Matt Makes Dessert

One of the gifts that the boys (all 3 of them) got in their stockings this year was sugar to make cotton candy. I bought Matt a cotton candy machine years ago and it hadn't seen much action lately. "Santa" thought the boys might be amazed by it if it was brought back into service!

Of course Santa had to go through a bit of trouble trying to find the sugar locally since the idea came to Santa a bit too late to order it online. Luckily, there is a party rental place that will also sell the sugar - in 3 pound boxes. So we have a lot of cotton candy making to do... 

Thankfully, after Matt and I wrestled with getting the bowl onto the base, the machine fired right up and starting throwing out sugar threads!

The boys were not as "wowed" as I would have guessed with the machine making the candy...

But once their dad started making cones and putting the cotton candy on the cones, they got a little more excited! Well one of them did, anyhow. The other one had to be talked into even trying it...! What is wrong with my offspring??

Thankfully, they both came around and got pretty enthusiastic about their dessert. So I guess I don't have to start worrying about them too much just yet. Ha!  

Random December Photos

December is so full of Christmas planning and build-up. It's just such a happy month! I try not to play favorite, but I think it is my favorite month of all of them. :)

Henry didn't look super happy in this photo, but I promise he was having a great time. He was just a little bummed that Santa was handing out real candy canes instead of the plastic ones filled with Hershey Kisses. I was just happy that Santa Claus came to work again this year! Some of Matt's coworkers were helping take the photos and they were insistent that the baby be in the photo, so I made Matt join in as well. I think it's a cute family photo! 

Matt went to Lowe's to get something for the house and returned with this completely over the top snowman. I thought he was going to put him in the yard, but no - he wanted to put him above the fireplace. Getting him up there was a bit sketchy, but I honestly think he looks awesome up there. 

Also, we named him Frank.

(He might stay up there all year.)

Target had set up this cool photo booth and the boys wanted to check it out. For the life of us, we could not figure out why the santa and dog were upside down. As we were walking away from the display we heard someone else talking about how you had to take the photo and then flip it upside down so it looked like you were coming out of the chimney.

*duh*

So we went back and took more photos. And flipped them! Makes so much sense! Especially if I had just read the sign next to it... ;)

Last year, I took the boys to a Pinkalicious play that was in town since we all love the book so very much. This year they had a play based on the Fancy Nancy books. We've never read those, but I figured the boys would probably enjoy it either way. It wasn't quite as fun to them since they aren't "fancy" by nature, but they didn't complain. Unlike their dad in the background who was constantly giving me "why did you talk me into this" looks... 

Thomas did see a classmate or two though and he thought that was pretty exciting!

Henry had a Christmas party at school and I got to go over and hang out with him for it. These parties are still a bit chaotic, he colored for about 10 seconds before going over to the snow sensory table, then cookie decorating a few seconds later, etc. It's tiring just trying to keep up!

Natalie is having bladder problems still. It started when Matt and Henry went to Texas back in October. We've gone through several rounds of antibiotics to clear up the UTI she had. That still didn't resolve the leaking, so she's wearing her fancy pants until the new meds kick in. Luckily she's pretty tolerant of them and being confined to the tile part of the house... "/

Kathryn & Ben invited us over to their house for Christmas dinner. And Ben even made the boys some awesome balloon hats. Also, all of my cooking show watching paid off when I was able to rescue the gravy. That and an ice cream pie from Wild Scoops were about my only contributions to the meal. ;)

I had enough vacation unused that I was able to take off between Christmas and the New Year. So the boys and I got plenty of time to hang out together. The one day I was googling kid activities around the city and found a new one. Kinder Gym! It's a time set aside at one of the recreation centers for little kids to play with all of the kid gym equipment. Seemed like a bargain at $2 a kid. The boys had a total blast and we went back again the next day it was open for more play time. (I sat on the side and watched them have fun while drinking coffee - it was definitely more fun for them... Though I do like coffee drinking time!)

Henry was extra worn out from Kinder Gym and took a pretty epic nap that afternoon. So Thomas and I got some game playing time in while Henry snoozed. He picked Connect 4 first and lost soooo many times. I tried to teach him to pay attention to the moves he was making, but it was just not sinking in. 

So we swtiched to their new Sequence for Kids game. After losing that one a few times, he went and got Monopoly out. Judging by that smile, I am pretty sure he beat me big time on this one. 

These two are so silly. I was in the kitchen and these two run up and tell me that their bellies are bigger than mine! Haha - proportionally yes, but I think I am still the biggest at the moment. :(

Only one more month...! :)

Henry fell in love with sticky buns a few months ago and I had every intention of making them for Christmas morning. But by the time I had finished cleaning up the house it was too late to start making them. So he got them for New Year's Eve instead!

