The Christmas tree hunt is on

We went out early-ish on a Sunday to get our tree. We went about 20 minutes away to the place we have been going for the last 5 years or so. I know there are some tree farms closer to our house – may look into that for the future. It was pretty cold but not raining so it was an okay trade off. We bundled up the boys nicely but I, of course, forgot my own cold weather gear – luckily we were meeting D and she lent me some gloves.

The boys loving life in the back of the mister’s truck:

D and J2

On the hunt:

There were spider webs on some of the trees and they were frozen too!

J2 was most confused about the mister being on the ground

It was a bit foggy in some places too – the boys were running around like crazy people. Note J2’s shoes – they were originally his cousin MD’s (she is now 16), then his cousin GG wore them, then J1 and now him. Not sure what I will do with them when he outgrows them.

This was the best family photo – the boys aren’t into posing, unless it is their idea.

And J2 in the big sleigh – he was shaking the ropes like there were horses (or reindeer??) attached – super cute!

J1 was up in his room playing and for some reason he crawled in J2’s crib and fell asleep.

The mister put the lights on the tree right after we brought it home but we didn’t get around to decorating it until the following weekend. I wasn’t too into it since I knew J2 would be unable to keep his hands off – and I was right. Grrr. We even just put ornaments on the top half of the tree but he still managed to get his hands on some. We didn’t turn the lights on most of the time because then he didn’t notice it much. Not very festive!

You can't see them too well but J1 is wearing his shiny red Doc Marten boots. The mister got a pass to the Doc Marten warehouse sale from his work and he usually goes every year for work boots. I went this year but only found one pair of sandals I liked and they were the wrong size. J1 found these boots and at $15 we had to get them.

And we didn’t put any presents under the tree until the boys were in bed Christmas Eve. Not sure they could have kept from opening them. Someday I suppose.

J1 is a poser

Well, for some reason, although J1 doesn’t want to smile or be normal when I want to take a picture, he wants to do crazy poses sometimes so here is one session:

The two of them – don’t their jammies match the chair and blanket perfectly? Just a coincidence. I am sure I have the perfect scrapbooking kit for this.

Well, I had to go look and this is what I found:

I definitely think it will work but I’ll be keeping my eyes open because I love a new kit!

Anyway, back to my post.

Oh woe is him!

Wasn’t that a fun photo session? Next up – Christmas tree hunting and decorating.

Wow, it has been awhile…

It is Christmas Eve and I am sitting at my computer watching Love Actually because it is a Christmas movie I *have* to watch and the mister is just so not into it. The first time I saw it, it was in the theater with my mom, aunt and bff D. My mom and aunt were down for my wedding reception so we took in this film. I thought I was going to die watching the porn couple scenes with my 70 year old aunt! Oh well, it was fun anyway. Since it has been so long, I am going to attempt to catch up. The last time I posted it was pumpkin pictures so here are some to catch up.

I asked my brother-in-law to take some pictures of the boys in the park – hoping for some good ones of J1 since he is so difficult with pictures these days. Well it didn’t really work out but here is a few from the drive over which were super cute. He looks like he is being really cool but he was sleeping. The park ones were okay - and those of you that got our Christmas card saw a couple of the candids which turned out better than the posed ones.

The boys and their cousins.

We had a Halloween party over at play park and J1 had the most fun playing with the flubber. Also tried to get a nice picture of them but, par for the course, I got nothing!

For a Halloween treat, I made the boys orange milk – they loved it!

silly boys!

I think I mentioned once that J2 uses my shirts as his blankies – here are some cute pics from Halloween day. Not sure how it got wrapped around his head!

Turns out the best pictures of their costumes were taken a couple days before the big day! J1 is Buzz Lightyear of course and J2 gets J1's leftover costume from a few years ago.

And the night of:

Okay, I’ll get this posted and work on the next post – just to keep you wanting more and not overwhelm you!

Lego Dinosaur

I have lots of great pictures for the last week or so, including Halloween but I took some pictures tonight that I knew would be a quick post so here goes:

In case you couldn't tell, that is an Ankylosaurus named Tank. The blue block are feet and his armored plates. Check out an illustration here. J1 has been occasionally watching Dinosaur Train (he could watch it more if he would just use the dang potty!!) on PBS and he loves it - he is always talking about dinos now. Reminds me of my nephew who just turned 18!! He loved the dinos too - way, way back in the day. Oh, in case you were marveling at J1's awesome feat, I actually taped the head on!

