A Very Merry Christmas

The month of December was a complete blur filled with overindulgence on candies, cookies, cakes, hot chocolate, and anything involving sugar and frosting.  I don't think I had a single complex carb or vegetable the entire month.  And I've gone the entire month without exercising...there goes my waistline.  Along with all of the holiday goodies and fantastic eating, we've seen Christmas lights, played in the snow and went to see A Christmas Carol, which was fantastic. We've had so much fun being with family. Devin had the entire week of Christmas off and I'm not looking forward to Wednesday when he'll have to go back to work.  I love having my family around me and having no where to go and making it up a day at a time.

The boys were able to meet Santa for the first time (well they met him last year but didn't really care for the guy) and Nate even managed to actually request a present this year.  Lights.  Yup, all  he wanted for Christmas was a strand of Christmas lights.  Done and done.  I am not a mom who is willing to take her children to the mall just to sit on Santa's lap so it was a good thing I happen to know the real Santa.  He stopped off at our house a few days before Christmas and when he came in the boys were practically naked, one of them had a stinky diaper, and one of them started shooting him repeatedly with a toy gun.  Welcome, Santa.  Does that put them on the naughty list, or just the I'll-be-keeping-my-eye-on-you list?

And it has been years since I've had my picture with 

Santa so I requested a picture of my own. I love this guy! 

And we tried to get out Christmas cards this year, but we were all sick for the first three weeks of the month so we improvised.  And you would think that if we gave the boys some candycanes to eat as we took pictures, that it would make them happy.  But even with candy, taking pictures is the most miserable thing you could ask them to do.  Needless to say, this year we did not send out Christmas cards.



Here is our tree...er my parent's tree.  Since we are living with them, myhas had to scale back on her house decorations and tree decorations.  You'll notice that the top half of the tree has glass ornaments and ribbon.  very pretty. But the bottom half of tree is left undecorated because there are two sets of little hands that cannot resist touching and pulling...and breaking everything that is within reach.

The Sunday before Christmas.  They love to play in the garden area in front of my parents house, so this is the only place I can quickly catch a picture of them while they are smiling.

My little men

Christmas Day is a whirlwind of presents and food.  When we woke the boys up in the morning we asked asked them if they knew who came in the night.  Nathan said "Santa! Presents! Oh boy!" Every time we go to wake them up in the morning or from their nap, they always say "Open presents! Santa Came!" or something along those lines.  They seem to be a little disappointed when they run out to where the Christmas tree was and realize that Santa did not come.  They are going to learn real quick that Santa only comes once a year.
We spent Christmas eve and Christmas morning with the Farrs and the rest of Christmas at our house/my parents house.

I received a fat stack from Dev.  Best. Gift. Ever. 

I won't even tell you how much was in there.  It'd make ya jealous.

And see that peg board behind me?  Dev made that for me as an earring/necklace/jewelry holder.  

October Happenings

Seriously long post with a lot of pictures, but it was easier to do it as one long messy list of happenings than to do each one in their own individual post.  So there.

What a fun month we had!  Apples and caramels, pumpkin patches, witch hunts,pumpkins made out of pudding, pumpkin carving, pumpkin seeds, and trick or treating.  All in one month. 

While babysitting my sisters kids, we went on a scavenger hunt to find all of the witches set up around Gardner Village.  We had lunch and each of the kids got to pick out some candy.
Some of my favs
 
 
 
Cam has to dance whenever he hears a good beat

Nate’s new fun trick is walking backwards, and here he is trying it down some steps

Cam eating his sucker that he picked out from the candy shop.  But what’s more interesting is the way he is sitting in his car seat.  Silly boy.

Nate picked out a sucker that glows. 


Pumpkin Patch

 
 
 






Carving Pumpkins




Making/Eating Pudding Pumpkins

Halloween Harvest 5 Miler @ Black Island Farms

I ran a 5 mile race.  I beat my estimated finish time by 3 whole minutes.  So I’m pretty happy with that.  While I had run 5 miles a couple of times, this was hard because it wasn't on a treadmill and the course was out in the middle of fields, so there wasn’t much to look at.  And I could see the finish line (a pumpkin on top of a tower) for most of the race and it NEVER seemed to get closer! And it was freezing.  But I did awesome (for me anyways) and I got a glass mug and shirt for participating.  And that’s why I enter races :)  It was at a farm that had some fun activities for the boys and because I had entered the race, Devin and the boys got in for free (a $28 value!).  

My brother and his friend ran the half marathon.  My brother is on the left and is trying to help me train for a half marathon in the spring. Yikes! 

The boys LOVED these slides that were at the farm!








They both wanted to go down this slide by themselves.   I’m sure that when I came out at the bottom with a screaming little boy (Nate), everyone thought I was torturing him by making him go down such a large scary slide.  But it was because I wouldn’t let him do it by himself.

Halloween

Enjoying some pre-trick or treating suckers



And it was FANTASTIC weather for the end of Ocotber.
75 degrees, my friends! So we have been playing outside a ton.
They love their bikes.

 

Stopping for a sucker break (that he kept in his bike seat)


Trick or Treating
Nate was totally into the trick or treating thing.  He grabbed my hand and we walked to each house to ring the doorbell.  After each house he would say “next house” or, while pointing at a house, “this one” and pull me along to get the next bit of candy.  We had to keep both of the boys from going in to every house that we went to.  We also taught the boys to say “Yeeha!” when asked what a cowboy says, so of course we had to share that with everyone.