Holiday Train

Even after the full train car meltdown that happened on the Holiday Train last year, I still thought it would be fun to go again this year. And somehow, Matt was onboard with going with me and the boys. Then my mom ended up deciding to visit Alaska after I bought the tickets and they ended up selling out. Matt didn't seem to mind at all when I suggested swapping his ticket so she could go. Mom and I got the kids psyched up and headed out on the morning train!

Thomas still loves trains, so he had been talking about it all week. "Train on Saturday! Train on Saturday!" He was super concerned when it didn't start moving as soon as we sat down. I had to reassure him that it wasn't broken, we just had to wait for everyone to get on board.

Once we were under way, he spent most of the time hanging on to his Thomas train and staring out the window. We stopped once in town for some unknown reason and to avoid a full-blown panic from the little guy, his Nonni told him it might be because a moose was on the track. So he proceeded to tell us that every stop or slow down was because of a moose... ha!

Henry didn't seem to care one way or the other about the train ride, but he was certainly happy to be hanging out with most of his favorite people!

Thomas got this periscope toy in one of his most recent happy meals. I just happened to throw it in the backpack on the way out of the door (scrambling to be on time - shocking!). It was pretty adorable when he was excited to see it and proceeded to use it looking out the windows of the train. :)

The holiday train is seriously geared towards families, so there is very little time they don't have some sort of activity or distraction planned for the kiddos. This one was an ornament to create and coloring pages. Thomas is usually pretty into art, but that brown lines was about the extent of his interest today. However... At least he was happy staring out the window. 

Even Henry got to try coloring. Can you tell he's concentrating super hard on making that orange crayon cooperate??

This is the view from the train going around the corner to Turnagain Arm - and also happens to be a view of our part of town. I couldn't find our house while I was taking photos, so I just took a bunch and figured I would zoom in later to find it. Turns out, we're a bit hidden, but I did see a house up the hill I recognized, so at least I know I can stop trying to see it every time we drive south. ;)

Mom and I switched spots after awhile so I could love on my little guys. Not that they were the least bit interested in getting a cute photo. Oh well, at least I can usually depend on one of the two looking at the camera!

This is when the carolers went through the car. Thomas was *not* impressed. He looks like such a grumpy old man with his glasses falling down and covering his ears. (For the record, they were not that loud - he does this move quite frequently...)

And then Santa showed up! That is about how I figured they would react... 

We made an unexpected stop when people on the train started noticing sheep up on the cliffs. I think I counted over a dozen of them - you're lucky to spot one or two usually, so everyone in the car was trying to get photos. This guy staring back at us was my favorite - you have to wonder what they make of a big yellow & blue train...

Can you tell Henry is getting tired? I still maintain that the train ride is about 30 minutes too long - all the kids are either crashing or hitting a sugar high. It's a little brutal - the parental survivors should really get a reward.

Thomas was starting to get a little upset, so I handed off my phone to play his favorite word game. Look at his glasses - they are pretty much falling off his nose. We are definitely going to have to take them back. Also notice his dinosaur balloon in the background - him attacking me with that balloon was when I decided it was distraction time. So maybe it was more for my benefit... ;)

And we lost Henry... Both boys had a great time on the train and we'll probably end up doing it again next year. It's worth it until they're bored with it. :)

Photo Fun - Christmas Style!

I hate to admit it, but it seems like my camera has been winning out in the hobby department. I'm sure my baking pans are all feeling super neglected! :(

I am attributing it to a time issue. It doesn't take long to whip out the camera and it pretty much works in conjunction with any other activity. But since I've been getting into it, I've also been reading up on photography tips and tricks. I specifically looked up ones for Christmas the other day and found several things I wanted to try out. Christmas is photogenic enough on it's own, but why not try to make it look even more exciting?

The "twinkle" lights was the first one I wanted to try. I've never thought about how the tree lights look when photographing them, but apparently if you want to give them a twinkle in the photo, you have to slow down that shutter speed. This blog I found actually had a few cute ideas - I found it via Pinterest. Oh Pinterest, you are simultaneously so helpful and such a time waster...!

The silhouette photo in front of the tree. I really wanted to get both kiddos, but figured I would settle for one to practice with. It was incredibly difficult to get Thomas to sit there. If he sees me pulling out the camera, most of the time he wants to be on the other side "helping" me. So I think the idea is cool, but not sure I quite nailed it.

This one actually just popped into my head when I was taking other photos. I love shiny ornaments! And fun ornaments! I just love Christmas trees in general. 

