Early Christmas Skype!

Because we moved *so* far from home, sometimes we aren't around family for the holidays. But that doesn't mean we can't utilize technology to spend the holidays together digitally! Plus, the Dallas family had to do Christmas on Friday, so we got to enjoy Christmas for a full long weekend. Woo! 

The kids are doing better at actually staying in front of the camera, but it's still a bit of run away-run back. Unsurprisingly, they did much better once there were presents being opened.

Aunt Jo bought them a book about a Mustache Baby and a set of fake mustaches to go along with it. Henry wouldn't keep them on long enough for me to get a photo, but Thomas was more than happy to ham it up for the camera. 

But the best present she sent was not the fake mustaches...

It was this inflatable T-Rex! It took us a little bit of effort, but we got him blown up so that the boys could show Aunt Jo how excited they were!

But, she didn't stop there - she sent two inflatable dinosaurs. And she figured the 4' dino wouldn't be *that* much bigger than the 3' dinosaur. But he was much, much bigger - we finally got light headed trying to blow him up and switched to using the air compressor to finish him off. Of course, Giant Red T-Rex was promptly turned into a horsey ride. 

Unlike his smaller brethern though, he fought back! There were dinosaurs and kids flying all around the living room. It certainly did a better job keeping them in front of the camera - though it probably looked like pure chaos on the other end. 

We got other fun presents from everyone, but they were clearly overshadowed by the giant dinosaurs. I'm so thankfully for the technology that lets us feel together even when 4,000 miles apart. Merry Christmas to all of our Dallas family! :)

Baking Break!

I actually had a weekend with nothing to do (and no working from home!), so I conned the boys into helping me make some treats. Obviously, I love baking and I am trying to instill a love of it in my boys. At least enough that they will hang out with me while I am doing it - and maybe make me birthday cakes in the future?

Clearly, the two of them were having lots of fun helping me today. They weren't really sure what I was doing with the different blue and white batters, but they were happily narrating my choices to eat other. "Momma's using the dark blue! Oh Henry, look she put it right on top of the white one!" 

Much more entertaining than baking alone...!

I was making cupcakes and a cake to celebrate different things at work. I was making the cupcakes for one of the drillers and the only help I got from coworkers was that he liked jerky - which is pretty hard to incorporate into a cake. But if you like jerky, the odds are pretty high you would also like bacon. So I decided to make cupcakes topped with candied bacon!

I have to be honest, these might have been one of the simplest, but amazing cupcakes I have made in a while. Candied bacon makes everything better! On a totally related note, both of the boys may now be a little obessed with candied bacon...

Once the boys were distracted, I got to work on decorating the cake. They are super helpful with baking, but not so much on decorating (yet!). This was a shark themed cake, so I had looked up several idea cakes on Pinterest and combined them. One of my favorite part was "waves" on the side of the cake that were created from strips of fondant and a circle cutter - so easy!

A little less easy was the painting...! I love the painting in theory (and looks), but man it was taking forever to dry. In the end, I kinda gave up on waiting for it to dry and decided to wing it on wrapping the cake. I managed to get them up without too much smearing and only needed to yell for Matt to come help me once. ;) 

And the finished cake! So ocean-y!

My favorite part is the shark on top though. I didn't quite follow the pattern of the one I saw online (I was getting tired, honestly), but he still turned out pretty adorable! And the little "waves" he's jumping out of just made him look even better. Not bad for a relaxing day of cake making. :)

Also, I love that my velcro dog is never far away from me. Though she's not crazy - she is laying on the padded mat that is closest to me instead of right next to me on the tile. :)

Holiday Train

It's finally time for one of my favorite holiday traditions - our 4th annual Holiday Train ride! And the fact that we barely made it in time to get on the train because we were running super late was not going to cloud the day for me. We were on board and ready for some fun!

Especially these guys! They love Christmas and they love the train - could there be a better combination?!?

Ok well, Henry was pretty obsessed with the lights for the first few minutes and couldn't be convinced to stop hitting the switches. Oh to be amused by such little things again... 

Every year we do the train, it seems to get better and more organized. (Or maybe our kids are getting older and easier to hang out with?). Either way, they handed out the coloring packets and ornament craft right away to get the kids busy. You can also see that we have learned from the crayon deficiency of previous years and packed our own tin of crayons for this year. :)

I helped Thomas tie the pipe cleaners together for the ornament and he was stringing the beads on in no time. A few minutes later I realized that Matt was still trying to figure out what he was supposed to be doing to get started. I could have told him, but it was more fun to take a photo and tease him. Married life is the best! :)

But don't worry, Matt figured it out and Henry finally got to work on his ornament. He did a pretty good job putting it together - his dexterity is definitely improving!

