cold and I am just worn out, I said "sure!" So just as I thought he would use his feet to push around the house, he started to pedal! We were so proud! He's getting really good at turning too. So fun!!

He also decided no more diapers for him! He has been using his elmo potty for fun for a couple of weeks, but really wanted to try pull-ups since they looked more like his big cousin Max. Well...these weren't good enough.

So....we were onto big mickey mouse undies!! And I thought, "well, if he wants to go with it, I'll just go with it too and try not to stress about accidents." The first two days he had about 8, so I was already over it. But he pushed to keep trying and I loved the attitude of not giving up....

So now he is really potty trained!! He has gone to church, school, and a total of 6 days now in big boy undies!! He only had 1 day of a couple of accidents (when mama wasn't around). I am SO PROUD of him! I was shocked he got it so early, but I love that i didn't do the rigorous training and just let him go with it. All in all it was a good month of going before he did it all the time, but to me that is great! We still use pull-ups at nap and night but they are usually dry. fun times!! His favorite part is washing his hands (by himself of course while standing on the elmo potty) afterwards. Check out that proud face!

Now, I think all the excitement wore us out because this weekend all four of us are hit with the stomach bug or high temps. Prayers again please as we hit fall and winter!! :)

Halloween Week!

Well, last week was CRAZY! It was such a blast, but crazy! Robyn and I had three Christmas Shows, it was my birthday, and we had four different halloween dress up parties! By Sunday night, the kids were over it and totally fussy. Happy Halloween to us! Claire was a butterfly and Wells was the itsy bitsy spider (his favorite song in the world) for halloween, but we were Charlotte's Web for our family parties. Chris and I were the Zuckermans and Claire was wilbur, while Wells was charlotte (yes, i know wrong costume for male and female....that is the costumes they had though). Oh well, after Wells got some candy in him, he was ready to go! My little spider socialite didn't just knock and say trick or treat, but he walked right three or four homes and sat on their couches! Not only that, but he talked and talked like that was the right thing to do! :) Oh well, he's only two, right?! Claire didn't trick or treat this year, but went right to bed after the neighborhood block party. We really did have a blast, but we are glad the week is over! Now onto the month of many thanks!

Pictures Galore!!

Well, this has been a month for pictures!! A sweet friend from high school has just moved to Birmingham from Huntsville and her photograpy business moved with her of course! Her name is Elizabeth Bailey and it's ebaileyphotography.com. So she was so precious to do some "samples" for her Christmas promotions with my kiddos. So we used her for Claire's one year pics, and our family pictures since we have none! She did a FANTASTIC job and is SO laid back. We had a blast!! Now, it was a bit stressful for us parents since the kids were 2 and 1, but they were definitely GREAT pictures with what she had to work with! If you want to go see them (obviously one is at the top of our blog) go to this website: www.ebaileyphotography.com/Photocart (you don't have to login) go to access gallery. Then put in these codes to see these pics:
to see claire's 1 year: claire1
to see family pics: sheheane2010
Thanks Elizabeth and we are so thrilled and pleased with these pics of our kiddos! You are awesome!!
Just to warn y'all....Wells does not like to smile in pics! :)