The Spirit of Giving

Once the older two started sneaking around and making and wrapping Christmas gifts for the rest of the family, Oliver wanted to join in too. Oliver's idea of gift giving was finding anything he could and wrapping it up for someone. This drove me crazy to no end (he ended up wrapping a lot of stuff), but how I was I supposed to tell him no? Everyone really got a kick out of this on Christmas morning and when it was time to open presents from Oliver, it was fun to see which DVD or book he decided to wrap up. I was especially happy to see one DVD case that he had wrapped while the actual DVD was still in the DVD player - I had been looking for that case for quite a long time! Jonah was not happy, however, to see that Oliver had wrapped up a little plastic snowman that he got on the last day of school. Apparently, he had been looking for that too!

On Christmas Eve, Skyler was sad that he hadn't bought gifts for his brothers. I told him that maybe if he had brought this up several days ago, we could have done something about it. :) He had great gifts for his brothers though - a coupon saying that he would clean their room, $1, and a ring toss game that he had made in cub scouts. He and Jonah also worked together to make a board game for Oliver. It's nice to know my kids can be nice to each other sometimes!

Christmas Morning

This year we did a time lapse video for Christmas morning. I love it because it really tells the story of the morning in just three minutes!



And here's a picture of each kid with their Santa gift:

Ollie and his Doggos (with my new bike in the background)

Jonah and his Spiderman mega web blaster and boots

Skyler and his Domino Rally

A Visit to the Tree Lot

The other post was already a bit picture heavy, so I decided this topic gets its own.
The pumpkin patch that we love to visit transforms itself into a fun tree lot after the pumpkins all go away. We didn't buy a tree, but we still had a lot of fun playing!

Writing a letter to Santa. I don't know what #1 is supposed to be, but #2 (and #3, I guess) is Doggo (stuffed animal dogs). He would ask Santa for that every time with full confidence that Santa would know exactly what a Doggo is.

#5 says "Dad wants a bunny" and while we normally spell Oliver's nickname "Ollie", we take what we can get when he is doing the writing and spelling all by himself!

Skyler decided to sneak in the window. Bad timing, because look who was watching!

Santa peeks in to make sure everyone (ahem, Skyler) is behaving.

Preparing for Christmas

Last year I did a photo a day thing for December showcasing all of our fabulously fun Christmas activities (or lack of, which was more frequently the case). It was a great little project and I was looking forward to doing it again, and started off with a bang, but ultimately I just wasn't feeling it.

Here are some pictures that would have been part of that series, though.

The first thing one must do to prepare for Christmas is attend a football game (just go with me on this one). We took the boys to watch Jordan's alma mater play in the high school state semi-final game. A high school game makes a perfect first football game! It took the boys a while to really get into it (like, half the game), but once I took them up to the very front of the bleachers and they got to see things up close, they thought it was really cool (kind of strange actually, considering it's a bit harder to see what's going on when you aren't up a bit in the bleachers). We had to leave just a bit early and they were sad to go. Skyler and Jordan returned the next weekend to watch the state final (it was Jordan's high school versus the high school that the kids will go to if we stick around in this neighborhood, kind of funny!).

And then we have to decorate the tree. I was so excited to finally get a nice picture of the lighted tree - though I realized it really wasn't that hard! The kids (Skyler especially) weren't too keen on decorating the tree in the dark, so this was what I got.

We have never had a tree topper for our tree. I don't really know why, I guess we have just never found one we liked enough. I want a star and Jordan wants an angel so that tends to complicate things. Stars must be easier to build from legos, because the boys and Jordan set out one Sunday morning to create this for our tree.

This is a book I got for Christmas from my dad when I was about Skyler's age. It is full of Christmas stories, songs, crafts, and recipes. There's an advent story in it that is meant to be read one chapter each night in December. I think this year was the first year I have ever read it as it was intended! It is kind of a lame story, but it was fun to read a part each night nonetheless.

The kids were very into listening to Christmas songs this year. One night they turned off all the lights and danced around with glow sticks, and I took some cool pictures.

Oliver and I visited Jonah's class when they decorated gingerbread houses. I thought it was pretty neat that Jonah's teacher had some extra supplies on hand so that Oliver could do one too! And I thought it was even neater that Oliver could do this and not even care that he couldn't eat any of the candy! He even would ask me to wipe off his fingers anytime he got frosting on them.

This year on the Sunday before Christmas I decided to torture my boys with suit coats! For weeks, I talked it up like getting to wear a suit coat and tie to church was the coolest thing ever and they must have bought it because I faced very little opposition when it was time to get dressed for church!

Giving Thanks

Before we move on to Christmas, let's deal with Thanksgiving, shall we?

The kids' school has a Thanksgiving lunch, so Oliver and I ate lunch at school with Jonah and Skyler and spent some time on the playground with eack of them.

We spent Thanksgiving with Jordan's parents and his sister's family. The day after Thanksgiving, we visited White Sands, which (for the uninitiated) is just what it sounds like - dunes of white very fine sand as far as the eye can see. It is perfect for sledding down.

Jonah is five and a half

Jonah has been begging me to come and eat lunch with him at school, so I told him and Skyler that on their half birthdays I would come to eat lunch with them and bring them anything they wanted. Jonah chose a bean burrito from home and chicken nuggets from McDonald's. I tried to tell him that he could only pick from one place, but he and Skyler both reminded me that I did say "anything" and Jordan told me that I should be flattered that when he could chose anything his little heart desired one of the things he chose was a burrito made by me. So, I whipped up a bean burrito and then drove through McDonald's. He was telling all the kids that I was there with McDonald's because it was his half birthday and that was met with a bunch of birthday greetings for him. We never got around to a cake for him this year (shhhh... don't tell him) because that night was our church Christmas party and by the next night, he had forgotten.

Jonah:
loves Spiderman
loves to draw and do mazes (and make them, too)
really doesn't care for meat, but will happily eat salad and carrot sticks (and sometimes broccoli)
likes to invent games with Oliver
likes to play computer games
runs around in circles while talking to me
likes to build with legos
loves to be silly and tell jokes
likes to bake (but mostly eat) treats, he has a big sweet tooth
doesn't like girls because they chase him