You know Dasher...and Dancer...and Prancer

Last night I was reading Micah The Night Before Christmas...

Me: "And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name, "Now Dasher, now Dancer! Now, Prancer and ...?" (pausing for Micah to fill in the blank)

Micah: "Cancer"?

At least he knows Rudolph, right?

The Season of Giving

As their Christmas gift this year, Grandma Mary sent my boys some money to go shopping for a charitable cause.  So...we headed off to Kohls in search of toys to donate to The Children's Hospital.  It was so much fun!  Micah had such a great time picking out toys to give to sick babies and children.  Mason mostly had fun just looking at toys to play with himself.  Thanks Grandma Mary!  Best gift ever!  Here is a picture of what the kids picked out with Grandma's money...

Grandma Nancy met us at the store even though she was sick...and helped us shop.  She even bought some additional things to add to our donation...Thanks Grandma Nancy!

We got tons of stuff and great deals.  Hopefully this will be a new Christmas tradition!

Girl's got rhythm

Aspen loves to dance.  Whenever she hears music she will swing from side to side at least once before finding something else to occupy her time.  Her favorite song to dance to is "I Like to Move It" from the movie Madagascar.

Continuing education

Success!!

And it only took me 28 years.

Boys will be boys

Is there an unwritten rule that states "Anyone possessing a 

Y chromosome must have an obsession with breasts"?  

I was shopping at Kohls with the kids the other day when I heard a lot of talk about nipples.  A lot of talk about nipples coming from two very little voices.  

I turned around to see these... in exactly this position...

 

on top of this

 

squeezing repeatedly.

I was a little surprised because it was Micah's hands on the bra... and everyone knows that Mason is the real  pervert of the family.

Good times.

Breakfast with Santa

Last week our kids had a delicious breakfast of pancakes and fruit at the church...and, of course, Santa made an appearance.

  Micah asked for Legos...

 

Mason was just interested in what kind of candy Santa might have in that bag of his.

  

Much like last year (How cute was he?)

 

Aspen's only wish was to get the heck off of Santa's lap...quickly please. 

Good girl

 

I am proud to say that so far we have had only one incident of ornament snatching from the tree...and not to worry, no candy canes were martyred.

Special tree

This year the boys decorated our christmas tree almost exclusively by themselves...

which is why large sections of the tree look like this...

 

and other areas look like this...

 

Our tree is so classy...and did I mention that it spins around on its stand?  

If that ain't class, I don't know what is.

Replay

Here is what has happened in the past few months....

Mason started preschool

Mason was so excited to finally be able to go to school like his big brother did, but most days now he tells me he would rather stay home.  He definitely needs to be socialized.

We discovered that Micah is allergic to cats.

You may notice in this picture that it looks as though Micah is suffering from pink eye, which is definitely no stranger in this household...but it is not pink eye.  Whenever Micah gets near cats or is too close to cat hair, etc... his eye (or eyes) turn blood red and swell up for a few days.  This happened 3 times in about a month.  

Aspen went from receiving rides from big brother...

to giving rides to big brother

 

 Brian turned 28 and got a new camera...

Halloween came and went...the boys were aliens for the trunk or treat at church...

and the old stand by costumes of chicken and skunk for Halloween night

Aspen was a cow...with her baby cow (who also had a baby cow)

 

and Brian carved an awesome pumpkin

 

I made Aspen a sweet tutu...

and she looked darn cute in it.

I turned 28 and Brian bought me an awesome sewing machine...which I am using to learn how to quilt.

On thanksgiving Brian and I ran a 5k...

 

and I kicked his butt.  

Actually, not by much...but I did (31:00 for me 31:30 for him).

A Night of Firsts

First tooth...

First time getting into a sitting position from laying...

First ponytail!

Not bad for one day!

 

You can't see the tooth in this picture, but trust me, it's there.

Too cool for school

One of Micah's classmates wears sunglasses when he walks to and from school.  This morning as we were walking from the van to his classroom Micah asked if he could wear glasses too.  When I told him he had a pair at home in his tool box he demanded that I provide them to him NOW.  He got a little upset when I told him I couldn't snap my fingers and magically transport the sunglasses from home into my hands.
Later in the day I was surprised when he remembered and asked me to get the sunglasses for him out of his closet.  When I told him that sunglasses were mostly just for outside when it was sunny, he told me that he wanted to wear them inside too because they made him look "fancy and cool". 