And the best photo ever - ha! I was reading up on how to orient your kiddo to get the best photo next to the Christmas tree. While their tips on how to make sure their face was nicely lit were spot on, they were seriously lacking in the "My kid is crying and I need a smile" tip department...

And the truth behind the silhouette photo! The only way I could get him to sit there was to let him take the photo with the remote. Which was probably a bad idea - now when I pull the camera out he goes running to the cabinet with the remote. Luckily I have a dead remote that I can fool him with for a few more days. But I think this technically means these photos are under his copyright - it's all about who presses the shutter, not who owns the camera or sets up the shot. (Look up the monkey selfie copyright debate if you are curious).

I tried to get this photo without his hands in front of his face, but he just refused to believe that he didn't need his arms pointed at the camera for it to work. He was pretty intent on getting the photos taken (as you can see!).

My mom stepped in at some point to rescue me so I could continue playing and Thomas could still take photos. I think he felt super special - he doesn't quite have the skill to make mine take photos via the shutter button, so he's not really gotten the hang of it. We did gift him one of our old cameras this year that I initially set up for him, but the battery had died and I couldn't find the cable anywhere. Mom volunteered both her camera and guidance. 

Look how excited he was to be using the tripod and taking photos all by himself! I think mom ended up with about 100 photos of the same ornament. I'm more than just a little bit proud of his interest in photography and that the ornament he was so excited about was a cupcake. :)

Tree Lighting, Take 2!

3....

2...

1... 

Tree!!!!

Honestly, this is more my kind of tree lighting. The lights we strung up on the tree last year are now on a timer so they are on for us every night. I never did manage to get the final string of lights up after getting interrupted last year,  but I honestly don't think they look lacking. 

And we finally got snow!! The ski resort was supposed to open on Friday, but there was literally no snow on the mountain (or in Anchorage!). Matt has been super bummed about it. Maybe it will keep dumping snow and they will get those slopes open ASAP!

Either way: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...! :)

Tree Lighting

Somehow my sister managed to talk me into going downtown last night to see the annual lighting of the Christmas tree. Thomas woke up from his nap on the wrong side of the bed, so I almost bailed, but his happy mood returned and he kept asking when we were going to see the tree?? So I threw all their warm clothes in the car, dressed them in warm base layers and headed north. 

It was pretty cold outside! It wasn't sub-zero or anything, but when you aren't moving around it gets cold pretty quick at 20 degrees. Luckily they have more warm clothing than I ever imagined we would need. 

Thomas was more than happy to accompany me to check out the different vendors at the event. It was super crowded, so we only made it to the Franz bakery one. They had the most adorable "kid-sized" loaves of bread and cookies. Thomas was pretty excited about his cookie until he realized he couldn't eat it with his mittens on. I offered to feed it to him, but he was convinced I was going to eat it. So he took a few bites of it before deciding it was "too cold!" and put his mittens back on.

He finally agreed to let me feed it to him. I tried to get a photo of it, but the camera was a little irritable with the low light and cold weather and kept refusing to take photos. I was a little surprised at that - this thing is supposed to be an awesome camera. I didn't see any caveats about "Only in the contiguous US" - though that little phrase pops up more than you would expect. Grrr.

Finally the countdown and lighting of the tree! Thomas couldn't see over the crowds, so I lifted him up on my shoulders. My mom had to steady him up there, but he was pretty pumped about his high perch once he realized the advantage. Plus he was pretty excited about the tree lighting up - he spent the rest of the night doing a mock countdown (well, up...) and yelling about a lit tree. 

So while I wasn't too impressed about the whole thing, Thomas was certainly glad we went. Oh to be as easily amused with life as a toddler is. Why do we have to grow up...?

Henry didn't seem to mind the cold too much, especially if he was being held. His snow suit I bought him a few months ago is getting kinda tight, but I did manage to get it zipped up. Guess I need to dig out Thomas' from last year before the winter it over. 

As a side note for those who also like photography, these photos are the first time I really pushed the ISO up. I think I was at 4000 ISO to get the photos to take in the awful lighting. I still had some issues with having to use a slower shutter speed, but I didn't want to go past 6000 - all of the reviews I read said that it was really poor quality beyond that. But honestly the photos turned out way better than I thought they would There is some obvious grain if you blow them up full size, but for the purpose of the blog, not bad at all! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

How many times do you have to do something before it is a tradition? I'd saying going to Talkeetna for the third year in a row might qualify. There's just something about not having to cook and clean that makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. Ha! I even managed to plan far enough in advance that we booked the Museum Apartment from the Roadhouse. Having a bathroom that doesn't require walking through the snow is a big selling point over the Little Cabin Out Back! (Especially since we are in the midst of potty training the eldest!)

