Christmas Season

With Thanksgiving over, we wasted no time in getting the Christmas decorations up.  On Saturday we went and picked out a real Noble Fir tree.  For the last three years we've had a little two foot fake tree up high on the counter since the boys were young and I knew they would destroy it.  I figured this is the first year that the boys were old enough to leave the tree along and I was comfortable in having ornaments out.  The boys really decorated the entire tree by themselves.  They loved hanging the ornaments and specifically the candy canes.  Lincoln tried hard to make sure the top of the tree was covered and he even tried to help Logan see that spots of the tree were bare and needed decorations.  I still left many of our fragile ornaments in the boxes and hope to get those out next year.  This will be a good test year to see how many, if any, ornaments get broken over the next month.

Logan took decorating very seriously.  He learned very quickly that he couldn't put all the ornaments in one place. 

Lincoln was a great helper and directed where to put the ornaments.

Admiring their work. 

Logan was very proud of his work - and so was I.

The end result.  It is wonderful to wake up to a fresh Christmas tree smell in the home and to see a beautiful tree that reminds me of this joyous and exciting time of year!

Thanksgiving

I was happy to host Thanksgiving this year. Our home isn't huge but it's big enough to have family over for a few days and to host a feast! I have a lot to be thankful for and I am very grateful for my blessings. I'm so thankful for my sweet hubby. I can go on an on and tell you all the reasons why but let's just say that he's wonderful. I'm also very grateful for my boys. Everyday isn't perfect and there's moments when I wonder how we will ever survive day to day life with two very independent thinking, smart and loud little boys but they are my heart. They really are super cute, sweet, caring and they make me laugh.  

We had some family over from both sides and the cousins loved playing with each other. Nancee and Troy brought their family up from Tucson and Grammy and Grandpa brought Talicee and a friend over from CA. It was an enjoyable day. Dinner was delish and dessert was even better. (See below picture.) We visited, played games, watched movies, went for a walk, jumped on the trampolines at Skyzone, and a few of us even got to go to turkey tennisize at our tennis courts. It was a fun and exhausting weekend. 

We also had this visitor trying to join the festivities (see picture below) and I was not excited

one bit about it.  Luckily Nancee saw him on the tile before anyone got stung.  It appears that he was brought in on the felt bottom of Logan's rain boots upon returning from his walk with Grammy.  Rick and I scoured the house with the black light and thankfully didn't find any others.  There are a ton of reasons why we love our house and living where we do but I will tell you that I am really not happy about having scorpions around.  This is the first time ever, after three years of living here, that we found one in our house. Luckily, I truly think it got brought in but still I'm not thrilled about it. 

 Lincoln made this turkey leg hat at school. 

 Logan's pilgram/indian hat. 

Logan's turkey handprint.

 On Wednesday evening we took the kids to Chuck E Cheese to use up some energy.  Lincoln loves to play air hockey. 

 Sadie liked riding the rides. 

 All the cousins riding a simulation roller coaster ride together. 

 The kids helped to prep by shucking the corn on the cob. 

Grandpa seemed to enjoy the visit and he got a lot of extra sleep in. The kids loved trying to wake him up and scaring him. 

 The dinner buffet. 

 We took advantage of the beautiful fall weather and set up our dinner tables outside in the backyard. 

Michaela and Jared stopped by for an hour to eat dinner with us. 

The dessert bar.  Yummy!  I decided it would be fun to have something more than the traditional pies.   What is more fun than a chocolate fountain with three pounds of chocolate flowing through it?!  I couldn't think of anything better. We dipped apples, rice krispies, strawberries, marshmallows and bananas for dessert. 

 Erica

 Lincoln

 Sadie

 Logan

Logan and Sadie danced together. 

Boys School Work

There are always painting, drawings, completed homework packets, spelling test and other work coming home from school with the boys.  I want them to be able to look back one day and see all that they got to do to learn and grow so I try to capture most of it on the blog so they can at least see a picture of it.  I don't keep everything but some of it is so cute that we want to remember it and I save it in their files.

 Lincolns Fall hand print wreath.

 Lincoln drew a house and on the left is good morning time and the right shows good night time.

 Lincoln's practice spelling words. 

 More practice spelling word homework. 

Lincoln's pumpkin face.

 Lincoln's cat in the pumpkin card.

 Logan's grocery collage. 

 Logan's hand prints. 

 Logan's collage house. 

 Logan's butterfly that he painted with his feet. 

 Logan's finger painting. 

 Logan at school. 