I don't think I've ever made them before, but they were amazing! Cook's Illustrated didn't let me down, though it may contribute to another lecture on weight gain at my next check-up... ;)

Well, that's a wrap on 2017. Hope everyone had a great year and looking forward to an exciting 2018! :) 

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas morning is so exciting! We usually open all of our presents to each other the night before, but Santa fills the stockings overnight and there is more fun for in the morning!

Speaking of Santa, there was a last minute panic last night from Thomas that we hadn't set out the milk & cookies! I promised him I would set them out somewhere the dogs couldn't get them and leave a note. They were super excited to see the empty plate this morning, but then I got accused of eating the cookies! I pointed out that if I *had* eaten them, I would not left crumbs behind. 

Also, you can see the dog ornament in time-out. That's a barking dog ornament that is super spastic and has been driving me crazy. Thanks Grannie... ;)

I was going to make sticky buns for breakfast, but by the time I was ready to start making them it was super late. So we ended up with waffled cinnamon rolls again. See how amazing they look?

Santa couldn't fit all of their presents in their stockings, so he ended up setting up the goals in the living room. They seemed pretty excited about the goals - I figure we must be a soccer family, so the goals and cones seem super appropriate. 

Apparently Santa thinks I need to clean my car more...

These two were pretty pumped about most of their stocking stuffers, but they were most excited about their new calculator watches. Books and calculators - my little nerds. :)

Henry got his first big kid Lego set and did almost all of it on his own. We're going to have two master builders in this house! (I actually bought it for him last year and decided it was going to be too hard. Which means I had one left gift to wrap this year!)

Thomas also helped me pick out presents for the girls. He picked out this pizza toy for Natalie and she loved it. Eliza tried to steal it from her and got growled out for his trouble. Didn't know these two old gals still had the energy to growl at each other. ;)

Finally picture time! The boys helped pick out the outfits this year. They fell in love with the elf outfits and we had to find pj's for the parents to go with them. They definitely wanted Matt to be Santa, but the Mrs. Claus outfits were pretty horrible. So I went with Rudolph instead - by far the softest and coziest pj set I've had for Christmas!

We got one good serious one and then the boys wanted to do silly faces. And by the boys, I mean all three of them - pretty sure Matt was the instigator!

But honestly, they are more fun anyhow!

And of course, they had to do one photo showing off their new calculator watches. We all got one and they were giving me a hard time about not wearing mine. But I already have a watch I love...!

Merry Christmas everyone, hope everyone had as much fun celebrating as we did. :)

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve and Christmas are both equally awesome in my book, so I woke up just about as excited as the boys did! They were in great moods and ready to play with their presents from the night before!

Which suited me just fine because I wanted to bake something for breakfast and the new toys wee bound to keep them distracted enough to not demand cereal right away. Baking and Lego building - everyone gets to have a happy morning!! (Matt too - he got to sleep in a little!)

Mmmm Eggnog Scones! I told you I was a little eggnog obsessed and knew I had to make these when I saw the recipe the other day. I ate waaaaay too many of these delightful little things!

We had a skype session planned with Matt's family for mid-morning, but it ended up being closer to lunch. But these two would have been in their pajamas either way - they loooooove wearing pajamas all day. We had a good chat with the family, but not a lot of present opening. I totally waited too long to send presents and everyone is getting electronic gift certificates this year. It's the last-minute thought that counts, right?? "/

Dinner time! We scaled back the fondue a little this year since it was just the four of us, but Nonni bought me a new fondue pot last night and I was super excited to test it out. Between that and a slightly different recipe, the fondue was super awesome this year! 

Of course my two food critics both decided they didn't like fondue and only ate the dippers without the cheese. Well too bad for you two - I am not getting rid of my favorite tradition! Pfffft...

Thomas randomly decided a few weeks ago that he wanted the giant airplane Lego set for Christmas, which was awesome since we had bought it months ago when Target was having an awesome sale on Legos. Luckily for us, he didn't change his mind in the meantime and was super excited when he opened it. :)

Henry was also equally as excited opening his big present, though I am not sure why his foot was so involved... We've been watching a lot of Chopped Junior together and the kids have been "chopping" eat other left and right (especially in regards to that broccoli cheese soup). But our favorite episode was the one that had a Henry competing and he won. "Henry won Chopped!!"

