Nutcracker

The boys and I enjoyed our annual tradition of going to the Nutcracker last night. Their school organized a group to attend together. We had a reception beforehand and we had some special friends from the show visit us. The bear and the Nutcracker himself!

photo courtesy of Boston Ballet



Here we are ready to go. I wish you could see my skirt better! It is a great plaid from Hannah Andersson that I picked up at the outlet.
It was a 5:30 show so we didn't get home until almost 9:00PM! Very late for J and C! They were troopers though. John left to go out of town this morning, and the boys and I talked about having a sleep over in my room tonight, we arrived home to this is my bedroom!John had purchased and put up a Christmas tree in our room! He even got all the ornaments for it too. J, C and I will finish decorating it after school today. I am off to go buy some hooks now. How thoughtful was this???? I am really so lucky. He knows just what will make me smile. :)

Christmas Walk Weekend

My very dear friend, W, and her boyfriend came into town for the weekend. And what a fun filled weekend we had! It was our town's annual Christmas Walk. It started Friday evening with the town tree lighting. Can't say I've ever been to a tree lighting where "Sweet Caroline" was sung!
Saturday morning we got up and went down to the town dock to wait for the big man in red to come in on a lobster boat.here are Santa and Mrs. Claus. (The Mrs. looks SO excited!)


Many balloons went up...And the boys enjoyed watching them.
here we are waiting!
We walked around town, did a bit of shopping, had lunch at the Club, went to the Gingerbread House Festival (and got some great ideas for when we decorate houses on Thursday.)
Yesterday we woke up to snow! John took J and C sledding after church (even though there was only about an inch of snow on the ground!

Struggling a bit...

Hello friends,
I am looking for some advice today. I am struggling with my boys. I have been getting attitude from them and they are both being quite fresh. They are truly great boys, but something is definitely off as of late.
I try to keep my blog light and fluffy, but since I get so much inspiration from my fellow bloggers, I thought perhaps some of you may have some words of wisdom for me.
Perhaps it is the excitement of the season...
One of my biggest struggles is our playroom. They play in there a lot and I love that and they enjoy playing independently. They are very imaginative and will construct whole cities using play mobil and legos and whatever else we have around, the problem comes when it is time to clean up!
How do you all handle clean up? Do you do it for your children, have them do it alone or work with them to do it? I try (especially when the room becomes a complete disaster) to help them, but I end up getting extremely frustrated and then get angry. Not really how I want to spend the few hours I have with them each day! (they are in school everyday from 8-3)
Sometimes I feel as though i should just let it go, but I also think it is so important for them to learn good habits. I know in the grand scheme of things, this isn't a great life crisis, but it is really breaking my heart that we are having these struggles.....