Presents!!

So Santa is a smart guy! He brought presents to Michigan and to Atlanta. The boys did a great job opening their gifts, and they actually took some time this year to look at each thing before moving onto the next gift. We did have a couple snafus with sharing the new things, but that seems to be the daily battle. The jury is still out on whether they should get the same thing or not!

Brian seems to like this a bit more than Andrew, but it's a great project for them to work on together. It is a model of a car that you rebuild the engine, lots of new names and pieces, but I'm sure we'll have it figured out in no time!

Surprise, Santa brought gifts to our house too. Telling the boys that story seemed to be our saving grace. If they seemed disappointed or too tired to leave the airport, we let them know that Santa probably stopped at our house too. Thank goodness he did!

All in all, it's been a wonderful Christmas season. We tried to put a little more meaning into the actual Christmas story and the birth of baby Jesus, and less emphasis on the gifts. I'm sure it will be a lesson that we work on every year.

We are excited to finish out 2011, and move on to another happy year!

Christmas in Michigan

We got to spend 6 days in Michigan celebrating Christmas. We got to do lots of cold weather activities, and we had lots of family time. It was great to see everyone all together, the kids have more fun each time we get together.

Grandma Cindy got all the kids matching pj's, super cute!

We went to the pottery place uptown to make cookie plates for Santa. The kids all participated surprisingly well!

helping to make the cookies

The first snow fall on Christmas Eve, it was all melted by that afternoon

The second snowfall on the day we left, but enough to make a Frosty!

A Christmas Story

Andrew's Preschool Christmas show. All the kids end up on the church altar, quite a feat that some of them make it the whole time. It was no surprise that the first group up was the 4 year old girls (the most patient and well-behaved). Andrew's class was part of the stable animals.

Our little donkey!

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

Took the kids to the center for puppetry arts to see Rudolph. It was a great show, and the boys did really well. Matthew was scared of the abominable snow monster, and Andrew needed a bathroom (stretching) break, but we made it all the way through.

After the show you could go upstairs and make your own shadow puppet.

Matty just liked the markers

Andrew is on the end! Not bad!

Puppeteers at work!

A Stone Mountain Christmas

We took my family to the Stone Mountain Christmas as a belated birthday gift for my Dad. It was a little chilly, but lots of fun things to do.

The joke of our tickets was the "unlimited hot chocolate", but between the 10 of us, we easily had 2 each trying to stay warm!

On the train around the mountain, they play Christmas music and have lights every now and then

The best part of the night, Polar Express 4D. They break the movie down to about 20 minutes, but there is falling snow, shaking seats, and two kids that loved it! As we were leaving the theater the fireworks had started. It definitely put us in the Christmas spirit!

Halloween 2011

It appears that all major events in our lives these days have many days of celebration. Halloween was no exception, there are parties, trunk or treat, and of course trick or treating. It took us a few weeks to figure out costumes, Andrew went through most of the superheros (we're not really sure where he learned about them?). He finally decided on Spiderman, and Matthew got to be a dragon (from the box of Halloween past)

Getting ready to trunk or treat at church. Totally surprised that Andrew would wear the mask. When the costume came in the mail, we got him all dressed up, and he asked, "can I see me?". It was very cute to watch him look in the mirror, and try to touch his reflection. Matthew on the other hand, not a huge fan of the costume!

My goal is to have a GOOD costume, maybe next year

A special thank you to Beth's nephew who snuck up behind Matt and fastened the hat on. It was soo cute, and he didn't seem to mind it once it was on

They totally got the concept of trick or treating, even Matt added the phrase to his ever-growing vocabulary

showing Dad how it works

*on a side note, candy was tricky this year with the whole nut allergy, but we picked out all the "bad" stuff, and let them go to town on the rest. Our pile became significantly smaller, and thankfully was gone much faster!!

A Fall Music Show

The 3 & 4 year olds at Andrew's school put on a fall music festival complete with a parade of costumes. It was so cute!! We heard fall songs for weeks, so it was great to go to the performance and see the kids sing. Andrew only participated a little bit, but no meltdowns!

