Decorating for Christmas!

It is finally time! The boys have been asking to decorate practically since Halloween, but now that Thanksgiving was finally celebrated, it is time to deck the halls!

Or at least put the tree up... Poor Matt got bombarded by the three of us as soon as he got up to get the Christmas decorations out for us. Luckily he's a good sport and even fluffed out the tree for us so we could start decorating it. 

These two guys haven't always been super into decorating the big tree, but they usually add an ornament or two. This year, they wanted to do it all themselves!

Of course they can't quite reach high enough to provide optimal tree coverage, but they were so excited by the bottom half of the tree and how many ornaments they put on it. (I did manage to hang enough ornaments on the top half of the tree so that it looked pretty even from top to bottom.) Of course we were jamming Christmas carols as well, so Henry's happy dance is partly the ornament and partly the tunes. :)

Once we had the big tree covered, I set-up their small trees for their rooms and let them decorate them downstairs before carefully carrying them up. There was a lot of bargaining over the favored ornaments, but thankfully no tears!

Once we started pulling out the other decorations, there was a serious dance party to celebrate finding all of the Christmas pillows, Santa hats and stuffed decorations we bought after Christmas last year. These two make the holidays so much fun!

Given how much fun they had with their Halloween houses, I decided to buy them the biggest Christmas houses they had at the store! Which may have been a bit of a mistake - these things were so involved... Thomas did a pretty good job with most of it, but definitely needed lots of help pulling the backing off the very intricate window panes. 

Henry needed way more help. I helped with the first part of it, but in the end I think Matt ended up building most of the house.

But they both turned out pretty awesome anyhow! I think these things will be very carefully put away after Christmas and buy them smaller ones to build next year. That way we can have a whole Christmas village! :)

More Cookie Decorating!

We had a lot of leftover icing from our cookie decorating and Henry was a bit bummed that he had missed out on the fun. So there was only one thing left to do - make more cookies!!

It was about this time that Thomas told me he thought I had too many sprinkles. Such hurtful things he says to me...!

Henry was super excited about the new jars of sprinkles. They both loved the fact that they came with their own little spoons. 

Thomas was also a little disgruntled that the icing had changed consistency since the last time. I tried stirring it again with a little more effort and it mostly got back to where it was before. But I got to hear about how it messed up this particular cookie for the rest of the night...

And then Henry kinda dropped the jar of sprinkles... It was super loud and dramatic and then there were sprinkles everywhere...! Henry was clearly thinking he was going to be in trouble. 

I figured it was bound to happen and just glad that the jar hadn't broken. Natalie managed to get some of the mess cleaned up before I could get the vaccuum out, but it was all cleaned up in short order. 

Clearly, he recovered from the incident just as quickly! ;)

What can I say, we like the random assortment of cookies. Thought we did throw in a turkey since Thanksgiving was coming! :)

Random October Photos

I promise we did more than just Halloween activities this month and I have the photos to prove it! :)

This little guy has become quite the helper around the house. He has even started packing his own lunches - what a time saver for a busy momma! Plus his shirt he got from school says "All I really need to know I learned in Kindergarten" and I thought that was awesome!

I got talked into taking headshots for one of Heather's friends for the bachelor auction, but needed to get the lights and cameras set up. My two guys were more than happy to "pose" for me. Although I am pretty sure that Henry was pretending to be in jail. ;)

This guy was just making completely goofy faces while I took practice shots. Love these goody boys!

Matt has gotten on the game band wagon with us and has been teaching Thomas the basics of chess. Thomas has certainly caught on quick - he keeps correcting Matt when he calls the pieces Horses instead of Knights.

Henry is pretty good at beating me in several games, but I can still own him in Klask. Thank goodness I still have some skills over the kids. ;)

Since we renewed our museum membership prior to the Texas trip, I figured we should go check out the museum and all of the new renovations. The boys especially loved the Spark lab and all the fun engineering stations to play with. Thomas did a pretty awesome job at building a bridge across the river, but Henry mostly wanted to deconstruct other things that had previously been built.

