Christmas Happenings

The week before Christmas and Christmas was very exciting at our house.  The boys were beyond excited and had sooo much energy, it was hard to keep somewhat calm. 
The Monday before Christmas (second to last day of school), the kindergartners got to have a PJ day and watch Polar Express.  All of Keagan's pj's were from last year or handed down and were not really suitable for walking to school/playing outside for recess.  I tried to convince Keagan that he could wear sweats and he insisted that is was Pajama Day and he needed to wear pajamas.  So, the Friday before, we stopped in at Wallyworld, found a pair of warm Pj pants and a long-sleeve black shirt.  That night, we used my Silhouette to cut a rocket shape (Keagan's choice) out of heat transfer.  He was so excited to wear PJ's to school.

We finally got around to making this Gingerbread Train kit that Andrew found and couldn't resist buying.  The boys LOVED the train. 

We started a tradition a few years back to have Christmas Tree french toast on Christmas Eve.  Andrew was at work, so I made them for the boys and they were so excited about eating their Trees. 

After Andrew was gone most of the week, I was so excited to have him home on Saturday about lunch time.  Man it is hard to keep up with three already active boys when they have the excitement of Christmas.  My Parents drove up to spend Christmas with us.  They got here on Christmas Eve afternoon.  For dinner we had Christmas Tree and Candy Cane pizza.  The boys LOVED that as well.

Our tradition of getting new PJ's for Christmas.  We made the pants and used my handy dandy Silhouette to fancy up the shirts.  They Say Dear Santa, Define "Good".

"Santa" made the boys a workbench and gave them tools to go with it.  Santa (courtesy of our friends Marshall and Brogan) also gave the boys each a tractor. 

For Breakfast we had our usual Santa Pancakes. 

All the boys loved their presents.  Some of the highlighs of the presents they each got a construction/hard hat complete with a light, new blankets (because they are huge blanket boys and Keagan and Deker's old ones were wearing out), and possibly one of their favorites Pillow Pets from Grandma & Grandpa Smith and various tractors and cars

We were so grateful on Christmas to have 11:20 church and that we didn't have to rush out the door.  It was nice to be at church on Christmas, even though I had to play about 7 songs on the Organ. 

It was so fun to have my parents here visiting and spending Christmas with them.  They had to leave on Monday because my Dad had to be back to work on Tuesday.  We all had a fantastic time with them here.

The Highlights

I have been a seriously bad blogger.  There were lots of little things that I wanted to put on my blog, but nothing big that drove me to it.  So I am finally just adding the highlights of things we have done so far.
Andrew's sister, Anna and her husband Chris were in town at the end of november for a visit.  We enjoyed having them visit with us for an afternoon/evening.  We even decorated gingerbread houses.

Bauer LOVES to put on Daddy's boots (or any of daddy's  or mommy's shoes for that matter).

When I was preganant with Bauer and Andrew was gone on Wednesday nights every week, I started doing Picnic in the living room/movie nights most Wednesday nights (Here is a post I did about it then).  We would eat dinner in the living room while watching a movie.  About the time that Bauer was born Andrew started being gone two nights a week and with having a new baby, we didn't do that anymore.  With the colder weather, we have since started doing this once in a while.  Here are the boys enjoying dinner and watching their movie. 

Just like his two older brothers, Bauer LOVES tractors and LOVES any book that has any sort of tractor/truck/dump truck in them.  Here is Bauer and I laying on my bed reading a car/truck book.  In fact, Bauer loves tractors so much that one night a couple of weeks ago, Andrew and I went on a double date with some friends of ours.  After being gone for about 45 minutes, the babysitter called and said that Bauer had been crying almost the whole time and he wouldn't calm down.  I told them to get his blanket and find one of our many tractor books and try to read him a book and to call me back if he didn't calm down.  We called 15 minutes later just to make sure that everything was OK and he was just fine.  He calmed down really quickly with the books. 

We went to the mall one evening just to walk around and let the kids play.  The line for Santa was really, really short so we let the kids sit on Santa's lap and talk to him.  Of course, Bauer wasn't a fan.  This year Keagan and Deker are asking for tractors, tools and a workbench.

We made snowman ornaments of the boy's handprints.  I found this idea here. True to their favorite colors, Keagan choose blue, Deker choose yellow and we choose green for Bauer.  I am excited to see what Bauer's favorite color is going to be.

All three boys attempting to take off Daddy's work boots.

Last weekend, we bundled up and went to the Idaho Botanical Gardens for their Winter Garden Aglow.  It is so pretty all light up. 

I made Christmas ties for the boys.  Here they are last Sunday all dressed and ready for Church.  I might be a little biased, but I think I have three of the most handsome boys!

Here are the boys doing their "exercises".  Keagan was showing us something and Deker and Bauer just had to join in.

