"Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree"

We have exactly 4 Christmas Trees in our house this year. Requested by two certain someone's, yes. Ridiculous, yes. Worth it, most definitely! Two of the trees are small and were given to the boys by my mom. Our tree from last year...

was very nice (I know it is a little hard to see in this picture.) It had blue ornaments and a large silver bow. Somehow this very simple, very easy to decorate Christmas Tree morphed into a very complex and difficult to decorate masterpiece...ha!

Backstory: Cooper and I were at Hobby Lobby shopping in the ribbon aisle, when he spotted blue and gold peacock feather ribbon. Now it is no secret that Cooper has an obsession with peacocks and when he saw the ribbon he was of course, very excited. It was very cute peacock feather ribbon and the roll was sitting right beside some cute blue ribbon with gold edging, so I was sold. I so wish that we could just pick it up and put it in the basement the way it is because there is absolutely no way that I will be able to recreate it next year!

We also have a more traditional tree where we hang all of our family ornaments in the living room. We decided to do this last year after we purchased a new tree, so that we would have more room to put all of the presents.

Our third tree is our favorite and our biggest discussion piece for obvious reasons (especially when our MIZZOU friends come over tomorrow for New Years Eve!) Much to my surprise, I found these ornaments at Hobby Lobby here in STL and of course I had to buy them! Hardly ever do you find such a rarity here! We could not quite figure out what we were going to use as a tree topper and it looked kind of funny without one. So, Connor had the idea to take the keychain off of his backpack and put it on the top of the tree. I think it worked pretty well!

Our fourth tree was also one that my mom gave the boys last year. This one is super special because the boys decorated it all by themselves!

Santa Sightings

The boys were able to see Santa a few times this year and it never ceases to amaze me how many different gifts they can come up with to tell Santa that they want. This year was particularly interesting for Cooper, as he was very adamant about getting a snowmobile. No matter how many times we explained to him that snowmobiles in Missouri were not very practical, he kept asking for one. I know exactly where this request came from and I can thank Costco for that. From about Thanksgiving on, Costco has had a kid-sized snowmobile hanging from their ceiling. Each time we visited the store, when then snowmobile came into view, he would get starry eyed. Of course all I could think of was the line from A Christmas Story, "You'll shoot your eye out." Which to me, was a simile for what could happen to a 3-year-old on a snowmobile, kid-sized or not!

On Christmas morning after all the presents were opened, he was acting sad, so I asked him what was wrong. He replied, "Santa didn't get me a snowmobile." My heart sank as I felt terrible that he did not get what he truly wanted and then Connor chimed in, "He didn't get you a snowmobile, but he got you some cool games, let's go play with them," Connor my savior! Since then, I have not heard hide nor hair about a snowmobile. I guess he has forgotten about it, thank goodness!

We also did Breakfast with Santa at Connor's school again this year. The boys always look forward to eating donuts with Santa! I can guarantee that I know the exact words that were coming out of Coop's mouth in this pic:

Cooper: "I want a snowmobile."

Santa: "In Missouri?!"

Cousins!

Once again I have managed to back myself into a blog corner. I believe this is partially due to the EXTREME hustle and bustle of holiday preparation that took place this year; and also due to my dear husband, which I will explain later. I have to say, I think this year's Christmas crowd was way over the top. I could hardly believe how empty stores were of Christmas decor when I started shopping for it 3 weeks before Christmas. I guess I better start in October next year!

Quite a bit has been going on in the Gillam household as of late so I have decided that I will create a series of blogs in no particular order, to capture the pure essence of Christmas and such, Gillam style! Due to my pure lack of ability to post pictures (story to come later) I opted out of posting without them as I have a feeling pictures of the boys are way more exciting then my ramblings!

Anyhoo, I hope Christmas was merry for everyone and that Santa was good to you!

I am going all the way back to Thanksgiving for the start of my blogging charade simply because I think it deserves a mention. All I can says is cousins, cousins, cousins! For the first time since the littlest ones were born, we managed to get all of the "next generation" of great-grandkids together for a day packed full of movie watching, ball kicking, game playing, and surprisingly getting along fun! This was a pretty big feat considering the geographical odds of this being possible and the age range of the cousins.

