Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Every morning for the last couple of weeks we have woken up to Karlee singing to Colton "Santa Claus is Coming to Town". I love it. She will be singing and Colton will be laughing. It's great way to start the day.  She loves that song, except when she's crying and we sing it to her then she gets mad :)
Enjoy! 

Christmas Happenings

We are so ready for Christmas. We actually put our Christmas tree up the week of Thanksgiving and Karlee has been asking every day if it's Christmas ever since. Santa is everywhere and Karlee is getting so confused as to who the real Santa is. She's knows the one at Yankee Candle (who is there year round) is the "real" one but she isn't quite sure why he keeps showing up different places beside Yankee Candle when usually we can only see him when we go there (the rest of the year)....like the book store, or in the Thanksgiving Day Parade, or at the mall, or on TV. So very confusing for a 4 year old. She is very concerned that when we move we won't ever get to see Santa again because we won't live by Yankee Candle.
Here are some of our Christmas activities that we've done thus far:

Story time with Santa

He was good, he even knew Karlee hasn't been eating her dinner.

We had to make a Christmas countdown chain so Karlee would stop asking us if it was Christmas.

In Colonial Williamsburg they have what is call "Grand Illuminations". Which is fireworks to kick off the Christmas season. We weren't going to go because our kids had colds but it's our last Christmas here so we had to go. We were glad we did. 

We had a picnic dinner and watch a Christmas show. Colton was NOT ok with sitting in his high chair while we were on the ground so we moved him to the ground and he actually did really well.

We saw the "real" Santa at Yankee Candle. Karlee asked for a Jasmine barbie. Hopefully Santa can pull through. Colton was a little scared of Santa until they gave him a candy cane then he was fine sitting there.

The only thing left is for Matt to get done with finals so we can party!! Only one more week...we can get through this...I hope. This is how Colton feels about it:

me too buddy, me too.

1st Hair Cut

Colton finally got his first hair cut. I've been trying to talk Matt into cutting in for a while but he was too worried that it would look funny and that Colton wouldn't let us do it anyway. But finally we did it and now he looks like such a big boy. He was actually really good and didn't mind the clippers at all. I gave him a sucker and he was as happy as a clam to sit there.

Before:

 During:

After: (not a very good after)

Halloween/Fall Fun

We had many Halloween festivities this year. It seems like we celebrated Halloween all October long. Pumpkin patches, ward Halloween party, friend Halloween party, school Halloween party, and of course trick-or-treating.

Karlee got to go to the pumpkin patch with her preschool

Karlee's cute class

The moment she picked out her pumpkin she wanted to paint it. Finally after a couple days that took place.

Our kids had a couple of different costumes, because Karlee couldn't decide what she wanted to be. Good thing we had lots of Halloween parties to go to so she could be more than one.

Halloween Party with friends.

Sports Family

Our awesome hosts

Trick-or-treating with friends

best picture I got of all the kids

Colton road in the stroller for the majority of trick-or-treating, finally at the end we let him out and he did not want to stop. He also got very upset if anyone touched his pumpkin.

Belcher Visit

Well right now we are waiting for hurricane Sandy to hit. Church got cancelled yesterday and today Matt doesn't have school and it's been raining non stop since Saturday night. Since we still have power I thought that I would catch up a little on the blog. We are praying that our power will stay on through all of this and that those that are north of us will stay safe as well.

Anyway, a couple weeks ago my parents came to town to visit. It's always a good time. I was wondering how Colton would do with them but he LOVED them both and of course Karlee does too.

Colton loves to look at books.

Since my parents have been to Williamsburg a time or two we decided to venture to Charlottesville. Some where none of us have been before. The weather wasn't great but the kids had a good time swimming...

We visited an apple orchard. It was beautiful. We drove up the mountain and then there it was sitting right on the top of the mountain over looking Charlottesville. It was really cool. If only the weather would have permitted it would have been a lot of fun picking apples and such.

Karlee wanted to pick apples so bad but she settled for picking a few out of the barrels in the barn instead.

it was cold and I remembered to bring a sweat shirt for everyone but myself.

After the apple orchard we decided to start making our way back to Williamsburg. We stopped in Richmond to go to the Children's museum. Both kids thought it was great. Karlee would have stayed forever if we would have let her.

Besides that we just hung out and relaxed. Well I guess I should say I relaxed while the kids were being entertained by grandma and grandpa.

She's 4!

Our little girl turned 4! We had such a fun day. Grandma and Grandpa Belcher were here and Karlee was in heaven! She requested waffles, chick-fil-a, and chocolate cupcakes. Easy to please! 

Karlee had preschool on her birthday so we brought cupcakes to share with her class.

Karlee's favorites
Food: waffles, pancakes, chicken nuggets, french fries, and chocolate milk
Color: purple and green
Movie: Rapunzel
Show: My little pony
Toy: Princesses and Barbies
Thing to do with daddy: Disney on Ice
Thing to do with mommy: Busch Gardens