In other news...We are so excited for Christmas to get here.  We have been counting down with our countdowns.  The first thing Keagan and Deker do every morning is check the countdowns.  They are also are almost loving our Elf on the Shelf that came to us this year.  The boys named him Zippy.  The boys like seeing where he is every morning, but I am not sure that they totally believe it all.  On the second morning, Keagan told me that he doesn't think he is real because "his eyes don't blink".  On another morning, we was sitting holding a biscut.  When I said that he must have been hungry, Keagan said "No, because he didn't take a bite".  So, when we were all gone picking Keagan up from school the elf took a few bites and that satisfied Keagan for the day.  Because of all that and a few other things Keagan has mentioned, we will see if Zippy comes back next year or not. 

Lost Pictures

It has been almost a month since I last blogged.  I haven't even taken pictures of my camera since November 5.  Today I sat down to get all pictures off the camera and maybe even blog about some of the happenings of our household the past month.  When I went to take the pictures off, I realized that one of my boys (I think Bauer) got ahold of the camera and DELETED all the pictures! 

So, now you don't get to see pictures of when Andrew's parents and his sister and family came and visited for a weekend.  Or when we went to the Discovery Center as a family.  Or of the fun Thanksgiving we had.  Or when Deker, Bauer and I got to go take a little tour of Great Harvest for Deker's preschool group.  Or a picture of Bauer and I laying on my bed reading books. 

Oh well.  At least there wasn't a HUGE event that we had happen and now don't have pictures of it.  I can just hope that I get better at taking pictures off the camera and have learned that kids and camera's do NOT go well together.

Halloween

My parents came up to visit from Nevada for the weekend.  They arrived on Friday afternoon and left on Sunday after church.  We had so much fun with them and were so glad that they came.  On Saturday morning, we went down to the Nature Center.  I forgot my camera, but my parents took a couple of pictures from their cell phone. 

Here are the boys playing in the stream simulator inside.  They thought this was so much fun and didn't want to leave it. 

Bauer looking cute. 

My little owls.

Whenever we have anybody at our house, one of the first things that my boys do is ask them to read books to them.  Here is a picture I got of my Dad reading a book to Bauer.  Any guess on what the book is about?  Tractors! 

That night our ward had a harvest dinner and trunk or treat.  There was a dinner of chili, chips and cupcakes.  Afterward, there was a bounce house, scary tent and games for the kids to play, followed by the Trunk or Treat.  I was so excited to finally see the boys in their finished costumes.  They were the Three Musketeers.  I thought they were quite adorable and we got a lot of great comments on them throughout the weekend.

Keagan and Grandma (my Mom) Sword fighting. 

Keagan "getting" Andrew. 

Andrew using Bauer's sword to "get" Deker.

On Monday, Keagan's kindergarten class wore their costumes to school and then towards the end of their school day, there was a costume parade.  I dressed up Deker and Bauer and went to the parade.  Here is Keagan's class. 

That night, we went trick or treating around our neighborhood, then gladly came home when it got dark to watch some Halloween cartoons and pass out candy to the kids that came by. 

Carving Pumpkins

On the Monday before Halloween we carved pumpkins.  I helped Keagan and Deker carve an actual face, then they had fun putting more holes, lines, etc. into their pumpkins. 

 Bauer had fun playing around with Andrew's for a while.

Andrew, Deker and Keagan hard at work.

The finished products.

October Happenings

In October, one of the boys in Deker's preschool co-op group turned three.  Because his birthday is in October, they decided to do a Halloween party and all the kids were asked to dress up.  Unfortunately, I had not made the boy's Halloween costumes yet.  On the day of the party, Deker decided that he wanted me to stay with him at the party and since Andrew was working, that meant we would all need to stay.  As I was going through our Halloween costume box the morning of the party and trying to find costumes for the boys, I had a light bulb moment.  Why don't I put them in their Boise State shirts, make some Boise State tattoos with my Silhouette and then paint their faces.  Here is how they turned out.

They had fun and have been asking several times since to put the tattoos on again.  That afternoon when I was putting all the boys in their rooms for nap/quiet time Keagan said "Mom, I thought Heavenly Father didn't want us to have tattoo's on".  I then got to explain that these tattoos wash off and that is OK, he just doesn't like it when we permanently do things to our bodies. 

After we got home from the party, we had a first in our family.  Our boys have never fallen asleep in their chairs/at the table...That is until now.  When we got home from the party, I fed the boys lunch.  Bauer often takes a long time to eat a meal and I will leave in him in his high chair to finish eating while I clean up.  This particular time, Andrew had called while I was cleaning up from lunch and I had kind of forgotten that Bauer was in his high chair (I know, bad mom!).  After a couple of minutes, I looked around and noticed Bauer in his high chair, asleep.

Last Friday, Keagan received an award at a school assembly.  Once a quarter the school has an assembly to give awards to kids for academics and also Citizenship.  Keagan received a citizenship award from his teacher for consistently being respectful.  I am so proud of Keagan, he loves going to school each day to learn and to play and make friends. 

The Farmstead, Part 2

As I mentioned in a previous post, we purchased season tickets to the Farmstead when they were on Groupon.  We had so much fun going several times throughout the month of October.  Here are more pictures from our various trips.

The boys in the BIG rocking chair.

In the corn maze

The big jumping pillow.