Every year when Santa has come by, Thomas has hid or refused to look at him. But apparently that is in the past, he was all smiles when Santa stopped by our table. He even happily smiled for the camera.  

Henry was not at all interested, but we tried to get him in a photo anyhow. You can see he's way more interested in the jingle bell ball than Mr & Mrs. Claus. Well that and the candy canes... 

Speaking of which, I don't know what it is with these boys and the candy cane balloons. I think they are the lamest balloons that are offered, but this year both of them wanted it! Of course, they didn't stay bent for long at all and ended up becoming swords. Believe it or not, I call that an improvement... 

Also notice the extra candy cane hiding in his pocket that Henry charmed from Mrs. Claus. Candy cane obsessed, I tell you!

Then the carolers came through! Henry loved them (or his hot chocolate...), but Matt not so much. In fact, it reminded me quite strongly of the expression Thomas had on his face two years ago. I guess they are related! :)

This year, the boys were excited enough about the magician to be front and center. I couldn't exactly tell what was going on because we were a few rows away, but it looked like Thomas even helped on a magic trick! Also, look at the adorable penguin balloon... So much cuter than candy canes!

But the best part was when Thomas guessed the number of candies in this bucket and got the whole bucket! We waited pretty late to go write a guess down, so we only had a few number slots left to chose, but apparently it was the right one. Look how proud his is of himself! I managed to win one of the trivia games too, so we kept up our streak of winning big (aka: coffee cups) for the past several years!

We convinced some friends to join us with their two boys this year, so we even managed to get a family photo! All around a great outing with the kids and I am sure their sugar high will wear off eventually. :)

It's Beginning to Look...

Like Christmas!!! The boys have been begging to decorate practically since Halloween, but I have a firm "No Christmas until after Thanksgiving" rule in our house. Since we have checked that off the list, it was time to get Christmassy at the Hoyt house!

Can you tell who else is excited?!? Honestly, I think he wants to decorate because he equates Christmas decorations with presents. I'll take the excitement even if it is misguided. :)

Oh and since we were definitely going to be having a "hang out at home" day, I decided to make Bonuts for breakfast. (Those are fried biscuit-doughnuts for those not in the know.) The boys loved just saying "Bonuts", so they were doubly excited about them. And no surprise, it's an Alton Brown recipe. That man never stops coming up with yummy ideas!

Hot and freshly glazed Bonuts coming right up! They were a little richer than normal donuts, so I (mostly) restrained myself from eating the whole batch.

And because it was just going to be an awesome day all around, we had some long legged visitors show up in the yard! I think Henry was the most excited of all of us - he walked around pretending to be a moose most of the morning. :) 

I don't blame him though - it's not often you get three moose hanging out in the yard! Don't they look so cozy? Maybe the lingering smell of fried turkey was what drew them in?

Also, in a stroke of great timing, a Christmas themed care package arrived from Matt's parents. The boys were all kinds of excited about their new ornaments and reindeer glasses! 

Thomas and I worked on the big tree together, once Matt had it all fluffed up and ready for decorating. He looks like such an old man trying to read the writing on this ornament over his glasses. I was teasing him about needing bifocals, but clearly the joke goes over a four year olds head.

At least I make myself laugh! :)

Henry missed out on the big tree decorating because he was napping, but he did most of his tree by himself. (They each have their own little tree in their room- Thomas has the tree we bought for our tiny garage apartment in the Heights and Henry's came from a super clearance sale after Christmas.) Thomas didn't want any help with his, but Henry requested me to hang a few items for him. I don't mind - it just means he isn't too grown up yet. Whew!

It's amazing how much more like Christmas it feels now that everything is decorated! After the blur that has been the last two months, maybe December will pass at a normal rate??

Happy Thanksgiving!

I really thought that November would be not as hectic as October, but clearly I was wrong... We have gone to Talkeetna for the last four years, but it wasn't really feasible to go this year. (Tears...)

Instead, we decided to celebrate at home and fry a turkey! We thought we had planned out appropriately - Dad gave me his turkey fryer set-up years ago for brewing beer and we bought a giant box of oil at Sam's.  But even with that, Matt ended up having to do a last minute run to the store because it wasn't enough oil. Who knew you needed so much oil to fry a giant bird?? ;)

Matt was definitely on turkey frying duty! I went out to make sure the lowering of the turkey into the hot oil went well, but it was really cold outside and I "had stuff inside to do"... ha! (But really, I did!)