Trying to get a picture of 8 - 3yr olds, good fun

Got lucky and stood in the right place for the costume parade. Someone was in such shock by the whole production that he walked right past us without noticing!

Pumpkins

We hit up our local pumpkin patch, and tried to find the perfect pumpkin. On a scary note, both boys can now lift the pumpkins, I'm afraid in years to come, we may be going home with all the ones we break! Fortunately, we found some great ones!

Thankfully they could not pick this one up, even with a little teamwork

The cars driving by are much more interesting than Mom trying to take pictures

Everybody getting in on the action

It got too dark outside, so we had to finish at the table

Box Fun

We are re-doing the downstairs bathroom, so we've had this toilet box in our house for about 5 weeks. Needless to say, the boys have found a really fun use for the box. I think it's almost hit its limit, but it does seem to make a nice slide!

Not a box, but we've had a blast playing in the leaves this fall

They fit in it too. I keep joking that I'm going to send them to their Grandma's house. It even has built in air holes, I think they'll be good, I'll just make sure to add in some snacks!

Getting Sooo Big

We say it all the time, but it's hard to believe how big our little guys are! They spend most of their time together, mostly playing, mixed with some arguments over who had the toy first. They are definitely best buds! The conversations are starting, mostly, "C'mon B" or "B, let me help you", that one is often followed by a resounding "no". It's very sweet to see their friendship beginning, but still crazy enough to listen for the roughhousing.

If big brother does it this way, then so do I

I'm thinking the see-saw will even out as they get bigger, for now I am really happy to have Grandma at the other end to make sure everyone stayed on!

A little trip to VA

The boys had a break from school, so I thought that would be a great excuse to go visit Grandma. With a little help from a lot of people/things (Cousin Mandy, Chick-fil-A, and ring pops) the boys and I made the trip up all by ourselves. It was great!! We had a really nice visit, and thankfully, Brian flew up to help us drive home. Really good trip, super impressed with the boys!

Have to check out Grandma's bike, no pics with Matthew, he was terrified

This was our second trip to the park, the boys loved it

Customary family photo

There was a dairy farm about 10 minutes away, so Brian got to mark off another bucket list item by milking a cow, surprisingly clean!

We found a great exit to stop at on the drive home. Monkey Joe's, Moe's, and Baskin Robbins. Good times!

Greek Festival

How about a little fun at the Greek Festival?!?

Matthew, Hayden, Brody, & Andrew (what a cute bunch)! On a side note, I should have included the lovely image with their dads!

I have always sworn against carnival rides, can't believe I broke at the first sign of peer pressure. Needless to say everyone loved it and survived!

Matty was excited to try the "choo-choo", he however turned whenever we tried to take his photo, so this will do.

Lunch & the Lake

We got to spend a wonderful weekend at the lake (thanks to the Johnstons' & Nevins')

It was so nice to get out of town for the weekend, and the boys all had a blast playing together

Ethan attempted to teach Andrew how to play ping pong. It was entertaining

Almost as entertaining as watching Andrew fish

One afternoon the boys decided to play "lunch", they carried their lunch boxes around filled with "food", and moved all around the house until they found a quiet spot to eat (this was about the 7 or 8th location)

Having Some Fun . . .

The weather is finally turning cooler, yeah hooray! We've been able to get outside and enjoy. I am terrified of our driveway, especially Matt riding a bike down the driveway, with Andrew pushing, yikes. I know there will be more bruises and scrapes, but it's hard to believe that we've got 2 steady walkers, and a street full of awesome kids to play with.

We love the zoo!! It took him about 10 minutes to get up here, and he was determined to do it himself, had to get a picture! Matt on the other hand is terrified of the statues, and runs away crying.

He does however, make a cute meerkat. He does have a funny way about popping his head up, so kind of fitting! On a side note, we've started to let Matt walk the zoo. He loves to explore, so it's perfect, and of course we've got the stroller for when he gets tired.

Our fun activity of the summer was to do a class at gymboree. The boys both loved it, and it was a nice way to get out during the summer. The thing I love about this picture is the matching outfits. They've got very few of the same clothes, and Andrew actually picked out the matching shirts, so cute!