Thanksgiving

This was the first year we have ever stayed home for Thanksgiving and the first year I have ever had to cook the whole dinner by myself. I was a little nervous but it wasn't too bad! I wish I would have taken a picture of the turkey cause it looked awesome! My brother did come up to spend the weekend with us and the boys love their Uncle Ryan. Uncle Ryan even downloaded fart noises to his phone(yes, I guess there really is an app for that!) and the boys thought that was the the funniest thing ever and may I add just what you want to hear while eating turkey. Oh well, I guess it is a boy thing because Ryan thought it was pretty funny too!

Matthew and Brayden enjoyed having Uncle Ryan help with the Christmas tree. Brayden followed him around saying, "Come on Ryan come on" Then would grab his hand and drag him back to the tree to help some more :)

I didn't do a great job of getting the placing the star on the tree shot this year as you can't even see Brayden in the pic. Oh well, this is the boys favorite part!

It was a nice weekend full of football and gassy noises but fun was had by all!

Christmastime at Disneyland

Well, this was our last hurrah before the baby comes. We went to Disneyland (of course!) the 13th & 14th of November(I know the post is a little late). It was so fun! Disneyland sure goes all out for Christmas and it was fun to get into the Christmas spirit! Here are some highlights:

The massive tree on main street. Not that you can tell from this picture as the lady took it up close but trust me it is pretty big!

Here we are waiting for the fireworks to start. We were standing in the street and this nice man asked me if I wanted to sit down on his bench for a little while since I was pregnant. It was so nice! I started talking to his wife and come to find out they live in Ucon, Idaho (just outside Idaho Falls). Small world (no pun intended)! We keep talking and come to find out some of her girls were in my mother-in-law's class at school. Even smaller world! Anyway, it was nice of him to let a poor pregnant woman sit down for a few minutes, I guess there are still considerate people in the world :)

Admiring the lights of small world.

We ate at this little BBQ place at the park and they have live music. This singing cowboy was walking around and singing and Matthew insisted that he needed to talk to him. And show him his picture! He sure isn't shy any more!

We also went to Santa's village and Matthew jumped right up on Santa's lap before this he has always been very afraid of Santa. Matthew told Santa that he needed more trains, tracks and cargo's for Christmas and that Santa needed to bring some for his Brayden brother too. Brayden wouldn't go too close to Santa, only close enough to grab a candy cane.

Matthew also decided that he isn't scared of the characters anymore and gave each one a big hug! It was pretty cute. Brayden was a different story and kept a safe distance!

3 out of the 4 looking, not bad! At least everyone was smiling!




Does this one really need a caption?

Brayden waiting for the Christmas parade to start. We had been walking around the stores just for something to do to kill time. Brayden broke this lollipop and I would have felt to guilty putting it back so I bought it. Talk about a rip off! And of course you can't buy something for one kid and not the other. $6.50 for 2 lollipops really? Oh well at least it kept them quiet while we waited for the parade to start!

Christmas List

So the past few Sundays in the paper we have been getting the store's toy catalogs for Christmas. My boys have been loving this. They lay the paper out on the ground and go page by page looking at all of the toys talking about which ones are cool (which is most of them).

Here is the Walmart ad. It looks like they fought over it, right? Nope Matthew gets out his scissors and cuts out all of the toys he really wants and...

Puts them on the fridge! Our fridge is almost completely covered in toys that we "need!" I wish I would have saved the Toys R US ad. Matthew didn't cut that one apart but circled all of the toys in the whole catalog! He even circled some of the girl stuff and when Nate asked him about it he told Nate that it was for me. What a nice kid!

Halloween 2009

Halloween just gets more fun each year as our kids get older and get more into it. We had 2 Thomas the Trains this year because our kids are train crazy!

Matthew with his pumpkin. I wasn't feeling all that great the week before Halloween so we didn't get out to get pumpkins until Halloween day and all of the stores were sold out! Luckily our neighbors had grown some and gave one to Matthew. It was pretty small and hard to carve but Matthew enjoyed watching me do it!

He was very spooky according to Matthew.

It has also been hilarious to see the boys with their candy. Brayden is very protective of his. On Halloween his bucket was pretty full but he wouldn't let anyone help him carry it, he wasn't letting it out of his sight!

When we get out the candy Matthew very carefully picks out 4 pieces (that is his favorite number, everything has to be done in 4s. Like when we are at the park I can't say, "2 more minutes and then we need to go" it has to be 4 minutes!). Then he unwraps each piece and slowly eats each one. Brayden on the other hand can't get the candy in his mouth fast enough. He doesn't always finish each piece because he is so excited to get another one in his mouth! It is too funny to see their very different personalities. It makes me very curious to see what number 3 will be like!

Disneyland Again!

So a few weeks ago we went to Disneyland again! We just can't keep away! It was fun to see it all decorated for Halloween. It was so crowded! We got there on Friday night and thought we would sneak in and maybe catch the fireworks but we couldn't get in because Disneyland park was full! I was shocked! I have been to Disneyland many times and I have never heard of them closing it because they were filled to capacity! Nuts! We just made sure we were there bright and early Saturday morning and it wasn't too bad. The boys didn't seem to mind the crowds. After every ride Brayden would get off and say, "That so fun Mom, I love that ride!"
One other funny thing that happened was we were getting on the Winnie the Pooh ride for the 3rd time (it was the only ride with no wait!) and the ride operator was going through her speech to pull down the bar as far as you can. Matthew stood up and said I can't pull on the bar because my mommy's tummy is too big and I can't pull it down. This girl started cracking up laughing along with Nate. It sure is nice to be reminded by your 4 year old that you are getting large.





Anyway here is my favorite picture from the trip:

This is the risk you take when you ask some random person to take a picture for you! Oh well, one day we will get a good family pic at Disneyland!

My housekeeper

He works for cookies, candy and tomatoes!

Seriously he switched the laundry for me with no help from me!

And he is a pretty good cook too!

1st day of his 2nd week of Preschool

So I couldn't for the life of me find our camera to take a picture of Matthew on his 1st day of the 1st week of preschool! Bummer! But here are some pictures from the second week!


I couldn't get him to just stand and smile he had to keep shouting, "Preschool!"


One of his many works of art.

And Matthew just being Matthew! I think that he likes preschool. Everyday when I pick him up and ask him how it went he says, "Sorry Mom I can't tell you!" Sometimes I can get him to tell me bits of pieces but he still wants to go every time so I take that as he likes it!

On the first day we were driving to drop him off and I was asking him if he was excited. He told me that the last time he didn't make any friends (the previous week there was an open house and he got to meet his teacher and classmates). My heart just about broke. I felt so bad for him and I felt really guilty leaving him there. But we talked about how to make friends by asking other kids to play. He thought about it and said, "Mom there was this one boy and he wasn't sharing. I am not going to ask him to be my friend!" He seems to be doing better and says that he plays with the other kids. I didn't think that it would be this hard to drop him off and walk away! I am not look forward to Kindergarten!

Here is our other crazy boy. He refuses to use any utensils but one morning he insisted on using a fork to eat his toast! Silly kid!

And here is what has been keeping Nate and I busy late at night! We canned about 40 jars of peaches! Whew! Now we have some pears, tomatoes, and some jam. I guess I know what we will be doing while watching conference!