The nice thing about the turkey frying is that it only took about 45 minutes to cook the whole thing, so at least he didn't have to stand out in the cold for hours on end. (And on a related note, we picked up an indoor turkey fryer after Thanksgiving when we found it on clearance for a major bargain!)

Look at that bronzed beauty! Probably not the healthiest way to cook a turkey, but for a rare treat, it is certainly yummy!

Clearly, there was some help with the making of Thanksgiving dinner since there is more food here than just a fried turkey! Heather and one of her friends came over to make most of the goodies we enjoyed. I , unfortunately, spent most of the night working and only managed to take a few photos. You can probably tell these two guys are a little impatient on waiting for the turkey to cool down so they can eat! :)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, hope yours were also full of yummy food!

October on the iPhone

Since the month flew by with my Nikon being almost completely forgotten in the cabinet, I thought I'd do a post of fun iPhone photos from October. We did manage to have a little bit of fun even though I was obviously a little distracted!

One of Thomas' friends had a birthday party at the trampoline park and the boys were super excited to go. They love the trampoline park - which also has foam block pits in the kid's area. But more importantly, I love Henry's cheeks in this photo soooo much! I'm sure he will grow into those cheeks some day and I will be sad. :(

Thomas is getting so much braver - he was all about climbing up on the ropes and swinging. You can see the younger one had a little bit of trouble with it on the right side. ;) 

So bath time with me is pretty boring compared to when daddy is on a roll. I pretty much wash them and let them play with the toys in the tub. Matt decided to empty almost the entire can of bath foam to make a giant blue foam tower. The kids were super excited about what this magical tower was going to bring...!

As you could probably have guessed, he smashed the tower and bath foam went everywhere! And predictably, the boys loved it. It's hard being the less fun parent. :(

My little guys want to be helpers any time that they figure out I am making a cake. This particular time, I had to unwrap a lot of candy bars, so I definitely appreciated the help. And they obviously took their unwrapping work very seriously!

Not to brag, but this was one of the most amazing cakes I have made in awhile! One of our good friends at work is retiring and I figured he needed a super special cake to send him off. It was a chocolate-peanut butter flavor explosion! (For the record, it also needed a glass of milk to counteract the richness...)

I don't often get to wake the boys up in the morning because I am always at work super early during the week and they definitely wake *us* on the weekend. But sometimes I get to wake them up and they really do not handle mornings well when they are woken up...

Ha - mornings are hard!

I feel a little bad about posting this photo... I took the boys to get their flu shots and their reactions were so dramatically different. Henry didn't even react when he got his shot - I literally don't even think he noticed it. Thomas, on the other hand, was still upset about it while we were checking out. Even the sticker couldn't make up for the "agony"...

So I did what any sucker would do and took them both to get ice cream. Real ice cream - I like frozen yogurt and all, but Baskin Robbins was closer. And it made me realize that ice cream is so much better than frozen yogurt. Especially the Halloween themed one I got with chunks of oreos and candy bars in it. Sooo yummy!

I found this post with the most appropriate bumper sticker ever on it. I tried to get Matt to go, but he figured it would just be the "mommies" and decided he had some critical stuff in the garage to work on (or something). So I made Thomas pose next to the "Matt would go" sticker, but the sad look was all on Thomas. Ha!

Happy Halloween!

Somehow, the rest of September and October flew by and suddenly it was almost Halloween! Luckily, the boys were pretty vocal about what they wanted to be this year, so at least I was prepared on the costume front! They have been a little obsessed with the Lego City episodes on Netflix where the "bad guys" breaking out of jail and the police recapturing them. So guess what costumes we ended up with?

Anchorage actually did a downtown trick-or-treat the weekend before Halloween and some moms who are much more organized than me invited us to join. (Thomas' best friend from daycare is hiding under than Storm Trooper mask.) You can tell everyone is pretty bundled up for the cold, but a princess has to look good for her debut photo! :)

Thomas was super excited when we saw a real police officer on the trick-or-treat route. He graciously posed for a photo with the kids. And our sweet princess was nice enough to restrain Henry so I could get the photo - she's obviously been around Henry before...!

They got a pretty decent haul of candy downtown, but we were pretty excited for trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. It wasn't nearly as cold as last year, so I thought we might be able to visit a few more houses!

All layered up and ready to hit the streets for real Halloween! I also added several glow sticks to make them more visible. I like our neighborhood, but it is lacking in streetlights! And sidewalks in our particular cul-de-sac, so I figured it was better to maximize visibility. 