Henry had another crock pot class and it was not great... Broccoli Cheese soup isn't my favorite soup on a normal day. And this crockpot version was just a no. Three of us tried it and decided that maybe I should make some tomato soup instead. Henry, the chef, refused to even try it because it looked like boogers.

Oh well, they can't all be winners... ;)

Most days this guy is not happy to see me because he wants to keep playing. But while he wasn't quite ready to leave this day, he was at least happy to see me! :)

We usually get our ice cream fix at Baskin Robbins, but I promised them a new ice cream shop after their flu shots. I kept telling Matt there was a Cold Stone creamery in town and he 100% didn't believe me. Guess I proved him wrong - and got some tasty, tasty ice cream in the process.

My little helper has been wanting to help with the list at the grocery store lately. The first few times were a bit of a fail, but I bought him a tiny clipboard and then started numbering the lists for him. He was a total champ at marking everything off with me, though I got a bit of a eyeroll if I went out of order on the list. I only have the grocery store ~90% memorized, kid - cut mom a little slack!

Their drawings are so fun these days! I came home from a few hours away and found all these awesome chalk drawings in the driveway. Looks like the boys had a ton of fun while their dad was tinkering in the yard!

It's a rockertship coming in for a landing in case you don't have the eye for kid art. ;)

Tae Kwon Do sent home a daily checklist of things the students are supposed to do every day to earn their responsibility badges. There was a blank spot, so I assigned him the task of feeding the dogs. And he has done awesome at it! Eliza might be getting a little more than her fair share, but she hasn't seemed to mind!

Getting one last selfie in with this guy before he heads off to Texas for two weeks. I am so excited that he gets some fun time with his dad, but also going to miss him!

Thomas got to go to his first book fair! He came home with a list of books he wanted when they let his class tour the book fair in advance. I had to explain that he had written down over $50 worth of books, but that we could certainly get a few books off of his list. Luckily for me, some of the books were already sold out and we got out of there much cheaper. And he was happy as could be with the books he did get! :)

We had a super gnarly wind storm one day and I came home to this giant tree laying in the yard. It looks like it bounced off our window, breaking the bottom sill a bit and thudded into the yard. The much more dangerous situation was between our house and the neighbors were a giant tree was slowly tilting over. It was definitely aimed for the neighbors house and no tree company could make it out until the morning. I helped (as best as I could) the neighbor tie the tree to some giant boulders in the yard and it managed to hold until morning until the tree could safely be removed. Whew!

Nonni got some Henry time while he was in Texas and she took him to go trick-or-treating at the Fort Worth zoo. I packed his ninja outift (at his request) just in case he got the chance for such fun!

Clearly he had a blast at the zoo with his Nonni!

Also, hanging out with his dad and going to all of his favorite Texas restaurants. This photo of him at Waffle House is definitely one of my favorites Matt sent me from the trip. :)

One of the best things about Matt being gone was that Thomas got plenty of opportunities to practice his talking on the phone skills . He is really not the best at it, but he definitely got much better over the two weeks. It certainly made his dad happy to have a chat with him every morning while he was on his way to school. :)

And Finally Halloween!

It seems like we have been doing Halloween themed activities all month, but it is finally the actual day! 

Thomas' school gave the a-ok to wearing costumes to school. But they did send a reminder that they needed to be able to get their snow suits on over the costumes and be able to quickly get out of them on their own for bathroom breaks. Thomas and I discussed it and decided the Astronaut suit might be problematic and he opted to go as a Policeman for the school day. 

But trick-or-treating time was back to astronaut! And I decided to join him for the dressing up and wore my Wonder Woman pajamas to walk around the neighborhood with him. It was between that and my Storm Trooper set, but one of my coworkers told me he gives extra candy to superheroes and I was going to hold him to that!

It was a super appropriate weather night for Halloween. We've been dealing with fog for what seems like a week now and it got super heavy tonight! It was perfectly creepy - though by the end of our walk, it was probably getting a little dangerous to be driving around in...!

Thomas was pretty excited about his haul, except for the Twizzlers. He picked all of them out of his bucket and put them aside for his dad. At least someone in the house likes them... 