We made sure to plan out a Skype session with the family back in Dallas. Thomas managed to get up from his nap just in time to say hello to everyone before they scattered to pick up kids and watch football. Notice how Henry is trying to eat one of the cables his dad just finished putting together (I wasn't kidding about him being part-goat).

The Roadhouse put these super cute signs on all of the napkin bundles. I was pretty excited about the one I got. I am thankful for ice cream! One of the best inventions I know of!

Pretty thankful for family too though! Finally got a photo of his teeth he busted through a few weeks ago. The upper ones aren't far behind, you can see them heading down from his gums. To be honest, I would probably never have noticed if the pediatrician hadn't pointed it out - I did miss the first teeth in both of my kids. Good thing I have helpful daycare teachers who point teeth out to me... "/

Thomas wasn't too sure about the family style Thanksgiving. I staked out our seats early so we would be on the end and not in the middle of the table just in case we needed to make a quick escape. And he got new glasses! They are a bit too big, so he they are generally resting on the end of his nose. He's quite adept at pushing them back up and refuses to wear his old glasses once he put the new ones on. He'll grow into them!

I thought having his own plate and utensils would make him more likely to eat with us instead of refusing to try anything but bread. It was moderately successful, he ate mashed potatoes as well as bread. Sigh...

I also staked out the location closest to the toy shelf so when he was done sitting with us, he could go over and play while I could keep an eye on him. What is it about unfamiliar toys that is so exciting? He carried that pink scooter around the whole time we were in Talkeetna. I had to sneak it away from him to put it back where it belonged before we left!

Good thing Thomas was distracted since Henry stole his spoon. Trust me, that would not have been acceptable. But Henry pretty much wants whatever his brother has. I remember that feeling a lot as a kid. It's hard to be the younger sibling! 

Speaking of siblings, we had most of the same crew as last year. Given the -20 degrees it hit last year, my dad refused to come back. But he didn't mind that Mom came to stay with us. And it didn't get below 20 this year. Woo-woo!

This was the best photo we got of Matt and I. *sigh* Sometimes we aren't the most photogenic couple in the world (though to be fair, the photo is a little focus-challenged). That's ok, we have other strengths. For instance, we make a great tag team with Saturday morning breakfast! And you should see us mastering the two kid bedtime routine...! : )

This is pretty much how we all felt after the awesome meal, but unfortunately not all of us can just fall asleep wherever we want. Man he looks so cozy in his fleece vest laying in that soft bedding. Not going to lie, I was pretty jealous of his snooze-fest. I was on toddler duty and he took his nap pre-turkey and was not at all tired. Boo!

Thanks again to the Roadhouse for another wonderful Thanksgiving dinner (plus two awesome breakfasts!). I never get tired of hanging out at my favorite stop in Talkeetna. : )

Nine (30.5) Months!

They must have used up all of their smiles at last month's photo session, because they were super stingy with them this month! No happy photos together this month, folks! Heck, I don't even think I got a clear photo of the number on Henry's shirt - nine months in case you glossed over that title up there. ; )

This was the best one of them together - they're almost both looking at the camera. Ha - they just weren't that into it. Thomas did let his brother lean on him, so there's that I guess. And as you can clearly tell from this photo and a few more below, Henry still has crazy hair. I think it's actually getting worse... 

Henry was at least a happy baby when I got up close and personal. He was laughing because he kept trying to grab the camera from me. I was trying my best to get photos in between dodging wet baby hands covered in who knows how many germs?? That's clearly a very runny nose - danger, danger!

And the sticker was off in record time! I put it back on about 10 times before I gave up. He wanted it off and there wasn't much I could do to stop him. The boy has got a good grip for such a little guy!

Of course he wants to eat the sticker. Ha - Henry is part goat. His absolute favorite is to try and get the socks he is wearing in his mouth. It slows him down to put shoes on him, but he can work around that if he is dedicated enough. (I took the sticker away before he had a chance to actually eat it. Parenting win!)