 At school applying glue (with his left hand).

 Snack time at school. 

 The Halloween card he made us with his foot...

 and this adorable picture was on the inside.

Visit to Mom's Place

I went to Southern CA last month for a work trip in October.  I pushed my flight out to the last one of the night so that I could go to mom's place in Fullerton to have dinner and see Calee, Talicee, Tevye, Dana and the kids.  I hadn't seen Danica for so long I was amazed at how much she had grown and how different she looked.  She had just turned one, Caden had turned nine and that day was Vance's birthday and he was six.  It was also Dana's birthday that week (I won't tell you how old she is) but I was glad that I could be there to celebrate with them all.

 Danica and me.

This was the skirt that I got her for her birthday.  Pretty dang cute if you ask me. 

Girls Night Out

My friend Lisa invited me to go hang out with the girls since her sister was in town from WA.  They decided to go play darts and do karaoke. It was nice to meet Lisa's sister and as always, we had a good time!

Me and Lisa

 Lisa was brave and sang a few songs. 

Christine, Lisa and me.

Happy Birthday Lincoln!

Lincoln turned 5 last week!  I can't believe it. He's so tall that everyone expects that he's already five so now the age matches his height.  He's definitely becoming a big kid.  He likes to wear "cool clothes" and sunglasses, play his Nintendo DS, watch Star Wars and play Legos. All things big kids like to do.

Everyday he amazes me with how bright and smart he is.  Lincoln is incredibly social and is doing very well academically and socially in kindergarten.  He makes new friends easily and is often the one taking charge of the group.  He's a natural leader that way.  He can also be very stubborn so we're trying to learn to channel that in a positive way. He is a good helper around the house and loves to play Legos with daddy.  Lincoln is sweet and fairly in tune to others feelings.

Here are a few more favorites/facts about Lincoln.

• Sleep: Lincoln has always been a good sleeper.  The problem is having to get him up in the morning.  He, like his parents, is not a morning person. Having to make it to school by 8:20 has proven to be a challenge some days and means most days, we have to wake him up to get him there on time.  I can't complain too much because it's nice on the weekends.
• Brother: Although he and Logan play rough most of the time, it's nice to see Lincoln start to play with Logan nicely.  Logan will often try and do whatever Lincoln is doing, and if they can get a laugh out of each other then they do well together. 
• Interests: Lincoln still loves Legos.  He mostly likes to build ships and play with the guys.  He also enjoys playing his new DS, the ipad and playing with his Power Ranger guys.  He also likes to cook or help with anything in the kitchen. 
• Feet:  Lincoln will be having foot surgery next month to correct TaloTarsal Dislocation Sydrome that he has. It requires a screw like implant in each of his feet (one foot first and the other next year) that will allow the arch of his foot to be correct.  This will allow him to go without orthodics.  We found this by coincidence in an x-ray for a foot that we though he broke.  It wasn't broken but instead the doctor found this.  Lincoln is really brave and is going to be a trooper through surgery. 
• Favorites Include:
• TV Show: Phineas and Ferb, NinjaGo, and Clone Wars
• Music: Maroon 5, Taylor Swift and all hit pop music
• Food: Sugar.  Anything related to sugar.  Lincoln is still allergic to strawberries and ranch. He loves honey butter toast, corn, roast beef sandwiches, chicken nuggets and bean soup. Lincoln isn't much for a fruit eater but he loves apples.  
• Activities:  Lincoln likes to play outside on the jungle gyms but mostly he's happy playing inside doing Legos, coloring, reading, drawing (he's a great little artist) or listening to music and dancing.
• Fears: I don't think Lincoln has any fears outside the normal kid fear of being lost and the dark.
• Clothes: Lincoln grows like a weed and therefore grows right out of his clothes.  The problem is he's so tall and skinny that it makes shopping for pants hard. He's in a 5T adjustable waist pant (if they don't have adjustable waist we can't get them because he has to have the length but they will fall off if they don't adjust) and a 6T shirt.  His shoe size is 11.5 - 12 depending on the style of the shoe.  
• Primary: Lincoln loves to go to primary and has enjoyed being a CTR4. He is so excited each week to show us the picture he colored in class. 

Lincoln is a special little guy and I'm grateful that he's in our family.  We love him so much!

Since we were back from our birthday before Lincoln's actual birthday, we took him to Chuck E. Cheese for lunch that day for something a little special. 

Mr. Competitive.

 Lincoln picked an ice cream cake this year.

 Happy birthday sweet pea.  I love you!