Love this guy and glad I got to be his trick-or-treating partner. Plus he shared some of his haul with me!

Oh and my coworker came through with the candy for superheroes promise. Woo! :)

Halloween Cookies

As much as I love decorating cookie, it has been a long time since we have decorated them! Brittney texted me a few days ago to ask a cookie decorating question and it was definitely an inspiration to make some cookies!

Thomas was, of course, on board with making Halloween themed cookies. Though you can see that we used more than just the standard Halloween cutters. And the Texas cookie cutter made an appearance (as always!).

Heather had invited us over to a Halloween themed dinner party, but the original planned day didn't work out, so she rescheduled to tonight. I told her that was fine as long as we could bring our cookie decorating stuff with us. Obviously, she didn't mind!

Thomas was a decorating champ! Sometimes the boys lose interest after a few cookies, but he powered through some cookies. I think it was the candy eyeballs - he put them on almost every cookie he decorated.

Not a bad assortment of cookies, huh? Heather's friend may have put a big line across one of my Texas cookies, so I altered it to make it a happy Texas. Don't Mess With Texas!

Heather didn't get to decorate with us since she was busy in the kitchen making us dinner. Thomas thought the mummy bread, meatball eyes and worm pasta was the coolest Halloween dinner ever. He even took some home with him to pack for lunch the next day. Clearly a win in his book!

Unlike the caramel apples! He was fine with eating an apple on a stick, but he wanted nothing to do with the caramel or the crushed up toppings. Sometimes there is no explaining this kid... ;)

Trick or Treat in the Street

Last year, we had quite the group for Trick-or-Treat in the Street in downtown, but this year it was just Thomas and I. But he didn't seem to mind me being his only companion - maybe he thought he would get more candy that way??

Both boys took it super easy on me with their costumes and wanted to dress up in outfits that we already owned. I personally love this astronaut outfit and was super excited that was what he wanted to be. :)

He was most excited about this giant SWAT truck parked on the sidewalk and I can't really blame him - it looked pretty intimidating!

But he didn't hesitate to just jump right in and explore it. 

We weren't making a ton of progress on candy gathering - it seemed like there were fewer businesses participating this year. Or maybe it just seems less exciting without the crowd of friends. But I promised Thomas that once we were done that we would go to my favorite ice cream shop when we passed it on the way back. 

Apparently Thomas wasn't feeling the trick-or-treating either because he decided he was done before we made to the turn-around point. "Can we just go get ice cream?" Ummm heck yes, we can!

They had such a fun assortment of Halloween themed flavors, including a Vampire Slayer that was made with garlic... I had been pretty excited to try the Toasty Ghosty made from toasted marshmallows. (And it was as tasty as I had imagined!)

Thomas was only interested in the plain vanilla, but he was just as happy as could be with it. Wild Scoops does so awesome on their flavor combinations, but apparently they can nail a plain vanilla too. :)

We headed back to the car through town square because the event map showed there were some fun activities there. Thomas was super excited about the bounce house and could only be convinced to leave by promising him one last treat for the day...

Hot Chocolate at the coffee shop! It occurred to me that I *might* be spoiling him just a bit, but in my defense the hot chocolate was free to kids in costume and I needed to buy a bag of coffee anyhow... Plus look at that smile!

Worth it! :)

Pumpkin Carving

It was getting close to Halloween and I realized that we hadn't done the most critical Halloween activity yet - pumpkin carving! To be fair, I hadn't really remembered to carve pumpkins for about the past three years, but this year seemed like a good year to do it! 

My favorite part of pumpkin carving is always the initial stabbing of the pumpkin. It's possible I may have some aggression issues against squash to work out... ;)

This guy was super excited about carving pumpkins, but less helpful about scooping out the goop. So I told him I would scoop if he would pick out pumpkin seeds for roasting. He was not too enthused about that because it was "gross".

This is how many seeds he picked out for me until he decided that was enough to roast.

Soooo helpful, son.