This was probably my favorite part of the day. I stood Henry up to get photos of him with the light coming in from the window, but Thomas thought it would be a great chance to teach his younger brother how to "drum" on the chair. The two of them stood there laughing and "drumming" for quite a while - I love it when they get along so well. : )

I know it's not obvious from this photo because Henry isn't that great at standing up yet, but these guys are only 6" apart. Also only 6 pounds apart. Yet, they are 22 months apart - yikes! We had Henry's 9 month check-up the other day and he is holding steady at the top of the charts for almost everything. This guy is not going to be little for long!

Love these blue eyes.

And those chubby cheeks. 

Ears are pretty cute too.

Thomas finished us off by "reading" us a story. He certainly picked an appropriate one! : )

These months seem to be flying by. Maybe it's the shorter days, but they are just too short. How is it almost Thanksgiving??

Henry Really Gets Into His Food

Henry started solids a few months ago and wasn't too sure about what I was trying to shove in his mouth (his version, I was quite nice about it!) Since then, he's had quite the change of heart!

This kid loves food! He went through a phase where if you weren't actively shoving food in his mouth, he would scream like a banshee (not fun!), but has since calmed down a little. If you feed him while you are trying to eat your own dinner, he seems to understand that his food will keep coming. Of course if I'm distracted and there is a little spill of food on his high chair, the above happens...

He's usually pretty neat, but not tonight! He was covered in food! And having a blast with it apparently... I'm not sure he thought this particular food was tasty, but it sure was fun for him to play with. 

This guy! Such a happy baby! It's pretty rare he's in a bad mood, especially when there is food involved. ; )

Speaking of food, I almost forgot to mention we started on finger foods! He's pretty good at picking up puffs and cheerios - probably because they tend to stick to his wet fingers...

Ha - he isn't too sure about what he just put in his mouth...! (He ended up deciding he likes them.) We're still working on his grasping skills on other foods, but he is happy enough to eat anything off of a fork. 

Thomas was also wanting to try something new, so I gave him a green olive to try. He stuck it in his mouth and pulled it back out pretty quick. "Not good, momma. Not good..." I beg to differ, son.

Obviously, dinnertime is never a dull time of day. ; )

Postal Surprises!

I mentioned back in June how much I / we love getting packages in the mail! I think they are heavily weighted toward the kids, but even that is fun seeing how excited they get. Mostly they come from the grandparents, but we had one show up out of the blue from our friends in Houston, John and Allie. We had just seen them when we were in Texas and I am pretty sure that Allie asked for my address, but I totally failed to put 2 & 2 together until a package showed up. Yay for being easy to surprise!

Thomas was super, duper, ecstatic about all the trucks they sent. He absolutely loves monster trucks these days and guess what - Allie is psychic! I'm not sure he recognized the particular characters, but he knew they were his "Monster Trucks!" 

As a side note, I checked and the Monster Jam does *not* come to Alaska. So sad for Thomas and me... : (

Seriously - look at this excitement! He was waving it around and then pounding his little fists on the table shouting "Trucks! Trucks! Trucks!" I tried so hard to get a video of it and he (of course) promptly stopped. Trust me, Thurmonds, he loves them!

Allie - I tried to get a photo of Henry with the blanket perfectly draped over his head, but he jerked it down and then it just looked like I was throwing blankets over my child... Which reminded me of the time we were driving around in Norway with you, Jack and me in the backseat. Jack was having a blast playing with candy wrappers and fell asleep with them on his face. You took a photo to show John how funny it was and he said it just looked like we put trash on Jack. Ha!

I have no idea why I remember that, but it was motivating enough to not post blanket head baby photos. ;)

As another note, he finally has a blanket for daycare that his name on it. Woooo! I am probably the worst parent at labeling things. They probably just put anything without a label in our bin... "/

More trucks! This one might have been even more exciting because it makes noise! Lots and lots of noise!

Thanks...? ; )

Also note the football was from the other care package we got this week from Nonni and Grandpa. I forgot to give Henry that ball at first because of all the cool stuff for Thomas. So when we were skyping with them yesterday, I handed Henry the ball. He flipped out for the football! I think it was even better they got to see how excited he was over their present!

But the ball obviously wasn't cutting it when there were noisy trucks to play with... And Thomas actually shared one of them with Henry! He's not always a generous toddler, so it makes me super happy when he's so sweet to his brother. Of course, Henry isn't quite sure what to do with the truck.

I'm pretty sure he's thinking "Should I eat it?"  - mostly because I think he thinks that about everything. You can tell the boy is not starving... ; )

And look at that! A new skill! I did have to help him get up to a standing position, but he was able to hold it and seemed pretty proud of himself. Thomas was always demanding to stand up that it's been a little weird Henry hasn't been at all interested. I guess he's finally seeing the charm of being completely vertical. 

