Looking at the frost one morning through a magnifying glass. It was L-man's idea and now he's obsessed.
Reading books with Daddy is a big highlight.
Sunrises. Once again, L-man noticed it first and told me to take a picture. :)
Our weather these days has been light-jacket sunshine ...
... to an ice/sleet/rain storm. This wasn't anything compared to what we had in Ohio, but for down here in NC it was a big deal.
Grocery stores were packed, everyone stocking up for the winter weather alert. It was only a little funny. :)
It brought the closest thing next to snow that we've seen since moving here!
The working conditions were a little rough.
Ryan's schedule has been crazy this month, and he amazes me every day with his abilities to push through. I got sick last week which really threw me for a loop (and the house). But just this past Saturday we both were willing and able to go on a fun family outing to the Nature Museum.
The butterfly room was my personal favorite. And if L-man weren't so excited to see what was always around the next corner I imagine we could have spent a long time here.
The kids loved it, and I loved doing something with Ry.
Compared to the previous couple of months, the month of January has been down-right slow and hard. But we have still found ways to connect, and have had lots of fun. It has been a great time to lay low, get sick, read lots of books, and cuddle a lot.
I think we need a good couple of days with sunshine and I will feel the energy of life again. Right now we're taking it easy. :)
I love having a park within walking distance to our home. This day in particular we tried out the new bikes the kids got for Christmas.
L-man with his big wheel.
And Lady-LE with her trike. It took her a while to warm up to it. :) Once I pulled out the handle for the parent to push with in the back she was a happy camper and loves to ride it now.
I love park trips where I am in the right mindset to engage them and wear us all out. I will be the first to admit that it's not always that way. But I love it when it is.
A few days before Christmas we all got to open presents from R's parents early because they were going on a trip. I don't have any pictures of that, because we were face timing with them and holding onto the ipad the whole time. But it was such a special treat to do that with them early. It spread out the Christmas cheer a little and we recognize just how lucky we are to have such good family!
Christmas Eve for us somehow got completely unexpected. One thing after another and we ended up feeding the kids PB&Js at 7pm because our dinner wasn't ready. But we were still able to make it special and read the Christmas story from the bible and acting it out with our adorable homemade hand puppets given to the kids last year by a fabulous aunt. They loved this part!
Then we opened our Christmas pajamas, which the kids thought were the coolest. :)
Small, cozy, and close. My favorite!
I somehow got lucky and snapped a picture of the scene after Santa had dropped all the presents off. Talk about perfect timing!
Santa was very thoughtful in his gifs this year ... each one had a purpose and fit perfectly into Mommy's organizational needs. How did he know?!
And I'm glad he liked the cookies and milk.
Christmas morning started out with the kids waiting at the top of the stairs. The video is long, and really just for my own memory sake. Once Daddy had music, lights, and the ability to keep his eyes open we all came down and the kids got to see what Santa brought.
We opened stockings first.
Perfect morning snack!
Then we took a break and ate a yummy breakfast of french toast and caramel buttermilk syrup. Mmm.
Opening presents was a lot of fun! We took our time, and played with a gift if we wanted to. Which Lady-LE wanted to do after every single gift.
Santa pulled through! This was one seriously happy boy.
Santa overestimated just how close Lady-LE was to wearing the next size up. So we safety-pinned her pants (after she woke up in the middle of the night because her pants kept falling off! haha). She had this little duck tail sticking out all day and I loved it.
Some highlights of the presents.
New climbing rope! Seriously cool!
We laid low the rest of the day, and then go to go over to a sweet friend's house for a potluck dinner. Lots of families came, and it was the perfect touch for us. Ry and I are both middle kids, and I think because of that we both really love and almost need to be surrounded by others a lot. So while Christmas day was beautiful and our own, having dinner with lots of other friends was a perfect way to get in our people-fix. :) We are blessed to belong to a wonderful ward family here in Charlotte, and appreciate all the friends we have.
The next day was completely devoted to legos. Let's just say that it took R a while to warm up to the idea of putting it all together.
After the first couple of pieces started coming together he got really into it.
To the point that he even voluntarily worked on it while L-man had a quiet time in another room. After the quiet time was over L-man joined him on the ground and continued watching. :)
Once it was all put together they played for a long time together.
