One week from tomorrow...

Christmas Day

And finally here we are on Christmas Day! I love stockings! When I was a kid my sister and I always got stuffed animals in our stockings and now the grandkids do too. So fun!

We woke up a little after 7 a.m. Brendan was dying to get out of bed and we finally let him when we heard Erin, Jake and Mary Cate. The other boys and grandparents were still sleeping.

Brendan ran into the living room to see if Santa had come. When he saw that indeed he had, Brendan said "I was a good boy!!!". Hmmmm...I guess someone was a little nervous about getting a lump of coal.
And the unwrapping fun began!



My dad gets a box of baseball cards every single year. This has been going on since I was little so I can't imagine how many boxes he has now!
We were a little obsessed with Bumble (Abominable Snowman) from the Rudolph movie this year . Brendan picked out a stuffed Bumble at Build a Bear so these little suckers were perfect for the three boys. Luke got Rudolph.
And the rest of the morning was spent eating breakfast and playing with toys. So fun.
I've got one more Christmas post to go and then I am caught up! Next up, Nana's house!!!

Little Miss

Girlfriend gets her own post. Being the only girl in the family has it's perks ;-) She's pretty cute huh?

Is this not a great picture? If only I could figure out how to do bokeh (blur the background) this picture would have totally rocked!
She's a happy baby too!
And I love that she is already sporting some jewelry, even if it only the iron on kind. Love her. I think I need to get me one of these.

This Crazy Kid

Well...we think he's pretty smart.

On Tuesday his teacher told me he taught the class the word "camouflage" when they were learning about lizards hiding from predators in the desert. Wow! I have no idea where he learned that word (although I'm guessing a little Diego helped) but I'm so proud he knew not just the word but connected it to what his teacher was talking about. And we found a chameleon at Kohl's for only $5 which was perfect for my camouflage talking little boy.

Then on Wednesday his teacher told Justin that Brendan's comprehension was "through the roof"! That is music to this first grade teacher's ears!!! She said he was making all kinds of connections to what they were talking about and was really getting it. Yeah!

Today we were driving in the car and Brendan says "Mommy what are those pokey things in the desert?". Cactus I say. He goes "Oh mom, if there's only one it's called cactus and if there are bunch of them it's called cacti." Say what! That sounds like something we'd be talking about in first grade since I do teach plurals and all.

Now if we could just all those letters and sounds under our belt ;-

Oh and this picture is from when we had just gotten in from our looooong drive home from Oklahoma. It was about 2 p.m. and Justin and I were unpacking the car. Brendan decided to keep himself busy doing a little unpacking of his own. By the time we noticed what was going on over in the corner by the door he had already worked his way through 6 or 7 Hershey's kisses! A man after my own heart ;-) Love him.

One more thing. Brendan laid down next to me on the couch tonight and said in his saddest voice, "Mom, I want a blue baby". Because babies come in colors. We're working on it son...

Christmas Eve "Eve"

On the night before Christmas Eve, you know Christmas Eve Eve, my mom decided it would be fun to take the boys to see Christmas lights. I had just read about someone putting pajamas on their kids, loading them into the car, getting some hot chocolate, and looking at lights so I thought what a great idea! We should do that too! So when mom mentioned it to me I was all about it! Here are the boys waiting for us to get in the car. They were playing "Santa". Each one was pretending to be Santa and say "What do you want for Christmas?". It cracked me up when Luke was Santa. He's so small compared to the other two, plus he had this great little raspy voice!

Finally we were off! We stopped at Sonic, got some hot chocolate, put on the Christmas music, and were ready to see some lights.
And an hour later, here they were!!! We sat in a car line FOREVER! There was no getting out of that line. We were stuck. Which would have been fine except the boys just drank huge amounts of hot chocolate. Not such a great plan after all. By the time we actually got into the light display the boys were so over it, tired, and had to pee. So much for Christmas merriment ;-) All I can say is thank goodness that we were traveling with boys!

Christmas Eve

I wanted to share some pics from Christmas this year and I actually have to admit that I am proud I have these up before the one month mark after Christmas! In my book that's pretty good!

We drove to Oklahoma as is our usual December routine. This year was the second year in a row to make the long drive. I have a love/hate relationship with driving. I love having a car at our convenience and the low cost that driving affords, but I hate the LOOOONG drive. We have been so blessed that Brendan is a rockstar traveler and Justin is a determined driver who drove the entire 18 hours! I have to brag on both my guys. The trip would not happen or be nearly as pleasant if Brendan wasn't such an easy traveler. He slept from 9:30 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. and we arrived at 8:30 a.m. Justin is amazing and drinks more coffee than is probably healthy to stay awake through the night, but we made it!

Now, on to Christmas Eve. We spent the afternoon at Papa Willmon and Grandma Teri's house. Teri made a fabulous lunch and we spent the afternoon visiting and playing. Brendan spotted the game Kerplunk and wanted to play right away.

This train is Brendan's favorite thing when we go to his grandparent's house for Christmas.
Brendan is one lucky little boy to have such wonderful grandparents who are so good to him. Here he is opening up a Hot Wheels track which he loved!


Brendan loves Cocoa Bean, although I'm not sure Cocoa Bean loves Brendan quite the same ;-)

Then we went back to Grams and Happy's house to get ready for Santa. Erin's family would be joining us soon, but they hadn't made it back yet from Christmas with the Abbotts. Grams bought a little photo ornament kit for each of the boys to make and hang next to their stocking so Santa would know whose was whose.
And Happy showed Brendan that Santa was getting close on Google tracker. Pretty cool!
Then Grams and Brendan made some sugar cookies for Santa.
Once the other boys made it back to Grams' house they put on their matching Christmas jammies and decorated cookies for Santa.
When I was growing up it was tradition for my dad to read the Christmas story on Christmas Eve. This year was the first time we had done that in a few years. This was always one of my favorite traditions growing up. I loved seeing my dad read to us from the Bible. As you can see, it was a little bit of a challenge reading to 3 little boys 5 and under ;-)
Then it was my turn to read "The Night Before Christmas".
This pose lasted about 2 seconds before the boys were rolling around the couch.
And then it was off to bed as we waited for Santa to come!