The youngest two, they are so super cute!

This is probably the best picture I have of them. Plus it shows their true colors ;-)

Truthfully this is one of the better ones even though Wyatt is silly-smiling and Thomas looks like he is tired of all of the picture taking we were forcing them to do!

In order of appearance from L-R (not in age order because Cooper decided to be difficult):

Cooper (3), Natalie (2), Caridee (3), Wyatt (5), Thomas (5), Camryn (6), Connor (7), and Andrew (8).

It is funny to think that if this picture were taken a mere 6 months later we would have (2) 3-year olds, (1) 4-year old, (1) 5-year old, (1) 6-year old, (1) 7-year old, and (1) 8-year old. What a great stair-step picture that would be!

A Very Kansas Christmas

This year we will have participated in 4 Christmas' by the time the holidays are over. Whew, fun but exhausting! The first being the weekend before Christmas in Kansas. We decided to stay home this year for Christmas Day because traveling with a multitude of presents there, and then making sure every piece of every toy/game is accounted for to take home is honestly a nightmare. Also, our vehicular is much smaller then previous holidays so there really was not enough room for the ridiculous amount of presents that the boys get. Not to mention, trying to explain why Santa still goes to our house to fill our stockings when we are obviously not there, is not much fun!

Even though we were only in Kansas for 3 days, they were jam-packed and fun-filled. Anything that has to do with 4 children ages 7, 6, & 3 is sure to be an adventure!

Ornery; there is no better word to describe these four!

Cami showing off her new shoes.

Danielle is probably going to kill me for posting this pic, but I couldn't resist. Matt surprised her with an iPhone so she could put her dinosaur of a Blackberry to rest. As you can see, she was pretty excited!

Happy Halloween!!

Costume decisions did not come easy for the Gillam boys this year. I have heard about 10 different "I wanna-be's" from each of them which did not make shopping for a costume easy. It did not help that we were in Florida the week before which left little time for shopping. Finally, this past Saturday I told both of them that they were to make a decision and there would be no mind changing because costumes were going to be purchased and that would be the end of it. Cooper decided right away that he wanted to be a "music guy" aka rock star, easy enough. Connor on the other hand told me to, "find something cool; like maybe a skeleton, a werewolf, a vampire, a mummy." Wow, ok...however, I thought that to be good for the simple fact that it was 2 days before Halloween and the costume selections were sure to be dwindling and surely I could find one of those costumes. And the winner is:

Super Scary Skeleton. The mask on this costume is seriously creepy!




We went to a Halloween party at our neighbor's house and some of the kids did not make the picture...all of these kids in one house = mass chaous!


Cooper and his best friend Christopher who was a firefighter. Christopher somehow managed to make it down the street before someone realized he did not have any shoes on. I think this group of parents deserves a big A+ for stellar parenting!


Cooper, "rockin' it out" so he calls it!


Posing so that I can be sure to get a picture of the "tar" on his back.


Seriously creepy...

Happy Birthday Connor!

Connor had a pretty exciting birthday this year as he got to celebrate it in Florida. I was a little worried that it would not be as special if we were on vacation, but it was quite the opposite, he had a great day! We went to the ocean and played in the sand and water all day and then went to dinner. For several weeks before our trip he kept saying that he wanted to go to Red Lobster for dinner (there seems to be a pattern here) and we kept telling him that you can get fresh seafood in Florida and we would find a nice restaurant to celebrate. We found the perfect place, Jetty's Waterfront Restaurant. We thought it was appropriate because Connor and Cooper call our jet ski Jetty! When we got to the restaurant Papa told Connor that he could order whatever he wanted on the menu. I was a little worried because he had been talking about wanting to try lobster but he decided on the Yellowtail Snapper and loved it (sigh of relief because of course me being the tightwad that I am, all I could think of was Cha-Ching!) He even ordered a dinner salad and broccoli to go with it, he is quite grown-up now ;-)

When he talked to Grandma Olson on the phone he told her that he had Yellowtail Snapper, you know the fish with the yellow on its hips...

