Christmas 2014 and Hello 2015!

Can you believe we are in 2015 already! Im sure everyone has been as busy as our family with the holidays and New Year festivities....as well as the normal winter illnesses that seem to also strike during this time of year. Below is a pictures montage of our holidays as well as some brief descriptions of all the fun (and not so fun) moments that went along with it all! 

So this is an attempt of a picture of the famous Mary Pat and her little ones. As you can see ALL BOYS except for sweet lil Dakota who is beyond outnumbered. I got them all these elf kits at hobby lobby so she wanted a picture showing me how they all made them and were wearing them that day. Seriously this lady is a saint. She handles these boys by herself like a champ and they absolutely adore her. Easton was home with pink eye a few days last week and so bored and sad to be home with just me for 2 days. He couldn't wait to see Mary and go back to his "buddies". When I think of all our families blessings this woman and her family are counted a couple times bc she means so much to us! 

Mary Pat and her little ones.

 The annual Fangman Xmas party keeps getting less crazy/party all night-ish and more and more tame with babies galore and early nights :) Its so fun that my parents neighbors where I spent a majority of my growing up still have the same Xmas party where I still attend and now my best friend  Kristi has a little guy who gets to grow up with my own little man. Evan is a little less than 5 months younger than Benjamin. He weighs more than my peanut as you can see from the picture below. He's a doll and I just know they will be best buds!

Benjamin and Evan

 So this picture was taken awhile back as we did a photo shoot in KC at Tom and Halleys to get a good picture to create a canvas for my parents for Xmas. These little boys are so sweet and cute together. Easton just loves his little cousin Grayson....I mean whats not to love with cheeks like that!

Cousins!!!!

 Xmas Eve we do with the Kalaseks. This year we were able to celebrate in Julie and Dennis's new beautiful home and Great G-ma Herme Kalasek was even able to join us from Ohio. It was so much fun to have Benjamin crawling all over the place and of course Baylor and Easton running around like crazies and finally both into presents and Santa. Julie got them their own sleeping bags so they could do sleepovers there. Easton has already tried his out as he spent New Years Eve having a sleepover with Grammie and Papa K....Watching Frozen, making Orange Julius's, and eating popcorn.

Me and my loves

Benny and Great Grandma Herme

Apparently Easton needed to protect his loot from little brother

The two biggest kids in the house that night...brothers will be brothers

Trying out their new sleeping bags

Pretending to sleep

Herme, her grand kids, and her great grand kids

Grammie and Papa K with their crew

 Christmas morning was so much fun this year. All Easton kept saying he wanted was spiderman so he was TRILLED to see Spiderman peeking out from his stalking. Both boys opened their presents and wanted to play with everything immediately...okay maybe Ben was just happy ripping paper and attempting to eat the paper when we weren't looking but it was still fun to watch them in action together.

Back to Back...checking out their goodies

I swear I won't put it in my mouth mama...just looking at the paper. I promise ;)

Santa even left them something in the basement....
Benny may need to get a bit bigger before he joins Easton in there

Jumping away

 Christmas Day also marked Ben's 10 month birthday! Cant believe we are in double digits and in 2 months we will have a 1 year old. Where does the time go? He is crawling on all fours, furniture surfing, trying to climb on top of anything he can, and keeping us on our toes 24/7. This kid is relentless, happy, a little snuggle bug, and growing like a weed. We even finally busted 2 teethe through on the bottom.

Happy 10 months Benny Boo

 After all the Santa shenanigans at our house we headed to my parents so we could do a Christmas with just the immediate family before all the Kohlers and French's invaded. Grayson was more interested in his bottle than the pile of gifts that he got. Next year opening gifts will be more his thing but it was sure fun having him there and watching Tom and Halley be such great parents. He is seriously the cutest lil dark eyed dark haired baby boy. Easton LOVED him and Ben was so interested in him. I can't wait until he is mobile and then the fun can really begin with the 3 of them! We are so lucky that they were able to come for the holiday from KC. Christmas is the only holiday that my parents have a good chance to have both their kids under the same roof and now their grand babies as well. It was nice to have so much time to just relax and play with the kiddos. Its so hard when they leave but it makes us even more excited for the next chance we get to spend time with them.

