Bad Blogger

Wow, I have been a really bad blogger lately.  But I think I have a pretty good excuse, and here is what it is...

We are so excited to be expecting baby number 4 to join our family sometime in July.  My official due date is July 30, but the closest I have come to my due date so far is 3 weeks before, so we will see what happens.  

But in the meantime, here is a few of the things that we have been up to.  The boys LOVED the few snow storms we had and LOVED "helping shovel" the snow with Dad.  

 One day when I was doing the boys hair, Keagan and Bauer decided they wanted mowhawks. 

We have fun making cookies to take to a Superbowl Party.  The cookies on the left were purple, although the picture made them look a little more blue. 

 

Almost exactly a year ago, my boys received the most amazing package in the mail from their Aunt Vera.  It included a tractor shirt for each boy, a suit for keagan (which he still continues to wear almost every Sunday and Deker talks about how he will get to wear it when it gets too small for keagan). And most importantly Tractor silverware.  Well this morning for breakfast we got the tractor silverware out.  I love watching how "all boy" my boys are and even though they usually eat their food acting like tractors it is fun to see the joy they have in using these awesome tractor silverware.  I just couldn't help getting the camera out and taking pictures of them again.  

Then I decided to look up the old post and I was completely amazed at how much they have changed and look so much more grown-up now than they did a year ago. Check out the original post here...and then look at these pictures

After looking at those pictures from last year I had the boys wear those same shirts and took another picture. 

I may or may not have bribed the kids to take the more serious picture above because they seem to think they just need to take silly pictures all the time like this one below.

Christmas!

We had a wonderful time spending Christmas together.  We were lucky enough to have Andrew home for 4 days straight (from Sunday through Wednesday).

On Christmas Eve morning we did our traditional Christmas Tree french toast. 

We made some very yummy cookies for Santa.  This year we made soft Gingerbread cookies with dark chocolate chips which we then dipped in white Chocolate.

That night we had Candy Cane and Christmas tree pizza.  We then attempted to drive around and look at Christmas lights which we will probably won't be trying to do again for a few years, unfortunately.  You see last year with my parents visiting we loaded up in the car on Christmas Even and drove around looking at light.  As we were about to pull into our driveway, Keagan threw up everywhere. 

So this year we try again.  We are driving around looking at lights.  Everybody is having fun.  Then Deker gets really quite.  All of a sudden I hear "I think I am going to throw up".  Andrew stops the van and just as we get Deker out, he throws up on the street.  We get back in and give each boy a bowl we have stored in the van from a previous experience.  And decide we better do one more neighborhood on our way home.  After two streets.  Keagan is throwing up in his bowl.  We say nevermind and head straight home.  We did have fun for the first 10 minutes though.... 

We opened our traditional homemade Christmas PJ's.  The boys loved that we all have our names on our PJ's. 

 The presents Santa left out.

The Stockings all filled up

For Breakfast, we had our traditional Santa Pancakes. 

Keagan with his loot. 

Deker with his loot which included LOTS of tractors!

Bauer who was too buys playing with his semi to look at the camera. 

My sister Vera had these shirts made for all the kids which has a very true saying on it.  It says "If at first I don't succeed...I just got as my Aunt Vera."  My kids love their shirts.  I will even hear Deker say once in a while "if I don't succeed I just ask Aunt Vera." 

Needless to say...We all had a wonderful Christmas.  But now we are ready for the new year to begin!

Winter Garden A Glow & Santa

As has become a Christmas Tradition, we took the kids to the Botanical Garden for their Winter Garden A Glow.  We love going there each year.  This year, we decided to visit Santa while we were there. 

Here is Keagan telling him that he wants Markers for Christmas.

Deker asked for a swather, a concrete pumper truck and a trackhoe.  Just a little side note.  Andrew and I explained to Deker that sometimes Santa can't get you what you ask for but that Santa will bring him something that he knows he will like.  Deker then told us "As long as he doesn't bring me a doll or any GIRL things!!"

I LOVE this picture of Bauer.  As soon as he sat on his lap, he leaned right on him.  His request this year...a blue car.  Nice and simple!

