Merry Fake Christmas!!

We decided to do Christmas early this year- and this Sunday was the day.  Santa was nice enough to visit us early and left us tons of goodies.  We went to church and then came home to play some more (building all the Lego sets) while I cooked.  The missionaries from our church came over and helped us eat our food- I don't know why on holidays I have to cook so much food when it's just our little family with picky eaters!  The boys had a blast light-saber fighting the elders and got to see Elder Smith do an amazing trick with a tea bag about faith.  According to Adam he used the force to make the lit tea bag float up  into the air.  It was a wonderful day, but the kids definitely needed to go to bed to sleep all that excitement off.  Merry Christmas everyone!

Neal's a festive fellow.  Don't be a hater- you know you love his sweater!

"Christmas to me means eating only candy all day."

I don't want to wait to open presents, so I'll just start opening them on my own.

Pokemon, Pokemon, Pokemon- Adam is in heaven

Finally I can rip all the paper off!

Nice doggy

Ryan is very excited about some Legos- maybe it was worth the wait!

Some boys never grow up

Trip to the Greatest Place in the World

Um, yeah we went to Nebraska for our Veterans' Day vacation.  Exciting huh?  All sarcasm aside it WAS lots of fun and went very smoothly (which is a miracle).  We went to Omaha and went to the zoo and temple, then drove on to Lincoln to go to the capitol and a children's museum.  The children's museum was super fun but unfortunately we got there 1 1/2 hours before it closed so we didn't have much time.  You can seriously stay there all day and your kids would still be crying about having to leave when it closed.  Makes me wish I was a kid again.

Real boys aren't afraid of painting their fingernails pink

Ryan had a BLAST at the zoo

Hey- a picture of mom- she DOES exist!

Teaching the boys to roll down a hill.  Neal was SLIGHTLY obsessed about how nice the grass was.

The capitol in Lincoln

"Grandpa!"  According to Garett my dad looks like Buffalo Bill

The cutest politician

Watch out!

A big rig in a museum?- only in the coolest museum ever!

 

My 3 boys hard at work in the Diner

 The children's museum had a TON of fun stuff- hills and trees to climb on, dress up and a stage, big rigs, motorcycles, boats, ambulances to ride on, a farm, post office, pizza shop, hospital, diner, sports place, grocery store, little kids area, and a water area.  There was even more but we didn't even go to the 2nd floor.  We will definitely have to go back!

Trunk or Treat!

Well, I have to say this year's Halloween costumes are a near miss.  Adam wanted to be Meowth (Pokemon is big in our house right now and if you don't know Pokemon you are going to be very confused with this post).  But I convinced him that costume would be hard to make so he decided to make up his own Pokemon Flaror which is a fire lion.  We made our own Pokemon card and I hand sewed a feather boa onto a hoodie for fire as per his request.  Well, he put his costume on and I couldn't stop laughing!  He looked like a bright Tina Turner.  So thanks to some quick thinking Adam decided to be Charmeleon a fire dragon (since we already had dragon costumes).  Ryan wanted to be Sneasel, a black cat Pokemon, so we got some pants at the Goodwill, but after he put his costume on we realized they were size small women's not boys.  Needless to say his tushy was a tad off scale.  Again Adam's quick thinking found his black pants that Ryan could borrow for his costume.  Garett is so bald and cute he just had to be Dopey and I attempted to make his hat which actually looked like he was the Pope, but a little turn fixed that.  Neal and I were the Prince from Snow White and Snow White with very limited costume apparel (we only dress up for trunk or treat so not a lot of effort goes into ours).  All in all it was a crazy attempt at costume making (that I did all Wednesday afternoon before the trunk or treating) but we ended up making it work and still had lots of fun!

Super Sunday!

Well, it was General Conference again- the boys favorite church day.  We have tons of snacks and stay in our pjs and watch conference on our computer. 

Ryan loved the gummy worms- a conference tradition

It make me laugh how much Garett loves to color!  Not a lot of kids his age can sit and color.

Adam is playing BINGO for treats.  Hmmm.. maybe he didn't see the ones on his plate.  Oh well, it's better that he doesn't catch on.

Who's Who?

Daddy's growing a goatee- but so is someone else

Would you like some wine with this cheese?

You definitely keep us laughing Garett!

Picture Time!

Um yeah my boys are stinkin' cute!

Grandma and Grandpa Time

Grandma and Grandpa came to visit for the week!  Garett warmed up immediately which of course was nice.  On the weekend we went up to Minneapolis so the girls could craft and the boys could play. 

2 Spider Monkeys

The Como Zoo in MN

Dinos

Garett loved picking balls

Rasberries

Let me just say our hotel room rocked!

Oh look how tuckered out the little tikes are!

We all LOVED having Grandparents visiting!  I know I will miss my nanny and fixit guy!  And Garett will miss all the walks he got to go on.

First Day of School Part 2

Ryan's first day of preschool- isn't he cute? 

 I think he might be a little nervous though!

He ended up having a really good time with Ms. Nicki and LOVES getting to go to school 4 times a week.