Making a mess and picking pumpkins

Well, in the past I haven't let J1 play with Play Doh much because I hate the mess - funny coming from me because, as my step-mom pointed out this past weekend, I am a notorious slob! She was saying it about my room when I was in HS but it is so true. I think I mentioned before that my mom used to pay my sister to clean my room when we were kids and, well, let's face it, everyone who knows me before I got married knows it's a fact! I am *somewhat* better now since I have the mister and the kids but only somewhat. That all being said, I'm not too into kid crafty messes. It is better now that J1 is a bit older because his craft mess is somewhat contained. Anyway, he has been wanting to play with the Play Doh lately so as soon as J2 goes down for his nap we break it out. We drag this little table from the family room and get him all set up on it. We get a new can usually every time to replace the stuff that got thrown away the last time. He also mixes them all together which I don't care about - I know some people do! Here is him playing away and the mess on the floor afterward. The pieces are pretty small and they dry quickly so the clean up isn't bad - just sweep and done.

Here is his squirrel - doesn't the head look like ET? We made a great bird together the other day and I had a picture of it but it didn't download like I thought and I deleted it off my camera before I realized it! Darn it - but now I double check and at least it was *just* a picture of a Play Doh bird.

My MIL grew a few pumpkins in her garden this year - thank goodness since I blew it at our pumpkin patch visit. Here are some snaps I took while we harvested them the other day.

No smile from J1 but it is better than his fake smile!

J2 was barefoot because I forgot his shoes - better than ruining socks. It wasn't very cold!

The pumpkin patch - not that you can tell that from the pictures!

So we picked a perfect day to go to the pumpkin patch - the weather was beautiful and we got out of the house early enough that it wasn't crazy with people yet. We go to this one near where we used to live in Orchards - it is quite the fun place. For $8 each (J2 is free currently) you get:

• 1 pumpkin, any size
• 2 pumpkins to launch in their big pumpkin slingshot thing
• corn maze
• hay maze (for the little ones)
• animals to pet (goats, sheep, pigs, rabbits, chickens, turkey, donkey - seems like there was more)
• freshly squeezed apple cider
• a hot cider or hot chocolate
• hay ride to pumpkin patch
• rubber duck races (driven by a water pump)
• pumpkin washing stations
• tractors to climb on
• a hay tower to climb on with tunnels
• a nice place to take a family photo

That might be all. Anyway, we got there about 1/2 hour after they opened on a Sunday and went to the pumpkin launch first because it gets pretty busy later. J1 and the mister launched all six of our pumpkins. They have some barrels in the field and if you make it in you get some sort of a prize - no idea what since we have never done it! Here are the boys attempting it though:

Then J1 tried out the rubber duck race (with daddy's help) - it was pretty cute.

Then the boys climbed on the hay tower and I took a bunch of pictures:

And then my camera batteries died. I had briefly thought about bring some with us but in all the craziness of getting out the door, I forgot. Oh well. I did get some pumpkin pictures later - thanks Gramma! Stay tuned for those.

So we finally got on the hay ride out to the patch and the mister and J1 picked out our pumpkins while I chased J2 around the patch. He was having a blast even though he kept tripping on all the vines. We got back to the tractor station to wait for our ride back and J1 ran into a friend from school. It is the friend he talks about the most so he was thrilled. They got to ride together on the hay ride back and had so much fun - it was very cute. We did let the kids wander through the hay bale maze, pet the animals and have some cider before heading out to get our pumpkins so once we were back we just headed to the truck.

Here is our pumpkin family this year. The little tiny one in the middle and the small one on the ground are from our second pumpkin adventure.

Backyard fun - shhhh, don't tell daddy...

Well, you can mention the play structure but not the birdbath - they are not supposed to play in it. :)


So it was a pretty nice morning for early October and we went outside to play. J1 is still wearing his jammie bottoms so it was at least before noon! I don't remember why they were playing in the birdbath but I just let them because they were having fun and the pictures are great!

And both boys were playing on the play structure. They don't do that very often so I had to get some pictures. J2 was carrying around a tomato that he was sort of gnawing on. It was fairly orange so I can't imagine it tasted great but he held onto it practically the whole time they were on the play structure.

J2 is turning around to go down the slide responsibly - on his belly! And J1 is doing his "bat" imitation. His favorite thing to do since we saw them at the zoo.

J1 "cheesing" for the camera - ugh! I have had to stop telling him to smile and say "just be serious" or I get pictures with dumb looks! And there is J2 and his tomato! We were outside a few weeks back picking stuff so I had a colander out with us. J2 picked a bunch of tomatoes and put them in the colander. Then he carried that thing with the tomatoes the rest of the time we were in the yard. J1 and I were running races back and forth across the yard and J2 would sometimes join in, still carrying the veggies. He would trip, spill all of them, put them all back in and run again. Crazy boy!