Meeting one of Santa's reindeer.  This one is Prancer and he it 5 years old. 

Little of This, Little of That

I am quite behind.  I kept thinking I needed to update, but just never got around to doing it.  For Thanksgiving this year, we headed to Battle Mountain, Nevada where my brother and his wife hosted us all for a wonderful Thanksgiving.  My boys had a lot of fun playing with my brothers boys (they have 3 boys that are similar ages to my boys).  Bauer at one point, pulled out all the firetrucks for this firetruck round-up. 

It snowed a little one day in December, so I sent the boys out to play in the snow.  They all decided they needed to "mow" the snow.  Here are Keagan and Deker playing with the mowers. 

Then it was Bauer's turn to play with a mower.

He decided it needed a wash and used the little water falling from the gutter spout to clean it off. 

In October, my kids got to play with the toy kitchen my sister, Vera, made our nieces.  A week later while I was at the store Deker said to me "Mom I wish I had a toy kitchen".  A call was placed to Aunt Vera and when we saw each other for Thanksgiving she gave them their new kitchen.  Deker was so excited and there were a few times on the drive home when I would hear him say "Mom, I am so excited for my new kitchen."  They LOVE playing with it!

Keagan's Flag Football

Keagan is finally getting into the stage where he want's to play sports, which makes me happy, but also just a little nervous.  When I found out about a little low-key flag football league, we immediately signed up Keagan.  This Flag football league is a 4 week, one hour on Saturday only thing which I thought would be perfect to Keagan to try out to see if he likes it.  Last Saturday was his second game and he really seems to be enjoying it.  Here are some pictures of his latest game.  He is the boy with the yellow jackets and jersey and gray sweats. 

So it is easier, he has his hands on the ball in this picture.

I noticed Keagan lining up like this which I hadn't seen him do this particular stance yet.  Then I looked at the boy across from him and he has the same exact stance as well.

Build A Bear

Ever since the very first time I saw Build-A-Bear, I had always wanted to take my kids (at that point someday kids) to Build-A-Bear and let them pick out their own bears, but the start had never aligned up until yesterday.  When Andrew and I were talking about Keagan's track break we decided that we were try to do some really fun things on the days that Andrew was home, almost like a staycation.  Yesterday (Thursday) we decided to take them for their first (and probably only) Build-A-Bear visit. 

The boys each picked out the stuffed animal of their choice (with a little help from Andrew and I to make sure they all didn't get the same thing).  Then they got to help stuff the animal.  After the stuffing was in, they each picked out a little heart, make a wish on it and then put it in the bear before the worker closes it up. 

After that, they go over to this washing/drying/brushing station where they had a ton of fun brushing their animals. 

Next was picking out clothes.  This was the part that I wasn't sure how it was going to go, but when I saw the plain white shirts that were a lot cheaper than a whole outfit, I though why not have each boy get a shirt and a pair of shorts and then we will use my Silhouette to personalize them with a design of their choice on the front and the bear's name on the back.  They loved it!  So...without further ado, I now introduce you to the newest members of our house. 

First up is Keagan's bear Midnight.  After we got home, Keagan chose a football for the front in the color Orange because I told him no to black. 

Next up in Deker's dog Spot (you can't really see, but there are spots on this dog).  Deker choose a trackhoe in dark blue for the front of his dog's shirt.

Last, but not least is Bauer's dog Cocoa.  He choose a train in the light blue to go on the front of his dog's shirt. 

Here are the boys having their animals play together after getting dressed. 

All ready to go home in their houses.

The boys LOVED doing this and have truly loved their animals.  They have already been sleeping companions, comforters and playthings. 

MK Nature Center

This is the first week of Keagan's three week track break (he will go back the Monday after Thanksgiving).  In an effort to help me maintain some sort of sanity and to hopefully keep fighting to a minimum, I am trying to make sure we do different things each day.  Tuesday this past week was a really nice day so I took the boys down to the MK Nature Center.  They had a ton of fun running around.  They would usually run, stop to look at something and by the time I got there, they were ready to run to the next thing.

 Inside the building there is a stream simulator that the boys love to play in.