Oh ya.... Christmas!

Christmas was fantastic.  It was so much fun with the boys- they were so excited about all of it... well, Bryson was.  When he got up Christmas morning, I heard him go 1/2 way down the stairs and then coming RUNNING upstairs-- I could almost hear the excitement in his footsteps... he came bursting in our room and yelled, "SANTA CAME MOM!! SANTA CAME AND HE ATE THE COOKIES!!" I don't think he'd even made it far enough down the stairs to see the presents under the tree.... just the plate with only crumbs left on it- I had to pretty much force Nathan to even leave crumbs... what can I say, I make good cookies *grin* In actuality, it was refrigerated cookie dough Bryson and I plopped in the oven at 9pm Christmas Eve... When we actually went ALL the way downstairs, he was so excited to see the presents under the tree. We (I) really tried to not over do Christmas, Santa got them each 1 gift (why should he get all the credit?!?) and then a few from us, but when you add in gifts from other family members and such, it gets to be a lot... Most importantly, Bryson DID get his 'Mack from the noovie Cars' (as he says it). Most of the snow we'd gotten had melted away by Christmas, but we got a fresh blanket Christmas evening and the day after- I do love the snow here...  We had a lazy morning and made Colorado omlette's and apple crepes- yummy!  We decided it'll be our new Christmas morning tradition.

Dallin and Bryson played with their toys.... especially the addition to the train tracks we already had... now we can make the track taller and bigger- and bigger is always better according to Bryson. We had a great dinner at my parents with fried turkey (it's the BEST) and all the stuff to go with it- most of my siblings were out of town, so it was a quiet day at my parents- kinda nice!

Going Public...

I really have not liked having my blog private.... I feel like such a hypocrite! I LOVE checking out what people whom I loosely know (through a friend or whatever) are up to-- I'm nosey *grin* and I've actually stumbled across some good ideas that way... I also didn't like that some 'long lost friend' couldn't find me- since I've actually found a few through blog links- it's amazing how small the blogging world is and who knows who that you already know... okay so that last sentence didn't make any sense, but it's the whole six degrees of separation thing- sort of...

ANYWHO!! So I was reading on my friend Adri's blog and her post about being worried about blog privacy and maybe going private had some great comments that I have implemented and feel much better now about being public again....

I've also added sitemeter so if I don't like who is looking at my blog I can go private again, and also removed the nav bar because the 'next blog>>' link is truly AWFUL!! If you're fortunate enough to have never clicked on this, DON'T DO IT!! Just search in blogger for 'how to remove nav bar' and follow the instructions... it took me a while, but it finally worked and I'm VERY glad to not have that at the top of my page anymore!!

I can hardly believe tomorrow is Christmas Eve- what a magical time of year- Much love to all!

Pictures with Santa

The boys eagerly awaiting their turn to sit on Santa's lap... Bryson could hardly sit still... Dallin entertained himself by playing with the buckles on the stroller- his new favorite pastime is anything that buckles.

This is Bryson's new favorite face to make- it makes Dallin laugh every time.
I was pretty surprised that Dallin was so okay with sitting on Santa's lap since he's been such a mama's boy recently- he didn't really know what to think- He just stared at him very curiously. Bryson promptly told him he wanted a Mack (from the movie Cars)- then added that he's trying to be good.
Santa gives all the kids this reindeer hat after sitting on his lap. Bryson was very honored and quite impressed- it's his new favorite hat.

Open Wide!

My sister Kim and her girls came over for lunch the other day. Natalie (6 months older than Dallin) is such a little mommy- she fed Dallin (and herself) his mac 'n cheese and did a pretty good job! Dallin loved every minute of it- he and Natalie have so much fun with each other... they usually just run around in circles chasing each other.

Bryson's First Christmas 'Concert'

Monday night was Bryson's preschool Christmas Concert... I use the term 'concert' very loosely... It was precious and adorable and a mess all at once *grin* He had so much fun learning the songs for this and often would just belt out 'hallelujah, Jesus is born' out of nowhere- he had SO much fun being in front of everyone and took a bow after almost every song (he was the only one). Surprisingly, Dallin sat still on Aunt Emily's lap the entire time.


