A Serenade

It is every girls dream to serenaded by a handsome man, right?  Yesterday while we were walking through the grocery store down the cookie/cracker isle, we passed a lady stocking the shelves.  I scan the shelves looking for the kids’ favorite goldfish crackers and I hear the lady chuckling behind me.  I turn to see that Layton had walked up to her and was serenading her with “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells”.  I’m pretty sure it made her day.

Fall Leaves

Or perhaps I should say winter leaves?  Most everywhere else in the country people get to enjoy all the leaves turning colors and falling off the trees in October and November.  But when you live in Florida, the best time to enjoy big piles of leaves is in December!  And boy did they enjoy them!

Even Mater enjoyed his time in the leaves.

New Bikes

As seen previously, all three kids got a new bike for Christmas.  Dallin is of course a long time biker with major skills and we knew he wouldn’t have any problem at all leaving us all in the dust on his new bike.

For Mandy though, this was her very first bike.  She is not exactly the most coordinated child in the world so we were a little worried about how well she would do with it.  Our fears were entirely unfounded.

She is an absolute pro!  We have a feeling that it won’t be long and we’ll be able to take those training wheels off no problem!

And then we have Layton.  He loved his new tricycle too.  And we loved that we could push and steer it from behind.

We have discovered though, that he prefers to do the pushing himself.  He actually spends more time pushing it than he does riding it!  Oh well, at least he is having a great time with it!

Merry Christmas Morning

You’ve already seen Layton’s little meltdown on Christmas morning, now let’s see the happy side of the morning.  And trust me it was a very happy one!

And after all the glorious present opening, we enjoyed our 2nd annual Christmas Morning Crepe Fest.  Complete with freshly whipped cream, strawberries, blueberries and dark chocolate sauce.  YUMMMMMMY!!!

Christmas Eve PJs

Who doesn’t love some new warm lovely PJs on a cold Christmas Eve?  We sure do!

Nathan especially LOVED his new shirt from Jon & Stacy.  He just ADORES the Giants.  Or not.  But when you loose a bet, you have to wear what you have to wear.

And don’t forget making cookies for Santa!  That is one of my favorite Christmas Eve traditions!

All Locked Up

While visiting with my family this past weekend, we stepped inside for a few minutes and asked Sarah if she would watch the kids for us.  We came back out a little while later to find then all locked up together in their new puppy’s pen. 

I guess she REALLY didn’t want them to get away from her.  Now that is my kind of babysitter :)  With that kind of attention to detail, I know that with her my kids would never get lost :)

Christmas Vacation

While out of school during the holidays, we had a few days where we stayed cooped up inside because it was so cold outside.  On one of those days, Mandy and Dallin decided that they need a friend to play with.  And since none were available – they just created their own:

After that, I guess Dallin was feeling a little hungry so he created a Ginger Bread Man to play with:

Toasty

When Grandpa builds a fire for roasting marshmallows, he really doesn’t hold back!!!!!

The True Meaning of Christmas

Layton opened all of his presents.  He loved them all.  Then when he saw that there were no more to open in his pile, he moved on to Nathan’s pile.  When informed of his error and told that he had no more presents to open, we come to this picture.  I know it is probably wrong to laugh at such a distraught little figure, but honestly it was just way too funny.  I still laugh every time  I think about it.   It is now my favorite Christmas picture of all time.    I think that with him – we are a VERY VERY VERY long way from getting him to understand the true meaning of Christmas.