I figured we would each pick a pumpkin, but he wanted to draw the designs for both. He wasn't quite up to drawing on the pumpkins, so he drew out the designs on paper for me and I transferred them over to the pumpkins. (Henry didn't get a pumpkin because he and Matt left us to go to Texas. So we were having Halloween fun without them!)

He was feeling up to carving out the shapes I drew on the pumpkin. He managed to get a triangle eye out, but the thinner shapes he wanted me to do. So he's not quite up to solo carving, but he did pretty good!

Our finished pumpkins!

He seemed pretty proud of them too! We don't have any lights for inside of them, so we have to go get some before we stick them out on the porch, but we are ready for Halloween! :)

Also, he decided he really likes roasted pumpkin seeds and was all sad we didn't have more. Next time maybe he will put a little more effort into picking them out of the pumpkin goop. ;)

Halloween Houses

I had to go to Michael's the other day for something cake related and stumbled across some awesome Halloween house kits for the kids. Pretty much couldn't resist buying them and the two of them have been super excited to build them. 

Thomas wanted a little bit of help to glue the big pieces together, but was then more than happy to do it all on his own. Since he was doing such an awesome job, I just took photos instead. :)

Henry needed a little more help, so we worked together on putting his purple house together. To be fair, the kits are both for kids 6 and up. 3 plus a little adult help equal 6, right??

I think the haunted mansion just looks super cool. I helped Thomas some with the windows because you had to pull the frame away from all the black squares and it was a little prone to ripping. (It's nice to be needed!)

Henry was so proud of his finished house! 

And look at this masterpiece! It was a little more involved than his brother's but he got it all done like a champ! 

Also, I love his dinosaur pj's - he gets tons of hugs from mommy when he wears these cozy things. :)

School Halloween Party

Thomas' school had a Halloween in mid-October and Thomas was super excited about it in the week leading up to it. Siblings were welcome to come, so we are decided to go join in on the fun!

His school has a few long hallways, so they sent up a trick-or-treat hallway in one that had people at every door to hand out candy. Any surprise we ended up there first??

Trick-or-treating inside. So much warmer! And I thought it was pretty cool that the nearby high school had lots of their students volunteer to man the different stations of the Halloween party. So nice of them!

They had a few inflatables set up in the gym and the boys wanted to try out this new one we had never seen. I thought the line was a little long, but we went ahead and waited in it. (Good thing, it was three times longer the rest of the night). 

I was a little concerned that my two guys would even like this giant wrecking ball themed enclosure, but the two of them loved it.

Henry got knocked over a lot, but he just kept popping back up for more! Thomas was much better about keeping his eye on the ball and managed to push it away more than it knocked him over. 

He was also pretty excited to show me his artwork hanging in the hallway. We don't go into the school much with him, so it's fun to see what is up on the walls!

After lots of fun playing, we took a break for pizza time! Henry actually ate some pizza since they had plain cheese. This kid claims to love pizza, but he won't eat it if there are any toppings on it. Which is nice to know - we love doing pizza night and he wouldn't ever eat it. At least we have one option now...

One of the classrooms was set up as a cake walk and they both got to pick out a fun dessert when their number was called. Nicely, it was play until you win! :)

There were several game areas set up for playing (also manned by high schoolers). They got quite the haul of little trinkets and candy - I think Thomas picked out about 5 tiny magnifying lenses. Also, in case you can't tell, he dominated Henry on Tic-Tac-Toe - that green one in the area landed perfectly to finish off his row. 

Kudos to everyone who helped pull this Halloween party off, it was tons of fun for both of them!

Random September Photos

September was definitely a blur! I blinked and it was suddenly October... "/

Nonni stayed with us for two weeks at the beginning of school and through her birthday. She requested ice cream for her birthday instead of cake and we were more than happy to oblige such a reasonable request! :)

Thomas started his Tae Kwon Do after school program and they gave them a pizza to take home and bake the first day. I am not 100% sure why, but he was super excited. Well except for the fact it only came with pepperoni. So I went and bought his favorite topping (sliced olives) to put on top instead. He put together the whole thing without help, but I failed to noticed that he used to whole can of olives until he was done...