It was so fun for me to hear them play with the whole set. R was pretty creative too in adding his own little touches to the sets, turbo boosters, extra spotlights, and even a grill for the police officers. He's thoughtful like that. ;)
It was a WONDERFUL Christmas. We were blessed beyond measure - mostly because of the love we share with our family.
R grew up in a family that does a majorly big gingerbread house. Like, years of tradition here.
I've done it with them the years that we're all in Colorado together, and it's a lot of fun. But it's a little intimidating for me to try and do it on my own just yet.
This year, however, I invited all of Lady-LE's preschool friends and mommies to come over for a gingerbread house party. And I am in love with the idea of making this a tradition. A few lessons learned this time around, and next year's party is going to be even better.
L-man was basically on his own as I tried to help Lady-LE, which I think he actually preferred. He was very studious about the whole matter. He took it all very seriously and insisted on so many things it made me laugh.
Lady-LE on the other hand couldn't have cared less for the actual house and just wanted to eat the candy. Let's just say that my kids' houses were the least decorated out of the whole group! :)
First Annual Gingerbread House Party!
Can't wait for more!
December was much longer for us than usual. We're used to traveling for the holidays, and this year we stayed home. So we had the entire month to celebrate, play, keep it simple, and enjoy the season all together with out any huge deadline approaching.
I will be honest and say that I did the decorating around the house when the kids were asleep on purpose. I knew they would play with everything way too much, and I'm not ready for that just yet. :) But when it came to decorating the tree we definitely made it a family affair - even if we had to super glue multiple ornaments back together (seriously, every day for five days straight I had to glue something together again). Decorating the tree, listening to certain Christmas music, and drinking hot chocolate with peppermint in it are all part of the tradition.
Both kids loved it all. They played with all the ornaments and I loved telling them who gave them which ornament and when. Such fun memories! And they loved playing with all the lights in the house off except for the tree. They loved the glow the tree gave to the room, and I loved watching them experience the wonders of Christmas.
A few years ago my mom gave L-man this recorded story of The Night Before Christmas. It was a major favorite this year, with both kids listening to it almost everyday. Lady-LE especially was obsessed, and I eventually had to put it high on the shelf because the book was being 'loved' a little too hard!
Our church put on a Christmas breakfast with a Nativity theme. So they asked all the kids to dress up as part of the nativity. We ate delicious food, and enjoyed a beautiful program that was very sweet, simple, and based all on the Savior.
Then Santa made an appearance and the kids swarmed him within seconds. I bribed Lady-LE to sit on his lap for a candy cane. L-man went willingly and dutifully told him he wanted police legos and excavators. And then he stayed on his lap and continued to chat away for a little while before I asked him to give another kid a chance. :)
Our little angel and shepherd boy. They loved the costumes! :)
We also got a new advent calendar this year that you can see in this picture and we loved it. The kids were such a fun age to understand things and feel the excitement of it all. We kept it really simple, and simple is good.
And thankfully the weather continued to be awesome and we got to play outside in our new rock pit!
The kids love it, and so do our neighbor friends. It's definitely a hit!!
Thank you Pop Pop and uncle J!!
One of our activities in our advent calendar was a family date night to Coldstone for ice cream. Major success: L-man ate ice cream! Not even joking! It was a blue ice cream (cotton candy I think - gross!) and he ate it! This was big, people. Big.
{Of course Lady-LE eating ice cream is nothing new. This girl asks for it every day. She gets it from me}
I hosted Lady-LE's preschool the last week before Christmas, and we did lots of fun crafts. Reindeer antlers with handprints, santa's beard with cotton balls (with snowball fight afterwards), coloring nativity pictures, and yummy snowmen donuts and reindeer donuts.
Logan's preschool did a Christmas program for the parents too, and it was darling!
He loves giving thumbs-up to me. It cracks me up.
And yes, that's L-man's voice above everyone else's. Completely out of tune and off-key. But he sings his heart out and I love his passion for it. Singing is a learned skill, right? There's hope still!
We even got lucky enough to be surprised with the 12 days of Christmas by someone. We never figured out who it was (I wouldn't let us at first, thinking that they would reveal themselves at the end, and they never did! I feel cheated and am sad I don't know who to thank!!). Each night they would leave us a piece to a nativity set the kids could help make. It was very sweet, and we all looked forward to the surprise every night.