The little guys did great at walking up to houses and saying "Trick-or-Treat!", but tended to get a little confused / distracted by the bigger kids and their costumes...

This year Henry was even able to do most of the stairs by himself. It was icy enough last year that I carried him up all of the stairs, but there was no way my back could handle doing it again this year. The two of them made me so proud - not only did they do great at walking all over the neighborhood, they always told people "Thank you!" when they got candy. And most people thought they were super adorable (because they were!).

Which is probably how they ended up with soooo much candy! Their pumpkins were filled to the brim when we finally called it a night. As much candy as we got, I think the two of them were most excited about the house that gave them toothbrushes (that house didn't mess around - they also gave them a full sized candy bar!) Happy Halloween indeed! :)

Beach Bounce

Gina had to work most of the days we were there, so she suggested that if we needed to entertain the boys during the day, there was a new kid's play place that had recently opened up in Seaford - Beach Bounce! We looked it up online and it looked promising from the photos they had posted on line. It was a cross between an indoor play ground and a Chuck E. Cheese. Perfect for two little guys!

As soon as we got there, Thomas bee-lined for the Bob the Builder truck ride. You can see how excited he is about our fun outing!

Henry settled for riding along with Stuart the Mouse. The two of them rotated through all of the cars until I made them go play on the bounce houses. The bounce houses were free, the cars were not. I figured I should wear them out well before running out of all the tokens we bought! ;)

Thomas was showing Aunt Dot the ropes for climbing up the bounce houses, but she didn't seem convinced on joining him. Ha!

Unlike her younger sister who keeps climbing to the top of everything she can. I think my mom has lost about 10 years since she had grandkids. She will go anywhere with them. She actually guilted me into going down the slide since she did it first. It was a pretty tight corkscrew and was not adult friendly. Bump, bump, bump! 

There was also a pretend kids gym for the kids to get some exercise in! Henry was not too impressed with the kid-powered treadmill...

Thomas was having a blast pumping some "iron" though! Look at that guy go!

We pretty much had the place to ourselves, which meant the adults got to have about as much fun as the adults! Cam and Mom were having a blast on the big slides. I got a few slides in myself - it was actually a pretty fun ride down!

Henry never managed to make it down without falling on his back, but he loved it anyhow!

We finally went back to play some games. Nonni's favorite game in the world is ski-ball, so she was trying to show Thomas the ropes. He was having a little trouble with rolling the ball and ended up launching it up in the air pretty badly. Cam was playing catch at the end to make sure it actually made it into the end of the game - thanks Cam!

Henry and I discovered this ducky punching game. It was actually pretty fun to knock the little rubber duckies over. And Henry was surprisingly good at it!

We ended up getting enough tickets to buy them the super cool finger lights (they're recently obsessed with these things) and a few leftover tickets. So I decided to introduce them to the sugar loaded Pixy Stix. Thomas had no clue what they were, but he was insistent that he figure out himself how to eat them.

Henry needed some help with his, but was willing to let mom pour some in his mouth... 

I think he liked it!! A morning of excitement followed by a sugar shock, what could possibly go wrong??  Ha - they made it back to the house, but completely crashed for a long nap shortly afterward. Mission accomplished!

And I know I didn't take very many photos while we were visiting you, dear Delaware family, but we had a blast! The boys are already asking when we can come back. So, see you all soon! :)

Reheboth Beach

After our whirlwind trip around Texas, the boys and I headed to Delaware with Nonni. My mom is from Delaware and we hadn't seen her side of the family in several years. They hadn't even met Henry yet, so we figured it was past time to go spend some quality time with them!

We spent most of the time hanging out with the family in Laurel, but we decided to take a day trip down to Rehoboth Beach. We figured the boys would like the boardwalk and it was their first chance to see the Atlantic Ocean! I rented a minivan for this trip so we could take Aunt Dot (Nonni's sister) along with us and not make anyone under 5 to climb in the backseat. :)

Also minivans are magical and all of us were obsessed with the doors that automatically opened and closed themselves. The boys liked that feature almost as much as the DVD player!

It was a super sunny & hot day and somehow all of the beach umbrellas were already taken. I decided that maybe a full beach day would mean all of the Alaskans would be lobsters, but letting the boys get their feet wet still seemed like a fun! Aunt Pam and Cousin Cam decided to join us while Aunt Gina and Aunt Dot opted to stay in the shade and wait for us.

