Snowflake Hand Prints

I like to do a hand print craft with the boys during the holidays.  Typically we do it on one of our Christmas countdown days; however, since I was a bit behind this year, we are packng a lot of winter fun into our Christmas break.  

We've done a lot of the standard handprint crafts, and the boys are all about snowflakes right now, so we searched Pinterest for a snowflake hand craft.  

Thankfully both of the boys did the craft this year and no one complained about getting his hand dirty with paint!

We thought we needed something else on the page, so I dug out some snowflake stanps and they decorated their signs with it.

Two artists proud of their creations!  These are going in their artboxes so I can look back next year and marvel at how much their hands have grown!

Enjoying Christmas Presents!

Scott had his gallbladder removed today, so the boys spent the night with my parents since we had to be at the hospital early this morning. We brought a few of their Christmas presents so they could play with Grandma and Grandpa.

My parents got Liam this Hot Wheels set, and this was the reaction right after it was put together and had it's first run.  The boys (young and older) were thrilled!  The cars zoomed SO fast around the ramp, it was amazing that they didn't fly off!


At first, Liam wanted to trap the car with his hand when it zoomed fast but he just held his hand there to feel the woosh as it raced by.


I'd say this one is a hit - we'll be hearing the racing of these cards around the tracks for a long time!


As a side note, Scott's surgery went well and he's resting here at home!

Christmas Photo Frames

Since Scott's gallbladder removal surgery was moved forward to Monday (!), we decided to take down most of our Christmas decorations on Saturday.  Typically we leave them up and take them down after New Years.  Since Scott can't lift more than 15-20 lbs after his surgery, we wanted to get the tree down because I wasn't sure I could carry it to the storage room on my own.

I love looking at each of the ornaments as we put up and take down the tree each year.  I remember where we bought them or who gave them to us.  When we got married, we began the tradition of adding a photo frame to our tree each year.  The frame contains a photo of us from that year.

I'm usually good at purchasing the photo frame (shopping is easy!), but not great about getting the photo printed and added to the frame.  For example, this lovely frame at the bottom right hung on our tree for the entire month without a photo.  I promise it will get a photo printed before the year is over!
I can't wait until we have an entire Christmas tree dedicated to all of these frames - what a fun tree that will be to look at!  For some reason, our 2013 frame is missing.  I likely packed it away without realizing it.

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve, it was unexpectedly warm outside!  When we left for church in the afternoon, none of us needed coats because it was in the mid 50s!  By the time we left church it was dark and a bit chilly, but nothing like I would expect for weather on Christmas Eve!

The boys did a great job at mass, especially since we were there for over two hours!  Mass didn't start until 5pm, but we got there at 3:45pm to make sure we got a seat.  By 4:15pm the church was packed and standing room only.

After church, we went to my parents house for dinner. We had to take the obligatory photos in front of the tree.  Karsten was even sweet enough to pose for me so I could check my camera settings.


How cute are these two - they were pretty excited that Christmas was finally here. Earlier today they were already negotiating to see if they could open a present (or two) tonight.  I remember doing that when I was little, and I had a feeling Papa would happily let them open on (like he usually did for me!).


It's fun to look back at this family photo over the years to see how much the boys change from year to year.  I like to think that Scott, I and my parents look perpetually young....right?




In case you were wondering, the boys got to open a present - matching Christmas PJs that Grandma made.  The flannel pants were sooooo soft, I wanted a pair!  Before bed, they each chose a cookie for Santa - gingersnaps from both - and Liam set out the reindeer food he made at school.


Sleep tight boys - Santa is on his way!

Christmas Lights (night 2)

We had so much fun driving around looking at lights over the weekend, we decided to have a second round.

We hit several of the local favorites - huge displays on a business, small displays on homes, whole neighborhoods decorated, and amazing decorated homes.

Our last two houses were a bit of a drive away from the rest, and Liam fell asleep on the way.  When we got there, Karsten reminded me to take a picture of the houses so Liam could see what he missed.  He also asked if I could take a video so Liam could see the dancing icicles in the trees.  What a sweet brother he is.




By the time we made it home, Karsten was asleep as well - checking out Christmas lights is hard work!

Christmas Craft

One of my friends at work made a bunch of beautiful snowflakes to decorate the office for Christmas.  I commented on how beautiful they were and she said they were easy to make - I was doubtful, but she showed me a YouTube video, and they looked like something Karsten and I could try.

Karsten said he wanted to make a snowflake, so he cut out a snowflake while I looked up the video and got the paper ready.  When I showed him what we were going to make, he was excited.

We had a few false starts and had to start over one time when I showed him how to cut the triangles wrong.  We tried to include Liam in our snowflake, but he was having none of it, he was making his own creation.


