Yummy Christmas Treats

We had two particularly yummy Christmas treats this year. The first was Dan's tradition of making Coquito. It's an amazing Puerto Rican egg nog-ish concoction. I only wish I could drink more of it...

The other yummy treat was courtesy of Paula Dean. I had a ton of apples on hand and found this recipe for Apple Cake. It is over-the-top yummy and EASY! It will definitely go into my Fall Recipe Repertoire.

Christmas Morning

We had a wonderful (and VERY relaxing) Christmas. Dan's parents came up along with their dog, PJ, who is always a big hit with Worthy & William.

We went to Christmas Eve service at church, which was just beautiful and nostalgic. The last song is Silent Night and we all hold up candles. Worthy was able participate this year and thankfully the only battle scar was a bit of candle wax on his arm. The building is still standing. After the services were all over, the boys got to open up their Christmas stockings which consist of a pair of pajamas and an ornament (and also a toothbrush this year...).
Worthy got a soccer ball and Will got a sock ornament. I think it was created with the intent to resemble a Christmas Stocking, but to me it looked more like a sock - which is exactly what I was looking for to represent his Sock Fetish this past year.

On Christmas morning, we had some yummy Breakfast casserole,

read about the birth of Jesus from the Jesus Storybook Bible and then started on presents!

In classic 5-year old style, Worthy zipped through opening his gifts. He was inundated with Legos and thrilled! Worthy enjoyed Building & Playing ALL DAY on Christmas
and Will was still obsessed with the Tree...
Hope you had a Merry Christmas and enjoyed the wonderful love of our Savior, Immanuel!

Our Nephew

This Christmas Season has been a real joy. One of those joys came in the form of our 9 year old nephew, Henry, really embracing the true meaning of Christmas. Here is an article from the Akron Beacon Journal that mentions his great gift. It's about halfway down the page under the subtitle Warm Tidings.

Henry is the one in the cast in this picture.

Will's TWO

Today William turned 2! He didn't quite get the whole birthday concept, but he seemed to enjoy the new toys and the cupcakes. He was a bit tentative about unwrapping presents, but I think he's prepped for Christmas now.

He also got some great cardboard bricks from Uncle Peter & Aunt Bunny.

And he loved the cupcakes.

Christmas Program

Worthy had his Christmas Program this past week. He dressed up as a Shepherd. Yep - that's a baby blanket on his head :) Gotta love improvising.

Some other kids were dressed as angels or animals. It was really cute. This is a clip of them singing "Jesus, Name Above All Names". The first bit is Will fussing in my (limited) lap.

Afterwards, we enjoyed (seemingly) limitless cookies & juice boxes.

Last Day of School

Worthy is in preschool at Seven Rivers Christian School. We really love his teacher, Miss Jann, and his class. He goes 5 days a week for half the day. He has loved his time at school (and so have I). They did Happy Birthday Jesus party for their last day of school this year.

They each got to frost and decorate cakes - a big hit :)

Then there was a pizza party (which Will enjoyed too). Followed by a book exchange...

All the while, Will was obsessed with one of his 3 passions - flags. He loves Socks, Balloons & Flags - not sure what that leads to in the future.

Tis the Season

We put up our tree the Friday after Thanksgiving. Dan is a "real" tree guy and I must say that I have grown to really enjoy not "assembling" the tree. We decorated it after Will went to bed and Worthy had a ball going through the ornaments and putting them on the tree.
You may be able to tell that we're still in that phase where we put most of the ornaments towards the top of the tree, because this tends to happen otherwise...

Boy Trouble

Over the last 3-4 months the boys have really started to play together. It's been such an immense joy to watch them wrestle, race around the house and argue. It's making me excited to add a 3rd crazy boy into this crazy mix. Worthy has really blossomed into a great older brother that helps (and tattles) on Will. It's been a real delight to see his character develop in this manner and Will just adores him.

It's ironic that these two are playing "Trouble".

Will is our "little" bulldozer

Thanksgiving program

Worthy had a Thanksgiving program this year.

For Thanksgiving, they dressed as Pilgrims & Indians and did some cute tunes. Here's a little excerpt:

Belatedly Thankful

So I have a lot of blogging to catch up on and I'm trying not to be daunted by the library of pictures I've amassed over the last couple months. We've had a house full of sickness which is FINALLY seemed to be going away. My cough is almost over and I'm hoping to be completely rid of it in the next couple of days.

We had a great thanksgiving despite Dan spraining his ankle. He had gone running at dusk and wasn't watching where he was going and stepped into a hole. The result was a sprained ankle that is still isn't completely healed yet. He was on crutches for 2-3 days during the Thanksgiving festivities. I think he secretly conjured up the story to stay in front of the TV all day :)

Jon & Sarah came up from Naples, FL and my dad was able to come down from Ohio. Unfortunately, my mom had to work. One of our traditions is to go around the table and alphabetically say what we're thank for that starts with that letter. This year Worthy was thankful for elephants and a whole host of other animals. I forget what letters he got, but he had an animal prepared for each one.

We had a great Thanksgiving Day. Dad & Jon took over turkey duty and a host of other entrees. All-in-all it was a delightful day.

Will loved the mashed potatoes. That's Mama's boy!

De-quarantining

We've had a rough week here in the Beilman household. Here's a run down of our sick week:

• 4 Boxes of tissues (and still counting)
• 3 trips to the doctor
• 4 perscriptions
• 21 Nebulizer treatments
• Countless hours spent cuddling in front of Nick Jr.
• 7 nights of someone waking up in the middle of the night coughing
• 3 frozen pizzas
• 5 Nights of Dan having work obligations (Tis the season...)
• 1 Tired, pregnant mom (trying to prepare for new baby & Christmas) that's ready for everyone to be healthy again (including me)

We're on the mend :)