The kids on this show are so impressive with their cooking skills at such a young age, so the goal is to try and get them in the kitchen more. To that end, Henry got a giant set of kitchen tools sized for kids. Obviously he will have to share with his brother, but he *is* the Chopped winner, so he got it. :)

Finally it was time to open the presents from Thomas! He got me a christmas themed pair of spa socks (so cozy!) and a multi-tool hit for his dad. Henry got a set of christmas rubber duckies and this adorable snowman! It's the same brand as another stuffed animal Henry loves that has the same giant eyes, so Thomas knew he would love it. Such a thoughtful little guy!

All the new and exciting presents and the first thing they both sat down with was their new books. That definitely made me smile. I'd be more than happy if these two turned out to be book worms.Merry Christmas Eve to all and to all...

Get in your Christmas pj's - it's bedtime! :)

Gingerbread Houses

I'm sure it will come as a surprise to learn this, but I have never made a gingerbread house. I can't remember doing any growing up, but I know for sure I have never done one with the kids. 

No better time than now to remedy that! The boys have been asking to build them since we bought the kits, but I made them wait until it was closer to Christmas. I figured they might want to eat the candy off of it after Christmas, so the less time it was sitting out, the better.

We also got an early Christmas present - Nonni came in for a surprise visit! Best kind of surprise ever! Henry and Nonni worked on one house while Thomas and I decorated the other one. Between the two of them, there were a few spilled candy and icing incidents, but nothing that couldn't be recovered from. ;)

I had no idea how much waiting would be involved with these houses or I would have started the for the boys the night before. Build walls - wait an hour. Add roof - wait 2-3 hours. The boys were not impressed. But Thomas was happy enough to fetch cans out of the pantry to keep everything stable until it dried. 

These two were very focused on getting their walls up. Nonni claims her icing wasn't as easy to squeeze as the bag I had. She might be right - she was squeezing her hard enough that she broke the plastic bag the kit came with. Lucky for her, I have much sturdier bags on hand! 

Finally time to decorate! There were a few examples on the box and Thomas couldn't decide which one to follow, so we ended up with inspiration from many of them. He told me where to put the icing for him and then decorated away. 

Also, he got new glasses last week! His old frames (that we have bought 3 times) are no longer available, so he picked out these as his new favorites. So trendy!

Everything Thomas did was in a pattern. He even had to make sure he continued the pattern from once side of the roof to the other. I didn't do the right number of loops on the second side of the roof and had to scrape the icing off to try again.

Pretty sure Thomas does not know the meaning of the word random... ;)

I offered to let him take a picture of me putting icing icicles on the roof with my fancy camera. He got a super close up photo, but he was so proud of it. I'm eve smiling, so you can't even tell how nervous I am about him holding my camera over a tile floor, can you?

It was hard to tell if the house or Henry was getting more candy on his side of the table...

But these two were having a blast either way! Aren't they both super adorable??

The finished masterpieces! You should be able to figure out who made with house based on the utter randomness on one and the patterns on the other. I think they both did an excellent job and maybe next year we will make them from scratch so they aren't hard as bricks...

Emphasis on *maybe*, it's pretty hard to beat the convenience of a kit!

Since Nonni and Heather were both flying home tonight, I conceded on letting the kids open their presents early. I am usually not a fan, but it was a special circumstance. The boy piled up their presents to open, but got a little bored when we had technical difficulties getting Grandpa on skype. Hopefully none of Henry's presents are breakable!

Despite some audio troubles, we did manage to include Grandpa in on all of the fun. And the boys were super happy to show off everything that they opened.

Thomas' school had a holiday store for the kids this year where they could shop for presents for the family and the volunteers would wrap the presents so it would be a surprise. Once Nonni showed up, I added more money to his shopping fund so he could buy gifts for everyone. The day he went shopping, he was so excited about about the gifts he bought ("I bought two for Henry!"). And he did an awesome job keeping all the presents a secret. 

He got Aunt Heather a shiny Christmas wreath pin and Nonni got a jingle bell photo frame. I should probably send her a photo to go in it! I still have to wait until tomorrow to see what I got...!

And since I am horrible at getting photos of us, I made Heather's friend take one of us before I took them off to the airport. We couldn't get one of everyone smiling, but this was the closest! I'll just assume the boys aren't smiling because they don't want Nonni to leave. And on that, I can commiserate. But it was awesome to have her for some pre-Christmas fun!

Soccer, Skiing & Santa on a Train!

This is going to be a long post because it was a long and fun-filled day! Thomas already had soccer lessons and then I thought he should start skiing lessons and then booked us on the Christmas Train the same day. I have no idea what I was thinking...

