Juggling Our Way Through Life

Cale turned 5 December 2.  This coming school year he will be going to Kindergarten.  Hard to believe that registration is coming up in the next few weeks!  What is he up to-well mostly he is very intuitive, he keeps asking more and more about the world around him!  We are talking about having a third child and he is super excited about that.  He wanted to know what little baby's look like inside their mommy's tummy so Jeff showed him tonight and he was just so amazed.  He asks sometimes the hardest questions and Jeff and I don't always know how to answer them!  He is a caring boy, is emotional, yet strong willed.  He loves legos, playing video games with daddy, wrestling with daddy and reading chapter books with us.  We adore him that's for sure!  For his 5th birthday party we went to  Abra Kid Abra.  The kids got to bounce in a bounce house, then there was a magic show which everyone loved, and finally cake.  Cale really enjoyed himself and got called up multiple times to participate in the magic show!  At the end he got to go into a money tank thing and collect money that was blowing around and at the end he got a prize!

Cale and Aiden really enjoyed Christmas this year.  Aiden really got into it, much more than last year.  It was so fun watching the excitement in their eyes with all the wonders of the season.  We got to do a Advent Calendar somewhat this season and that was something they looked forward to every night (well the nights that we actually did it-we didn't get to it every night, that's for sure).  It was fun to keep Jesus as part of the season and have a reminder of him and his birth with the calendar.  We got to go to Carbondale and see Grandma and Grandpa Cauble and Grandma Benz.  We spend lots of time with Aunts, Uncles, and cousins at my parents house.  Kristi and Mal were in town and Stefani got engaged to a great guy named Chris in December.  Then we had Christmas day with the 4 of us before we went to Mike and Jen's house to celebrate Christmas with the Koziatek's.  Ray and Diane came over afterwards to hang out.  





 
 

Singing happy birthday to Jesus at Gaga's and Paa Paa's

Dinner with the Koziatek's

Christmas morning at the condo

We got to do a lot of fun things as a family this holiday season.  It was so nice to spend a lot of time with the kiddos!

Gardenland Express at Botanical Gardens

The Holiday Express train rolled into Union Station.  It was freezing outside and we couldn't handle being there for long, but it was neat to see.

Wild lights at the zoo!

There was a Discover the Dinosaurs exhibit at St. Charles Convention Center and we took the boys to check it out

Cale and Aiden got to ride a triceratops

We went to the Garden Glow at the Botanical Gardens with Gaga, Mal and Stef

We also got a chance to check out Tillis Park.  Cale and Aiden were fascinated by all the Christmas lights.  It didn't matter if we saw a house with only a few lights or Tillis Park-they loved them all!

Natalie and my parents

The kiddos making Thanksgiving masks

The biggest leaf pile ever!

Cale celebrating his birthday early at the lake house

The infamous mashed potato turkey

Thanksgiving was pretty warm this year and we enjoyed Thanksgiving Day with Jeff's family and then spent some of the weekend at my parent's lakehouse.  Dad built a huge leaf pile in the front of the lake house and the kiddos loved that!

We started soccer lessons at Vetta Soccerdome a few months ago and the kiddos have enjoyed it.  They have never played soccer before and we thought it would be good to expose them to it.  Not sure if we will continue it-but it's been fun to watch them!