Christmas 2012

Christmas was great this year. I got all our shopping and projects done early so I wasn't stressed when it got close to Christmas. I should do that every year because it was so nice to focus on the fun aspects of the season.

One of Shawn's favorite gifts was his night vision goggles he got from his aunt. He really thinks he is big stuff going around the house with his nerf gun and his night vision goggles.

Evan still loves anything Mickey

This is the only family Christmas photo we got. I hate how I look in it, but here it is anyway. 

Christmas Eve program at my Dad's house as usual. Here is Shawn a couple of his cousins. 



Christmas morning was so much fun with the boys this year. We had to be up to my Dad's house by 10 to talk to my sister who is on a mission. Our boys were sleeping in but I didn't want to wake them up and tell them it was Christmas so I stood outside their door with a bunch of bells. I rang the bells until I heard them starting to move and talk then I ran back to my bed with the camera ready. Shawn came bursting into our room telling us it was Christmas and Santa had come. He knew Santa had come because he left a few presents under their small tree in the loft just like Shawn had requested. Shawn told Evan he could open a present first and then Evan sat there nice while Shawn took a turn. They were such sweet, polite boys.  

Opening gifts from Santa

After a while they discovered their stockings. 

Shawn spent well over a month making a calendar for Jon for his office. He spent so much time planning out what he was going to do and making each month special. It was really cute. You should have seen how excited he was to give it to his dad. 

This is a random little book I bought called, "We're going on a bear hunt". I thought this picture was funny because everyone looks so confused for some reason.

One of the highlights for the boys was getting their Leapsters. One of my neighbors gave me their old one and then I happened to find a lady selling one with a bunch of games for super cheap so both boys ended up with their own. 

Don't you love matching pajamas. :) 

And matching outfits.

Merry Christmas!!

December 2012

Here is my overall December post.

We went to the Riverwoods to see Santa and the lights. We got there before Santa did so the boys were able to check out his chair.

 

I don't know why the lighting was so terrible, but this is the best shot we got with Santa. As expected, Evan wanted nothing to do with the bearded stranger. 

They also had free horse drawn carriage rides around the Riverwoods

And you have to take a little time out to dance to the music

We decorated gingerbread men. 

My finished product

Jon's little man

Shawn's creation. He took some bites out of his gingerbread man after we took this picture. 

Then the next day he realized how sad he was because his gingerbread man didn't look as good.

We took advantage of some of the nice days before the snow hit. Here the boys are taking a break at the park. 

Shawn got brave enough to start climbing the pyramid at the park. He loves it, but it scares me to death. 

This red-headed kid at the park was also named Evan so every time Shawn yelled out, "Evan, come here." or "Evan try this" the red-headed kid came running.

We went to temple square and City Creek to check out the lights.

The boys built a snow cave in the backyard

and we went sledding. Well the boys went sledding. I just watched. 

Shawn made Natalie pull him up the hill. 

It was a busy, fun December

November

I find myself only having time about once a month to do anything with the blog so I guess we are having monthly updates.

At the end of October I took Shawn out of his preschool. We were paying....well.....a lot for this preschool and it was way too easy for Shawn. He came home a few times asking if he could go to a harder school. I don't blame the teachers or anything. I think if this was Shawn's first year of preschool it would have been perfect. However, he is wanting to read and do math and things like that and they were focusing on one letter a week and learning to count. Currently I am teaching Shawn at home and he is loving it. I have bought some workbooks and beginner reader books and different things. He has passed off book 11 of the 20 pack that I bought and he is always asking for more math to do. He doesn't get that from me. Plus we do A LOT of art projects. Man, it is time consuming, but worth it. I feel like he is being challenged. Now, come January, we might be putting him in a preschool because I am not sure I can keep up with it with a new baby.  

 

This picture was actually taken sometime in October (see the Halloween pajamas). Shawn had woken up and immediately asked for me to print out a math problem worksheet for him. 

Amy and I took our kids to BYU one afternoon. We ventured into the museum of art which had this exhibit with giant helium balloons and fans blowing them all around. The kids thought it was the greatest thing ever. 

For one of our personal "field trips" for school I took the boys to the Clarke Planetarium downtown.

This is Evan playing with the machine that explains how clouds are formed. 

They also really enjoyed the static ball thing

Evan asked me to take picture after picture of him on the "planets"

 This is the GIANT marble maze (do they have a name?) Shawn literally spent 30 minutes here watching it. Evan and I just sat on the floor waiting for him. The only reason we left was the large group of stinky Junior High kids that showed up for a field trip.

The boys begged to go out and play in the first good snow storm. It was still freezing, windy and the snow was blowing sideways. I kept trying to convince them (especially Evan) not to go out because I didn't want to go through the hassle of getting them ready only to have them turn around and come back in after 2 minutes. Surprisingly enough, they stayed out for about 45 minutes.

Until Evan decided he was frozen

A couple days later the snow was all gone, but this snowman in our yard survived for a while.

Shawn's teeth have started to get wiggly. One was especially wiggly a couple weeks ago. That night Shawn asked me to help him floss his teeth and while I was in there I decided to see how that tooth was doing so I gave it a little budge and it fell right out. Shawn was so excited and was even more thrilled when the Tooth Fairy came during the night. He will probably lose another one here before Christmas and then he can sing that song, "All I want for Christmas are my two front teeth." :)

Happy Halloween

Our Halloween festivities started with a party the Saturday before with my family. We had a costume fashion show, games and lunch. The annual doughnut eating contest was a hit.

 

 I am sure that my sister Amy would kill me for posting this picture with her mouth wide open, but she doesn't really look at my blog so...oh well. I wanted to post this one of Evan trying so hard to eat his doughnut which got much harder when Alex kept grabbing it.

 That's better. Forget the no hands rule.

 We had to move the game indoors because the bees discovered us and wouldn't get off the doughnuts.

The night before Halloween we finally got a chance to carve pumpkins or color pumpkins in Evan's case.

 

We all hate cleaning out the pumpkins, but my boys are the worst at hiding their disgust.

 Our finished pumpkins. We tried to coach Shawn on how to do pumpkins freehand and tried to explain that he needed big enough spaces to let light in. His response, "I will do it as I wish so leave me be." Then he cried when we turned the lights off and hardly any light came through his tiny carvings. Don't worry, we helped him fix it. (Shawn's is in the far left of this picture)

 Halloween morning the boys watched a Halloween cartoon

I made some pumpkin pancakes, but Evan went to the cupboard and cried for this for breakfast instead.

  Finally it was time to go trick-or-treating. My cute little knight and dragon. Shawn claimed that the job of a knight is to protect dragons. I like that idea.

 Evan still wasn't sure what was happening.

 One more shot before letting them go. (Notice Shawn's pumpkin with the enlarged shapes)

 Heading off with a bunch of the daddy's and kids of the neighborhood.

I never got a picture of Jon in his costume. He was Bob Ross, the painter who used to be on PBS. He would paint the landscapes and often use the phrase, "happy little tree".

Happy Halloween!!!