He *really* likes olives.

Henry has finally started drawing people! They are much different than Thomas' first people drawings, but equally as creative. My blue hair is apparently blowing in the wind and I have no idea why Nonni has no arms...

I moved to a new group at work and despite my old group calling me a traitor* for leaving, they apparently are going to miss me enough to make me a cake. Kathryn made me this awesome masterpiece complete with our team logo and my favorite emojis on the side. Plus is was chocolate-chocolate, which she knows is my favorite. I am definitely going to miss this crazy team.

*Traitor (and back stabber) was because we have a long running team building going at work that involved playing other teams every month. And I was trying to figure out if my old or new team had a higher ranking before committing to staying on the old team. Ha! Also where the team logo came from. Yes, that is a shark with an executioner blade. And a pear on it's arm. It's a long story...

I finally bought a 3D printer! Sometimes at work they give us little "bonuses" for when we do something above and beyond or help out in different areas. So when I got my most recent one, I decided to put it towards something fun for the family. As you can see - the boys really like watching it print! Especially when I am printing toys for them!

Or hanging out with me when I am trouble-shooting a particularly difficult print... Sad penguin is a great visual of how I felt at this particular moment.

This forklift was such a pain. It would get 75% printed after sooo many hours and then something would fail. The supports snapped off several times. I finally flipped it to print on it's side and that completed the print, but it's so rough on the side. Ugh. Matt still liked it enough to use it, but I wasn't super happy with it. (It's a phone stand for his desk at work - it's not shown here, but it has a bright orange seat that goes with it.)

Thomas and I played Waterworks for the first time! The boys have gotten so much more interested in playing games with me and I love introducing them to ones I played with my family when I was a kid. I definitely beat him on this one, but he seemed to like the concept once he was got it.

Henry didn't want to be left out and demanded to play Kerplunk. I totally lost on this one... My spatial awareness failed me this particular morning!

These kids are obsessed with making cheese bridges. Anytime we have grilled cheese sandwiches or quesadillas, the two of them compete to see who can stretch their cheese out the furthest. Thomas definitely won today!

There is an apple picking place just down the hill from our house that we have never been to. One of my friends at work said his kids had a blast picking apples, so I told them boys we would get up Saturday morning and go pick apples! Except it wasn't open anymore...! There were still some apples on the tress, but the gates were locked. The boys were so devastated. :(

Luckily, I had gotten an email from the farmer's market and some of the vendors were bringing apples. So it wasn't quite "picking" apples, but the boys seemed just as excited picking out apples from the giant bucket.

Matt even pointed out that some of the apples still had "tree" attached to them, so the apples with leaves still attached were definitely their favorite. Crisis averted and we got enough apples to make mini pies and apple bread. Win-win!

I volunteered at the zoo the other day to help hang up the Christmas lights, so I wanted to take the boys and show off all of my hard work. They seemed suitably impressed, but more excited to just be back at the zoo again. Our membership had lapsed a few months ago and I finally renewed it. They love the zoo!

The seals were super interested in the boys today. I swear this guy kept coming up to the glass to say hi - though I told the boys he was trying to give them kisses, which led to hysterical laughing. :)

Since Thomas is now in real school, Henry is now our crock-pot chef at daycare. He was super excited to do his first class and it was chili, which is usually pretty tasty. He had a blast and I didn't have to make dinner! Also, I just happened to have fritos, so it was an even better dinner! :)

I love going through Thomas' school work he brings home because he gets to excited to tell me about every worksheet. Sometimes parts of the sheets are blank and he likes to make up his own work at home. I walked over and he had made this one into all of the important flags. Soooo proud that he has Texas, Alaska and the US flag. That's my boy!

Not sure how the railroad track in the corner is related, but that boy does love his trains...!

I taught him this trick this morning when he was pestering me for waffles. He was a little nervous about the fact that the waffles would be too hot, but after I convinced him to just let them cool for a bit, he was all over it. He even made one for his brother!

One more chore I can hand off to the little guy. :)