So here is fancy-cool Micah. 

 

Aspen wanted to be fancy too.

Mason says...

Mom, are you eating a piece of butternut squash just like me? 

Close enough, right?  He cracks me up.

Colorado Springs

This last weekend we took the kids to Colorado Springs for a mini-vacation.  We booked a hotel for 2 nights and figured it would be fun to just have a couple days away from home.
Here are a few things I discovered.

1. There is no such thing as a vacation when you have kids.

2. Babies are horrible little tyrants when they do not get their daily dose of napping.

3. You cannot beat pink eye.

4. Brian snores louder than a train wreck.

5. No matter how much time I spend making check lists and packing, I will still forget very important items such as swimsuits or diapers.

6. Aspen does not appreciate eating processed baby food from a jar.  If she must be subjected to such torture make sure it is some kind of delicious fruit like pears.  No veggies, please.  And not bananas.  NOT. BANANAS.

The list goes on and on, but I will leave it at that.

We left Friday afternoon and checked in to our Ho-en-tel (as Mason would put it) around 5:30pm.  So the first night we just went out to dinner and the boys played in the pool with Dad.

 

Aspen decided to stay pool side in her jammies because she was feeling quite cranky after dinner (and it was her swimsuit and swim diapers mom forgot)

 

After swimming we watched "The Missing Lynx".  Well, Mason and Brian fell asleep after about 10 minutes.  I caught bits and pieces while drifting in and out of sleep (Aspen was bound and determined to keep me awake) and Micah was wide eyed until the end of the movie (about 11:30pm).  

Oh yeah...after swimming Brian also uncovered a special little something.  Also known as...

Pink Eye!  Surprise!

The next morning after breakfast we made a trip to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.  It is a pretty neat zoo.  There aren't as many animals as Denver Zoo, but I like the arrangement at Cheyenne Mtn better.  Right after you enter the zoo the first animal display you see is the giraffes.  The cool thing about this is that you are up high on a bridge and you can see the giraffes eye to eye. 

Up close and personal with the giraffes

We bought the boys some crackers to feed the giraffes, but it was pretty hard to get any of them interested in eating. I assume they had all been force fed approximately  20,000 crackers already seeing as how it was about 10:30am and the zoo had been open since 9am.  I think just about every person standing around me had a stack of about 9 crackers in their hands. 

All the giraffes were intersted in doing was this...

 

Yeah, they stand around and lick the wood poles all day.  Apparently that is what they would be doing in the wild...tasting tree trunks and eating leaves.  

Eventually we did get some giraffes to take the crackers, but I wasn't able to get any pictures.

I did get to pet a giraffe on the face, though.  That was neat.  Their hair feels just like a horse.  

We also got to pet a baby wallaby (no pics of course) and Micah and Mason got to help feed fruit bats.

 

This was not the one we pet, but I think it is cute that he has a surrogate pouch to cozy up in.

 

Micah making fruit kabobs for the bats

  

Hanging the food in the cage

 

There was also a cool playground for the kids to play on.

 

The boys used some of their money to go on a pony ride.

 

The boys' favorite exhibit was the naked mole rats.  They were pretty ugly and had a large series of tunnels to occupy their time.  I think the boys just liked watching them scurry up the clear tunnels.  

After the zoo we were all pretty pooped, so it was back to the hotel for some rest (well, for some of us) and more swimming.  We tried to watch another movie after swimming but not even Micah made it through that night.  It's okay...the movie was pretty lame.  

 

On Sunday we checked out of the hotel and decided to visit Garden of the Gods.  The boys were excited to be doing something else before heading home, so we set off.  We got on the interstate and just a couple minutes into the drive one of my front tires blew out.  It being a Sunday, no tire stores were open except for Wal-Mart.  We didn't want to chance driving home on the spare, so we ended up spending way too much money and 2 1/2 hours sitting at Wal-Mart.  Needless to say, a lot of the time was spent in the toy department.  By the time we got to Garden of the Gods it was late in the afternoon and the boys were spent.  After walking for a total of about 15-20 minutes they were done.  It really is a beautiful place, though.

 

My next vacation better be to Hawaii.  Sans children.