Here it is..check your mailboxes

The 2011 Arceo family holiday card...Coming to a mailbox near you! For a limited time only...

Daddy's Christmas Surprise

A couple weeks ago, I returned home from work, kids in tow from daycare and we all soptted something unusual on at the bottom of our stairs. A gigantic wrapped present! Woohoo! What could it be, we wondered? So we wasted no time and the kids dug right into the big present from Daddy. What was it, you ask? It was a real Christmas choo-choo to run underneath our tree! Abe said he had one when he was kid and really wanted to get one for our family, so he went on out to Home Depot that day and bought one for us. Pretty awesome Daddy, huh? Check out some pics of our new Christmas surprise in action :)Dig in kids!
Choo-choo! Alex is a big fan :)

Dutch's Winter Wonderland Adventure

Last Saturday, December 3rd, were retired our Dutch Wonderland season passes finally by attending their end of the season event, Winter Wonderland. Luckily, the weather cooperated with us though, and we were able to have a great day! They had the entire park decked out in the most beautiful Christmas lights, and at sundown, they began displaying a light show set to music every 20 minutes. It was awesome! They had a majority of their rides open, minus any of the water rides of course, and the kids had great fun on their favorite rides. Amaya is getting even more daring now and wanted to ride few new ones, and Alex was just as content to sit on the bench and watch her go! LOL All in all we had a wonderful time at Dutch and are considering the possiblity of renewing our season passes, though with Disney World starting to grow closer (June 2012) we're still not sure, so we're holding off for the moment. Enjoy sme fo the pics from the festive and fun Wonderland at Dutch! We stopped at Kitchen Kettle Village before going to Dutch and the kids got to see Santa there!

Both goofy kids wanted to sit on the back of stroller, so they decided to share it :)
They turned what is usually an outdoor pizza shop into an igloo building station--the kids loved this!

2 little chefs getting ready to decorate cookies!
Haha..self-portrait in front of Dutch!

It's Starting to Get Festive Around Here...

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, we returned home from a wonderful trip to my parents and decided to get busy with Christmas! That night, we went into our shed, got out the Christmas boxes and got to work on decorating the inside and outside of our house. We put up our tree fairly quickly, admiring especially all of our hallmark collector's ornaments we have collected throughout the years. Both kids were really interested in their "baby's 1st Christmas" ornaments this year and thought it was funny to see pictures of themselves as babies in the little frames. Alex was puzzled as to why he was so much bigger in his picture than Amaya was in hers.I ahd to exlainto him that he was 9 months old on his first Christmas because he birthday is in March, but Amaya was only 1 month old on her first Christmas because her birthday is in November, only 1 month before Christmas comes. I think he got it! lol This year, we also let each kid pick an ornament from the Disney store of their favorite character to add to the tree. Alex of course picked Mater from Cars 2, and Amaya picked Rapunzel from Tangled. No big surprises there! Once the tree was up we all headed outside to work on the lights the next day. The kids sort of helped us along, while Abe and I put together, put into the ground, strung up and plugged in the lights. I have a few pics to show you our Christmas spirit here in Middle River!

Alex getting some help with his special Mater ornament. Amaya's is the big purple one already on the tree.

Alex after putting the star on the treeAnd Amaya after putting the star on the tree..we had to do it twice this year!

The finished product..ignore the messy background.We were still cleaning up the decorations!
The stockings are all hung up on the stair way!
Is this how Alex helps put the outside trees up? LOL

Soccer Awards Ceremony!

With his very first coach...Daddy!

Alex's first outdoor soccer season officially came to a close on November 19th, as we headed over to Stemmer's Run Middle School's auditorium to celebrate the season and receive trophies. The entire league attended and accepted trophies, meaning there were kids from ages 3- 14 filling the auditorium, as well as family members ans friends. Alex's team being the youngest was among the first to go up and Alex was the first on his team to get his trophy from his coach,who also happened to be Daddy :) It was so rewarding for Abe and I after putting so much work into coaching our little ones this season to be able to hand our little teammates a trophy and shake their hands. We're not sure what he's going to want to do next. He has mentioned Karate, because he watches our 4 year old neighbor come home form Karate in his cool uniform every Thursday, but he has also mentioned playing baseball in the spring. Whatever he decides is fine with us!Up on the stage, proudly displaying his trophy to the audience!

Sitting back down with his big trophy