Tom and Grayson

Kinda blurry pictures but its the canvas we had made for my parents

Easton playing with Gray

Ben so excited about the paper..notice the untouched stalking full of gifts behind him LOL

Ben also loves Max. He follows him around and Max actually tolerates Ben the most out of everyone

Nana and E getting some story time in before the madness

Uncle Dick doing what he does....teasing all the kids and making them laugh until they cry

So my parents stairs don't really work with baby gates since there is no wall on either side until you are up like 6 stairs already so they just went ghetto and got a piece of plywood and put it in there since we have Ben (10months), Jack (almost 2), and little Ella (1yrs). All of a sudden we looked and Easton and Kobe has decided to get our the chalk and turn it into an art project. It was hilarious that #1 no one realized they were doing this for like 10 minutes and #2 that they are so creative and thought to use chalk to color on it. Seriously kids are so cool if you just sit back and watch their imaginations take control.

Picasso Kobe

Jack and Ella playing in the toy room

Me and my crazy love E

Jack petting Benny LOL

Ben and Grayson...Best Buddies

 The weather was gorgeous so all the kids were able to run outside. They seriously played SO HARD for hours on end. Kobe (4) Easton (3) Jack (almost 2) Ella (1) Ben (10months) and Grayson (3 months) that's a lot of kiddos! So everyone packed up and took off around 8 or 9pm. As we were helping my mom clean up Easton kept saying his tummy hurt. We of course just attributed to him probably having to go poopy. Between all the snack food and sweets plus running around like a mad man for hours and hours we thought he probably just needed some time in the bathroom..WRONG. All of a sudden i look over and he is puking all over Brian and the floor. I handed Ben to my dad and tried to catch what I could as well as help Brian out of his puke soaked clothes. It was pretty comical. The look on my brothers face as he watched how much can come out of something so small was one of the highlights of my Christmas this year lol. We have pictures but I will not gross you out with those. Just picture me scrubbing carpet and scooping up chunks off the floor and couch into a bowl while Brian cleaned up Easton. Needless to say it was a long night. He felt a bit better the next day but still wasn't up to par. It took most of the rest of the weekend for him to recover.

Snuggling with spider man after the puke session of 2014

 The Gremm family Xmas was also that weekend. I had a baby shower I was at but Brian got an adorable picture of Easton with his cousin Tyler in his police uniform. He thought that was pretty awesome!

Baylor Tyler and Easton

 That same day we headed to Greenfield as my Uncle Dick was throwing a huge party at his house. My cousin Carrie, her husband Brendan, and their 3 year old Cameron were going to be there as well as Kobe and Jack again so Easton couldn't wait. Those kids played so hard all night long again. We watched the heartbreaking Husker game and has lots of good food and drink. We stayed overnight at an adorable old bed and breakfast down in the town square and then went back over in the morning to let the kiddos play some more and get one last visit in with the Kohlers. My Uncle recently got engaged so it was so nice to be able to meet some of Tammy's friends and get to spend even more time with her.

Me and the boys before the party

All the boys playing catch with people in the "man cave" Everyone was having more fun watching them then the Huskers

Kobe holding Benny 

 Like I said earlier New Years Eve the boys stayed with Brian's parents so we were kid free with no plans. We didn't want to get dressed up and do anything so we rented a movie, got some take out, and stopped at a bar for a drink before going home. We of course didn't even make it through half the movie, and midnight was never even going to happen for us. We were asleep by 10pm and happily so. It was very nice to sleep in (even though we were up by 7am or before) and even more nice to sleep through the entire night uninterrupted! The boys had a blast as well and I'm pretty sure Easton and Grammie were up way past when we were! We also took Easton bowling for the first time this past weekend. HE LOVED IT! The first game they didn't have any of the kiddie ramps so Brian just helped him push the ball down the aisles. We used bumpers and he got so excited anytime a pin went down. The second game we found a ramp that wasn't being used so he was able to do the whole thing by himself which is how he prefers to do anything these days! Its definitely something we will be doing a whole lot more now that its too cold to be outdoors.

Watching his ball very intensely

gotta get down to eye level

 Unfortunately the long weekend ended with Benny getting a slight ear infection. Poor little buddy. Easton used to get them when he cut teethe and Ben seems to be following the pattern. Brian spent 3 hours at Village Pointe Pediatrics clinic yesterday waiting to be seen. Lots and lots of sick little ones right now. Once they finally got home Ben and I camped out downstairs so he could sleep elevated on me bc he also has a nasty cold. His fever went away thankfully and the antibiotics for ear infections kick in pretty fast so hopefully by tonight he will have a bit more pep to his step. The extra snuggles are nice but we sure miss our crazy crawling machine. As you can see 2015 is already off to busy start. 2014 was sure good to us so we can't wait to see what 2015 has in store for the Kalasek's. Hope everyone had a blessed and safe holiday season.

Poor little buddy