But such a fun day couldn't have an ordinary breakfast! Grannie made cinnamon rolls in her waffle iron while Matt was down visiting and he raved about how awesome they were. So we decided to give it a try this morning. They were indeed awesome! As was the fact that eggnog is now in stores and both of my boys love it. :)

Henry wasn't convinced when I told him we were having waffled cinnamon rolls, so he wanted cereal too. Whatever makes you happy, little man! 

Soccer time! It's still in the dark dome, so it was just as frustrating as last time trying to get decent photos in there, but I managed to get a few of the little guys in action. The coaches all named their teams after real soccer teams, so his team name had nothing to do with the fact he has a blue & white striped jersey. I was so unimpressed by the boring name, I don't even remember it... ;)

We got there a little early today, so they both got a little fun practice time with their dad. Though I am pretty sure Henry was mostly just running away screaming... 

The Kiddie Soccer and U6 play at the same time and the new head coach has a big meeting before the two groups head to their different fields. The best thing was that he taught them hand moves to go with the fact they are learning "Mad! Wicked! Skills!". Thomas is demonstrating the sassy arm cross at the end. So cute!

Henry has been doing pretty awesome at Kiddie Soccer this round, which is perfect since he will be old enough for U6 next session. They will actually both be in the same group for one session - hopefully Thomas can help his brother get the gist of the game playing!

Speaking of game times, Thomas has been getting better and better! He still prefers to hang back a little instead of getting after the ball, but he is definitely improving. I think he just has the heart of a goalie and that's not really a position they have the U6 group play. 

Kiddie Soccer ends about 15 minutes before U6, so Henry gets to come over and cheer for his brother. He's definitely his brother's biggest fan! :)

Also, he is very particular about his socks. I always try to fold them over and he goes back and "fixes" them to this scrunched up weirdness. "It goes like this momma!" Ok...

Off to ski lessons! He was only getting half of his lesson time today thanks to the train, but half is better than missing all of it. Luckily the ski area is basically right up the hill from soccer, so it is pretty convenient! And doesn't he look super proud of himself getting geared up for his lessons?

Henry was pretty excited about getting to stay and watch the lessons today. And getting to hold the skis while Matt helped Thomas get all of his other gear on. Such a helpful little brohter!

I was probably most excited though - I haven't seen Thomas skiing either and Matt kept telling me what an awesome job he was doing. So I brought my zoom lens along for the day to get some photos of him in action. The bunny hill has a tow rope that he needed help with on the first day, but he was a pro at it by now! He walked right up to the line, looked back and grabbed it like a champ! 

Once at the top, he got out of the way and waited for his instructor to catch up. 

And skied down like a total champ! He was even managing to get some good turns in on the little hill. I missed exactly what happened at one point, but he fell halfway up the hill on the tow rope. I just noticed he was on the ground and his skis were off. I was worried no one would notice and help him out since the instructors have several kids.

But I shouldn't have worried. He quickly grabbed his skis and moved out of the way of the rope. He then put his skis back on by himself, skied down the hill and got back on the tow rope to go up. So proud of him!

Soon, he was headed over to the lift with the next level of skiers. He's obviously mastered the purple level skills and the instructors wanted him to get more skill practice in. He needed a little help getting on the lift, but then they were off!

Also, it's a little scary seeing your tiny kid on a lift for the first time. I'm sure it will be no big deal soon, but I am definitely not used to it yet. (And they don't have the safety bars on these chairs. Eeeek!)

Here he comes down the real hill! He had a little bit of trouble with speed control on this one and managed to plow into his instructor, but he still did pretty awesome for his first few attempts at skiing! :)

This guy was still excited for his brother!

On to the next exciting activity - the Holiday Train! Those might be the most half-hearted smiles they have ever given, but I promise they were excited. They just always get a little antsy until the train stars moving. 

The activity book they handed out was super big this year! There were so many coloring pages to choose from for the coloring competition and they both picked the gingerbread house. Not to spoil it, but Thomas ended up getting a prize for his!

Henry didn't quite finish his and then panic colored when it was time to turn it in. He was still pretty upset about not winning though. 

This train sells out so quick that it's easy to miss out on the fun. This year I sent out a reminder email to people that have told me they were interested as soon as the tickets went on sale. Luckily two of our friends managed to book tickets before they sold out the next day! Thomas was pretty excited to have his friend Lyla on board. (She is obviously more stylish than we are...)

Henry's friend Jaxson also joined us! They got *mostly* matching balloons and were super excited about it. The balloons were pretty adorable this year compared to previous years...