For the Woodpecker Song (??) each of the kids got 2 sticks to hit together to the song... bad idea with kids standing close together on risers.... Bryson was in the back row and unfortunately a little too eager with the sticks and unknowingly kept whacking the poor little boy with the white shirt and vest in front of him... about 1/2 way through the song, the boy in front broke out in tears and wasn't the same the rest of the night... Bryson was oblivious.
PS- he's not that short... he was crouching down in excitement...

Little Performer

After the concert, he just couldn't get enough of the performing.... here's two of the songs they did. Oh, and to translate, the first song is his favorite--
"Hallelujah, hallelujah, Jesus is born today" - repeated several times and then "Yee-haw" (??) That's how it actually went in the concert too!

Fixed the problem....

So I'd been having problems not seeing pictures as I was posting.... it's fixed *grin* And it could've been fixed a lot sooner if I had just gone and sought help from blogger earlier- it took all of 2 minutes once I clicked on the 'help' button- I just needed to change my 'compose mode' under settings and basic to 'yes' Don't know why it ever got changed to 'no' in the first place, but I'm glad it's fixed!!

Bryson the Photographer

I think Bryson has some photograhic aspirations... he LOVES to play with my camera- so much so, that I got him one of those kid-proof digital cameras for Christmas... but I brought it back after I did a little research online- it only had 0.3 mega pixels! Sure, it's for kids, but if 1 picture out of 200 (or 2000) turns out a keeper, I want to be able to print it bigger than a postage stamp! So his photographer dreams will have to be stifled a bit by my restrictions on his use of my camera... Here is a sampling of his photographic genius *grin*

 

Issues with posting...

So is anyone else having posting issues? It used to actually show the picture that was going to post on my posting/edit page as I would add them and type up my blurb, but now it just shows something like this:

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It is driving me crazy!! I figured it was just blogger and that they were working out kinks, but it's been too long now.... any ideas anyone? Am I alone in this??

SNOW!!

Nothing beats the first snow of the year- Bryson was SO excited to get out and play in it... Aunt Emily promptly taught him how to throw snowballs (which got him into trouble at preschool) and he proceeded in pelting Dallin with snowballs when I had finally sufficiently bundled Dallin up to go out...


Needless to say, Dallin was a little slower to warm up to the snow as a result!


He preferred walking along the porch and going up and down the front steps...


Aunt Emily was so much fun to play with in the snow... a little more nimble than mommy at the moment.


Daddy came home with a sled that is Bryson's new favorite way to get around... too bad the snow is all gone now- it stuck around for almost a week though! Bryson kept saying that the snow was 'drying up' as it rained torentially...

C is for Cookie

These pictures were too cute not to post... Not much of a story- just the boys mesmerized by the prospect of cookies!! I wish I could spell the sound that Homer Simpson makes when he drools over something *grin*

Gingerbread Houses!

So the other night we were at Costco and they had these great gingerbread house kits... I thought it would be a fun family project *grin* I realized very quickly after getting home that I didn't have it in me for my wonderful 3 1/2 year old 'helper' to add his creative touches to this potentially lavish home.... So a quick trip to the grocery store later and we had a little milk carton and some graham crackers for Bryson's own gingerbread house.... I know, I'm terrible! But he had tons of fun decorating his own house (that more resembles an outhouse because they only had pint sized milk cartons) than having me freak out and fix everything on my gingerbread dream house.

Bryson was SO proud of his creation... he brought it for show and tell at preschool and even let all the kids take a piece of candy from it.


The finished product three hours later... meanwhile, Daddy and Aunt Emily had thoroughly played with the boys, bathed them and gotten them all ready for bed... so perfection takes a while, right?!?!

Is there anything better than an afternoon at Chuck E Cheeses?