Christmas

Oh what fun to be a little kid at Christmas time... right!   Hunter had a blast and Aidan was along for the ride.

Christmas Eve at Grandma and pa Bell's.   There was no tree... Hunter had to point that out to Grandma and said "but there's presents??"   Like where are we supposed to put them?   We put them on the table and I started my trend of trying to take a picture of both boys in front of the presents before they tear into them!

Christmas morning.   Gotta love Christmas morning!   We hadn't really been doing the whole "Santa" thing.  But we did tell Hunter on Christmas Eve that he had to go to bed so Santa could bring him presents.   He latched right on to that idea and was all about Santa bringing him presents!

Woke up to Hunter yelling "santa brought me a big present!"   You can see how excited he was to open presents that morning.  He was trembling.   Aidan still not sure what this whole Christmas thing is about.

Aidan did get into the paper shredding, paper eating and shaking fun things that made noise.   Opening their "big" present.

Safety first!   Hunter was very excited to get this and keeps calling it his "handy manny tool shed."   : ) 

Another attempt at a picture before presents, later on Christmas morning at my parents.

Baby's first Christmas.  He was pretty tired out from all the excitement and lack of nap.   Hunter helped him open his presents too.

Bit of a whirlwind, but oh so much fun.  We are still trying to make room and do some post Christmas organizing... I think everyone else is too!   And I did already take the tree down, which always makes me a little sad but we needed the room and I was ready to get rid of the pine needles.  I still have my other lights up so I will still enjoy those for now.

Icy Christmas Eve

So we had some crazy Christmas weather.  If you are in this area you know... if not, we started with an ice storm before Christmas Eve and woke up to a very icy Christmas Eve morning.  Thankfully, we only lost power for about 45 minutes.  We were sure as we listened to the icy rain pound down that we were not going to be that lucky.   And we really didn't lose too many tree branches.   It just snapped off one of my little trees (you can see in the pic below.)
It really was a beautiful morning and in these instances (and more) I wish I had a "good" camera to get some good pictures.   

We have so many trees in front of our house and it really was so pretty and icy!!

Gingerbread House

I've been trying to think of projects to do with Hunter.  He loves doing them... but his version of "doing" something is watching me do it.  It's a tough age to find projects for I think. 
I bought a gingerbread house kit and thought he could help decorate it.   I made the frosting and got it ready for him to decorate with candy.... what was left of the candy that he didn't eat!
See the bag of little hard ball candy?   The kind that roll everywhere.   I grabbed a glass to put them in and set it by Hunter, why I don't know.

He seldom spills things but he managed to knock this off the table in about 2 seconds shattering the glass and sending the little candies everywhere.   It just exploded on the floor.... glass and candy from one end of the house to the other.   Grrrrrrr.    I quickly frosted the roof so he could stay busy putting the other candy on it and then went to work cleaning up what was turning into a very messy project!

Despite the mess... he loved decorating the house and did a good job too!

Birthday Boy

My little 6.5 lb dark haired baby boy turned 3 yesterday.  Hard to believe!

Tried to make a fun day for him...started with some presents in the morning, a new monster truck, b-day pancakes, more presents and a b-day party at night he couldn't wait for!

He wanted a tractor cake so I did a barn & tractor cake.   It turned out pretty good since I just worked with an idea I had and a couple different pics online.    Hunter liked it and it tasted good too!

His big birthday present... a mini trampoline!!!   The kid never stops bouncing and now he doesn't have too.

He could not wait to open presents.   A lot to expect from a little boy when he knows there's a pile of presents with his name on it.

He takes present opening very seriously... very, very seriously!!

It was hard to get him away from his new toys to blow out his candles.

It was cute, during the day he kept saying "this is the best Christmas I've ever seen."   Kind of hard still  for him to tell the the two apart since it's so close to Christmas, but cute because I knew what he meant. 

Christmas Tree

We got our Christmas tree the last day of November.   We went to Williams and chopped one down.   We rode in the horse drawn wagon with about 30 school kids out to the woods to find one.   I tried to get Hunter into the spirit of things by having him help us pick one out.

He found this one....

 And several others likes it.   Trees that had already been cut down and were just the bottom branches.  It was pretty funny because he kept saying "maybe this one.."   And I'd try to explain I wanted a tree with a top too!

We finally picked this one.   We always start out seeing a lot we like and then lose them in the woods and then get tired of wandering around and just pick one.    Adam carried it back, I carried Aidan and Hunter walked.   We did pretty good considering...   thankfully it wasn't a freezing cold day so the kiddos lasted ok outside.   And of course Hunter loved the other fun things there like all the dogs, animals, maze.... 

Fun place to get a tree!