Also, I was excited that the two friends got to come because I also happen to be friends with the parents and got some grown up time in too. Win-win! :) 

Cookie time! We were in the car next to the food car, so there were about 4 trays of cookies that went by smelling heavenly before we actually got our cookies. A little bit of torture on the train!

Finally Santa and Mrs. Claus came by! Thomas was all about saying hi, but Henry was not so into it. He told Santa he wanted "Nothing!" for Christmas. But Thomas definitely was ready with his answer: "Legos!" Which was when Henry decided that he also wanted Legos! Silly boy.

Overall, a super busy, but super fun day!

We might just chill out at home tomorrow though... ;)

Random November Photos

Such a crazy month, which is bleeding over to a crazy December, but it wasn't without quite a bit of random fun!

This kid is still loving Tae Kwon Do. Look at all these stickers he has collected on his belt! I'm still not 100% sure what the yellow ones are for, but the black are for skills and red are for the responsibility sheets that we do at home. One red sticker away from being ready for his belt test!

Henry also got pretty good at FaceTime and talking on the phone while he was away for those two weeks. Nonni looks pretty happy to be getting some one-on-one time with her youngest grandson, huh??

Soccer got bumped up an hour one day, so I promised Thomas we would go get donuts after to make up for a more rushed morning. He thought my paw prints I made out of the donut holes were pretty awesome too. :)

I promised Thomas he could pick something fun to do both weekends we were on our own and I was not at all surprised when he picked the trampoline park one day. Look at that grin - he loves this place!

It was finally belt test day! I told Thomas I wouldn't be able to make it to his test because of work, but at some point that afternoon realized there wasn't anything I couldn't miss and left work to go see the majority of his test. Plus since I was there, I got to hold the board he had to break at the end of his test. I am not sure who was happier about it!

He's a white belt with yellow stripe now. Go Thomas!

Henry's soccer gets over about 15 minutes before Thomas' and most of the time he is pretty happy to hang out and watch his brother play. He looked a little bored today though... ;)

Henry had picked out his favorite cookie that he decorated and had been talking about eating it all day. Then Matt stole it and pretended to eat it. Henry absolutely flipped out. Obviously he got his cookie back, but the moment of captured drama was just too hilarious to not share.

I am sure this will come up in therapy at some point...

The days getting shorter makes it the perfect time of year to watch movies. And movie watching isn't complete without popping some popcorn. Thomas does a great job keeping an eye on the popper for me. :)

We had a last minute change in Thanksgiving plans that meant we had to stay home instead of going to Talkeetna like we had planned. On the bright side, we finally got to use our electric turkey fryer we got on post-Thanksgiving clearance last year! It worked like a champ. :)

Also thanks to the last minute change, I wasn't quite up to doing a full Thanksgiving meal. Luckily, there is a place in town that had a fully prepped meal to order that only required minimal cooking. I was sold on that idea and it turned out great! We obviously substituted our own turkey and I swapped out the too-fancy mashed potatoes for some normal ones. Overall, it was awesome and made even better by Ben & Kathryn joining us even though it was last minute. (Kathryn provided the awesome dinner rolls>)

I think all Henry ate was a roll and mashed potatoes, but he certainly loved the fancy sparkling apple-peach cider I let him have!

Thomas tried most of what was on his plate, but he was most excited by the fact that dinner didn't take "forever". Apparently Heather's slightly delayed dinner last year left quite the impression on him... 

Speaking of impression - check out this awesome turkey Matt drew on our message board by the door. We were all quite impressed by this turkey that showed up one morning. Matt gets so much done after we go to bed some nights and last night was clearly an art night!

Totally dropped the ball on teaching the boys to ski so far, but not this year! I booked him for group lessons as soon as they started up this winter. He was so excited to start his lessons!

Henry was not excited about missing out on the lessons, but he isn't quite old enough for the group lessons. I fully plan on letting him do some private lessons once we get Thomas through his first round. So to distract him today, we went and got some of his new favorite breakfast treats - sticky buns!

The boys have been super excited to start decorating for Christmas, but I have a firm "Must get past Thanksgiving first" rule in the house. But the day after Thanksgiving, we are full on Christmas spirit around here!

The frog hats haven't gotten much love recently, but they were recently rediscovered and worn all day. Matt helped keep Henry's frog hands out of the way while he was getting ready for bed by tying them out of the way. :)

These kids love fun bath time and we got a new can of bath foam thanks to Aunt Heather. I did the usual foam snakes, but the I had the brilliant idea of making Henry a foam Santa beard. Clearly, he loved it!

Obviously, we can't wait for Christmas! :)

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. :)