And this side of the family has random names assignments because Mom is so much younger than her sister. All of my actual "Aunts" are grandparents to the family members my age. So Pam is actually my cousin, Gina is her daughter and Cam's mom. It seemed easier to refer to both of them as "Aunt"s with the boys. It's a mess. But I love them all no matter what the nomenclature! :)

Back to beach time! The boys weren't too sure about the waves - you may recall they weren't big fans of the waves in Homer this summer. And there were no rocks here to chuck in the water to convince them to get any closer - ha!

Nonni finally convinced them to get close enough to get their toes wet. Which was a little too close when a bigger wave swamped us all. You can see Cam and Henry both got their shorts pretty wet while Thomas was smart enough to run for higher ground! :)

But the boys really got excited when Nonni showed them how to wiggle down into the sand when the waves came. Thomas wiggled his little heart out and suddenly exclaimed "Where's my feet?!?" He was pretty excited to show off his missing feet! He was even better at burying his feet than I was - such a talented little man!

Henry finally got over the short soaking and decided to trust Nonni again to keep him safe. Plus he needed a little help balancing to try to wiggle his feet in the sand. :)

They had a blast hanging out at the beach and could only be convinced to leave with the promise of getting frozen custard back on the boardwalk. But before I could be convinced to go, I had to write a message in the sand for them! Matt went back to Alaska a week before we were heading back, so I wanted to send him a photo of the boys from the beach. They miss you, Dada (but are still having a blast!).

Fort Worth Museum

We stayed an extra night in San Antonio because leaving Sunday afternoon was too hard. Since Theresa had to actually get up and go to work this morning, it was much easier to leave! And since we left after breakfast, the kids got a good power nap in the car before arriving back up in North Texas. Since it is still super hot, we opted for a day at the museum to stay inside.

We brought the boys here last year and they loved it! Thomas always asks about this museum, so he was super excited to come back. He even posed with the dinosaur this year and roared for me! :)

They didn't have this super awesome caterpillar last year and I thought it looked really neat. No time to enjoy it though - you can just barely see Thomas near the museum steps. He was not waiting for his momma to appreciate anything but going inside!

Since it was just September 11th, I found the museum tribute to the World Trade Centers to be even more meaningful. This piece is 36' long, so I couldn't get it all in one photo. It was from Tower One and they have a little video that plays about it. It's all in first person, so it says things like "I was on the 101-103 floor. I was hit at 8:46."

It was a reminder of a very sad day. But I liked the tribute to it. And I like that they left the marked on "SAVE" on the piece.  

Off to the kids area and happier times! Henry was off to the ambulance to start rescuing people. Or, you know, playing with the lights and sirens...

He was very focused on it though!

Thomas found the construction gear and then proceeded to walk around to different exhibits and holding up his stop sign to keep me from following him. Ha!

But even construction guys need groceries. I tried to convince him he could shop easier if he wasn't holding a stop sign, but that was not going to happen. I think he only gave up the hard hat because it kept falling off. :)

Back at their favorite grocery store! The play area that all other museums are judged by. I honestly contemplating starting a campaign to get one installed at our local museum. They love it sooooo much! But there's really not room in the kid's area at our museum. Though I've noticed the museum is expanding. Is it too much to hope for a pretend grocery store?!?

Grandpa met us at the museum to get in a little more play time with his two favorite little guys. Thomas was showing him how to get the big wheels to turn by spraying the flaps on the side. (I'm pretty sure dad knew, but he went along with the instructions!) 

We couldn't really figure out what we were supposed to do with this water table... Some of the blue "walls" had holes in them, but the water never got high enough to go through the holes. It was beyond us, but we did managed to build up a little water and send the balls rushing down the table a few times.

This one we figure out just fine! Though it was a little hard for the boys to pull / push the water pipes on their own, so we helped them shoot the balls up in the air!

Thomas had a blast with this one. There were holes that shot water up and you could put pipes in the holes to make the water go everywhere. Thomas wasn't paying enough attention and partialy doused himself at least once. He still thought the table was awesome though! You can't see the whole tall & twisty pipe I built, but you can see the water on the far right coming back down from it. It was pretty rickety engineering, but it worked!

Dad and Thomas built this big ramp for rolling the balls down. His engineering was much sturdier than mine was! And it was quite the hit of the playground, all of the kids were stealing balls from the water table to roll down the "roller coaster"!

As we were leaving, we found the slightly older kids area and this giant Light Brite. I thought Aunt Theresa would like to see what the boys designed! 

Totally kidding - this partially completed Bevo was already there, they were just moving other random pieces around. :)

And last but not least, riding the giant Bumpersaurus in the gift shop. Not surprisingly, they had a blast at the museum and are already asking when we are going back! :)