I wonder if this fish knows that it has yellow hips?!

The next few photos are pretty Cooperesque and read like a flip book.

Photo op with the Birthday Boy

Doing a little sneaky peaky, determined to not be left out of the action...

There it is, he finally made it into the picture!

When I asked Connor what he wanted on his birthday cake and he said Halloween. Everyone was raving about Publix cakes, so I figured we better order from there and I was lucky enough to find a Frankenstein cake design. The cake was delicious but I think they need to reevaluate their decorators abilities!

This is an exact replica of the cake that I ordered.

This is the cake that we received...it made for a good laugh at least and Connor thought it was funny, so the cake was success! Pretty gory for a birthday cake, don't you think?!

Busy Busy!

Busy is the key word for the Fall for the Gillam's. Connor started his 6th season of soccer and begged everyday to play baseball (machine pitch) until we finally gave in and signed him up. All of these games and practices means that we are busy pretty much every night of the week. He loves every second of it and surprisingly never complains about having to go to practice or to a game. Mostly I think this is because he is a social butterfly and going to games/practices means he gets to see his friends more than normal. He does really well in soccer and is getting better and better. As for baseball, while he does a nice job hitting off of the machine, let's just say that when it comes to catching...he needs to keep his day job! I have noticed some improvement but overall he still has a long way to go ;-) This of course is killing Brad but he has been able to bite his tongue and has kept working with him. He is only 6 after all!

Continuing on with the busy theme, Cooper started PDO 2 days/week and is doing pretty well there. Every morning he begs to stay home but once he gets there and sees the kids, he does fine. Brad just got back from Canada after 2 weeks and was supposed to return on Thursday for another 2 weeks but the project he has been working on has run into some software delays. I am hoping they can get this figured out this week because I hate not knowing when he is going to be gone and such. Inevitably before it is all over, he will be gone around 10 more weeks within the next few months...blah! I really can't wait for this to all be over.

On a brighter note, I finished nursing school in August! Yay!! I am now awaiting the dreadful boards. All this means is back to studying for me :-(

Playing catcher

Cooper and Mommy being silly!

1st day of 1st grade!

Wow, it is hard to believe that another school year has started and summer is yet again almost over. It makes me cringe to think that in a few short months it will be iceberg cold and we will be getting Christmas decorations out...I am so not a cold weather person!

Connor was very excited to go back to school and felt so big that he was getting to show his neighbor-friend Jason who was starting Kindergarten the ropes of riding the school bus. He also thought it was pretty cool that his first day of school was my official last day of school (yay!) He told me he was very proud of me...he's such a sweetie!

That's a pretty awesome toothpaste stain on his shirt...that I didn't notice until he was getting ready to get on the bus! lol

Cooper, Connor, Jason, & Christoper (Cooper is rocking his sweet Batman pajamas...you have to pick your battles wisely ;-))

Hi Miss Cathy!

Happy Birthday Cooper!

Still trying to play catch-up. I thought Cooper needed a much deserved shout-out for his birthday...2 months ago ;-)

It was all about Diego and thank goodness for the Party Store because everywhere Mommy looked was all about Dora, which would not have been acceptable. He also got lucky because Uncle Brett and Uncle Chad were in town for Papa's retirement party so they were able to celebrate with him! It was pretty low-key given the amount of events already planned for the weekend, but he got to have the Addison's over so he was pleased.


Cooper, Jason, Connor, and Christopher eating. Take note of the sibling placement, makes for a much more enjoyable meal...for the parents anyway!


DIEGO cake!


Going in for his 1st attempt at blowing out the candles...luckily we did not have another incident like this one!


2nd and final attempt...and some frosting on his shirt


"Oh no, I got frosting on my shirt"


"frosting is good"


"frosting is very good and I'm going to save some for later"



Cooper LOVES guitars. He has guitar shirts, guitar underwear, guitar swim trunks, and shoes with guitars on them. So, it was only fitting that for his birthday he should get a guitar. He really rocks it out, if you don't believe me just ask him, he will tell you! (more to come)


Football with Uncle Chad