I tried to take a picture of Adam carrying it back and he said he was going to throw it if I took a picture : )

Tumbling

Hunter had his last tumbling class this morning.   It was graduation day from Tots Tumbling to now he is a Sparkler 1 : )   So he got to show off all the skills he learned all semester and we took some pictures.  (They aren't great pics because the lighting isn't very good!)

Warming up... he's crazy flexible.

After he did all of his tumbling moves.  Tada!

Trampoline time... his favorite, of course!   Doing moves like slapping his knees and seat drops.

Got to go on a "new" trampoline this morning

With his "completion" ribbon at the end.

We are going to keep taking classes.  He really likes it.  It's a good outlet for some of his energy and helps him learn some things besides tumbling like listening to the teacher and waiting his turn.   He really has come pretty far since we started the classes... sniff, sniff.   My little big boy!

Preview

The boys in their matching Christmas jammies

One Last Trip

We really did have such a nice November... we were owed that after a very yucky October!   We've had a busy fun month.   We squeezed in one last trip to the Apple Orchard.   It was my Mom's b-day.

Mimi and Aidan in the train.

Everyone in the train or "all aboard!!" as Hunter yells every time he gets in the train.

Hunter really does love to play there, fun to get there one last time and happy birthday to Mimi!!

Elmo

We took Hunter to Sesame Street Live a few weeks ago.   He loved it and did so good.  He keeps talking about 'Elmo live!"   He sat so still and was really mesmerized by it.   The characters would come and go and he kept trying to keep track of them... "where's Elmo?, where's grouch?"   He was most concerned about keeping track of those two.
This is the face I get now when I ask him to smile.

This one is better...

Love his little face here... he was in awe.

We told him we were going to go see Elmo in person.  It was funny to watch his face and see him try to figure out what that meant.  I don't think he had any idea what to expect.  He did love it and did really good for the whole thing.

9 Months

9 Months and oh so busy!   Little man figured out how to pull himself on about everything a few days before he turned 9 months and now that is all he wants to do... of course!   He still is crawling on his belly, but can go from his belly to his knees, to pulling up on whatever is in front of him.  He loves this activity table...which is nice since it keeps him busy.   He's even trying a little "cruising" when he's standing going from his table to the ottoman.    It's fun, but also a little harzardous since he's still a litle wobbly and we have to constantly make sure he's not going to fall or tip something over.   Can't believe how big our little boy is already!

Fall Pictures

We took fall pictures at Curran's Orchard the other day.   Teara took them for me with her fabulous camera again.    It was a cool, crisp and sunny, just the way a fall day should be.

Hunter enjoyed a donut.  He loves them!

We got some great brother pictures.

Aidan was super tired but still did great.  Love these fall pictures!

Warm Weather Walk

Finally!!  A nice fall day.   We had to get out and enjoy it because it's not going to last.
I got the wagon out, we hadn't had it out in awhile and Hunter loved it.   First he really wanted to pull Aidan.

Then he really wanted to ride with Aidan.    He really like holding Aidan

Hunter is trying to tell Aidan it's okay.   Aidan was done being held and riding in the wagon.

 

Hunter always has something he is looking for outside.   It was spiders for awhile and now it's woolly bears... caterpillars that is.

He was trying to collect them all under this iron frog outside.

This was his collection... they did keep escaping.

 Aidan got to swing while Hunter collected his woolly bears.

See those little bottom chompers.   Now we are waiting on the top teeth and more nice days!

What did you do this weekend?

What did you do this weekend?   We put Hunter to work chopping wood.   He was very busy!

8 Months

Little guy is already 8 months.  Crawling everywhere, sitting really well on his own & loving to eat whatever we give him!   Not sure what he weighs but he has grown since he has started eating solids.  He loves to eat & gets awfully upset when we are eating and he's not.
We've had a long week or so with him having a nasty cold & teething at the same time.   Oh, misery for all of us!   His first little bottom tooth popped thru on Saturday and the other bottom one is just about thru.   This meant many nights of very frequent waking for him & I.   Looking forward to getting past this and working on some sleep training soon!   I really could use more than 2 hours consecutive sleep!
And still no "mama's."   Just lots of "dada's" and "tata's."   I swear he's making "ttt's" noises when he sees the cats like trying to say "kitty" or "tee."   But not "mama" for the one waking up with him every other hour.....not cool kid, not cool : )

Apple Orchard

We went to the apple orchard again.   Hunter loves playing there.

He loves the tractors.

Aidan likes them too.

 Tried to get a pumpkin patch picture.

This was as good as it got.

He loves the animals of course.  He gobbled at the turkeys and they gobbled back at him.  He thought that was so funny!   And the sheep must be fed.

It was such a nice sunny fall day.  Gotta love the apple orchard!