Thanks again to both John & Allie and my parents. We are super grateful that anyone remembers us up here in Alaska, getting surprise packages is just that much more exciting! :)

Happy Halloween!

I had great plans of making cupcakes for Thomas' Halloween party at school, but someone signed up for cupcakes before I managed to get on the list. So I defaulted back to a fun treat I made years ago - oreo spiders! They were more orange than they look here, but the lighting out today wasn't great - thanks, clouds... 

I went back and forth on whether to use the intended red hots or not for the kids. In the end I decided my kiddo likes hot stuff so he would probably like them. The rest of the kids are on their own. ; )

Henry wearing his Halloween outfit from his Nonni and Grandpa. The daycare planned on having the kids trick-or-treat to other classrooms and I falsely assumed the infants would be exempt. Nope - the other babies all had costumes. Whatever. We were late enough this morning we missed that part anyhow.

Truth be told, we missed Thomas' treat-or-treating as well. Apparently the times listed were guidelines, not rules. Ha! I wasn't too concerned, I hadn't been able to convince Thomas to wear his costume at all. So no need to have a huge meltdown when I tried to put it on him...

Surprise, surprise... Apparently he saw all his friends in their costumes and threw a fit when Matt tried to put the rocket in his locker. As all of his friends were taking their costumes off, Thomas was proudly strutting around as a rocket ship. Apparently he was quite the hit in his class (I was still with Henry and missed all of it!) I figured the costume would be discarded when I went back to his classroom... Boo!

Nope! They had moved to the indoor gym and he was still wearing his rocket ship!

We played with each other through the window and he was happy as a clam in his rocket ship. Go figure.

I came back that afternoon for the party and got to hang out with Thomas and his best bud, Eli (Buzz Lightyear). The rocket is pretty much impossible to sit down while wearing, but his teachers said he really liked wearing it and they had to talk him out of it for lunch. 

There were a ton of sweets at the party. Look at my kid's plate. I'm not sure this is my kid... Fruit? He has ice cream and didn't even eat it. Eli was chowing down so hard on a cupcake I had to stop him and get the partially eaten wrapper off for him. That's more my style. No accounting for genetics sometimes I guess... "/

As for the final outcome of the painted pumpkin - it looked very bold! I had to add a little bit of paint around the T before I pulled the tape off or you wouldn't have been able to tell what it was. Which is pretty much the exact opposite of last year - he spent so much time painting and repainting that pumpkin it ended up a being study in gray... It's amazing how much everything can change in a year! :)

Pumpkin Painting!

Thomas really seemed to enjoy painting a pumpkin for Halloween last year, so I thought we would give it another shot this year. I'm not quite ready to introduce cutting implements... He gets pretty excited anytime craft time involves paint - luckily for me, the paints these days really are quite washable. (Notice we still take a few precautions...!)

I let him pick the colors hoping if I limited it to three colors this year we might not end up with a completely gray pumpkin. And luckily, he picked three colors that actually go together quite well. Whew!

In case you have forgotten from last year, I used painters tape to block off part of the pumpkin and let him paint all around it for a reverse design. I decided to try a monogram this year, I figured it would be fun to mix it up! 

Again with my children and their tongues needing to be out for maximum concentration. I also noticed once he started painting that he was very specifically matching up paintbrushes with the same paint color. This is normal for toddlers, right? I worry about how particular this little guy can be...

Or he just gets it from his dad. ; )

Henry didn't get to paint this year, but he was just as happy as he could be. He loves hanging out with his big brother. Of course, all the fun toys I kept fetching for him didn't hurt...!

Look at that paintbrush control. So advanced in his painting methods these days!

He decided he wanted to mix it up and play with some of the other brush options. He really enjoyed smushing the sponge brush on the pumpkin. 

Which led to shouts of "Moon! Moon!"

I can't really argue with that. They do look very moon-ish. : )

Then he decided it was time for finger/hand painting. I've mentioned before that they do this quite a bit at daycare, so he is quite the pro at painting his hand to make handprints.

Of course, if I get distracted for a few minutes, this is what happens... Ha - not sure if he planned on arm painting his pumpkin or the temptation of the green paint was just too much. But it was pretty much the end of pumpkin painting... ; )

And it wouldn't be fall in Alaska without the occasional moose visitor! There were actually a few wandering around while we were painting, but one hung around long enough for me to photograph her "good" side... :)