We were pretty impressed with ourselves and the final product.


Karsten's first snowflake is on top, then our YouTube recreation, and LIam's dino snowflake is on the bottom.  All masterpieces!

Wordless Wednesday - finally blooming!

Christmas Vacation

Since Scott works for a school district, he is always off for about two weeks over Christmas. I always try to reserve my vacation time so I'm able to be off the same time as Scott.  When the boys were younger, Scott and I would take the first few days to run errands and get things done for Christmas while the boys were still at Gail's or preschool.

Now that Karsten is off the same days as Scott, we were all home together and ready for lots of family fun.

I needed to swing by my work to pick up my Door to Door Organics box, so we went up to my office so the boys could watch the construction of the new parking garage.  We were lucky and they were pouring concrete on the top floor - it was very cool to watch.


We went to see The Good Dinosaur - it was pretty good.  About halfway through the movie, Liam said 'is it time to go yet?'  He's not a big movie watcher - too much sitting!


We went out to eat a few times - Thai food and Sushi!


In case you were wondering, the boys didn't eat sushi, we ordered them teriyaki chicken.  Karsten will try sushi and likes California rolls, but Liam isn't too interested.  I'm torn on this - I want them to like it because I love sushi, but that's an expensive habit to begin! :)


We played lots of games, the boys played lots of Legos, and we ran a bunch of errands.  Nothing too exciting, but it's exactly how I hoped we would be spending our Christmas break!

Christmas Lights (night 1)

Scott did some research online and put together a list of holiday light displays we wanted to check out. We plugged the addresses into my trusty nuvi and off we went! The light displays were quite impressive, and I believe we've been spoiled.  We used to be in awe of houses that looked like this (and we still are!), but now the super popular displays are coreographed to music and the lights are controlled by computers!


After seeing several amazing displays, we stopped at a local park that decorates for Christmas.  It was cold outside (in the 40's), but not as cold as typical this time of year, so we bundled up and headed out for a walk to enjoy the beautiful lights


Trees were lit all around the pond and it was so beautiful to see the reflections in the lake.


We've driven past and seen the park before, but it's never been warm enough for us to stop and walk around in it.




We had a great time, I think this may get added to our list to do every year!


The boys were thrilled that they could climb on the train!


Sigh - another picture, mom?


Finally, we'd seen it all and loaded back up to head home.  They claimed they weren't tired, but we knew otherwise and wanted to get them to bed before we had meltdowns!

Snowmen

Since it's been so warm, these are the only kind of snowmen we're enjoying.  Nutter butters dipped in white chocolate are fantastic - if you've never done it before, I think you need to go make them today. Delicious!


We started out with M&Ms as the snowman buttons, then Karsten asked if we could do sprinkles.


So, Scott and I did the dipping and the boys did the decorating.

Wordless Wednesday - Mommy's boots

Sleigh Ride

Our neighborhood hosts a horse drawn sleigh ride in the neighborhood to enjoy all of the Christmas lights.  We lucked out this year with beautiful weather in the 50's - much better than the cold and rainy weather we had last year!

When we arrived, the sleigh had already taken its first group.  We only had to wait for a few minutes before the sleigh arrived for our turn.  The driver was great - he told us all about the horses, Bill and Bob.  We learned about what they eat, drink and how often they get new shoes. It was obvious that he really cared for all of the horses, and the horses looked very healthy (in my opinion where I know nothing about horses).


They had glitter on their hooves!


Karsten wanted to sit in the back seat of the sled.  Excellent choice because we were sitting up a bit higher and could see more than just the people in front of us.


When we got back from our ride, there were only two people waiting for the next ride, so we stayed in our seats and got to go for another ride.  It was a fun night!

Liam's Christmas Party #1

Since Liam has two preschool classes, he gets two parties for ech holiday.  Poor guy missed both of his Halloween parties because he was sick with strep so he was really looking forward to his Christmas parties.

I went to his party with one of my coworkers who has twins in Liam's class.  We got there a bit early and the kids were coloring.  Liam has really started to enjoy coloring and is doing a great job holding the crayon and staying inside the lines.


Ms. Patty brought cookies for the kids to decorate - they were thrilled.  Frosting, cookies and sprinkles - what more would a group of 3 and 4 year olds want?


So proud of his creation!


I love going to these class parties - it's fun to see the kids interact with each other and see the kids that you hear so much about!


Ms. Patty got coloring books for all of the kids - so kind of her!  Liam loves Ms Patty and says that his favorite days at school are the days he is in her class.  She gets lots of hugs from Liam!

Christmas Concert Tradition

For the past several years, we've been lucky to be invited by Edward Jones to attend their Christmas Concert at the Kauffman Center.  It's always a beautiful concert and the Kauffman center is a gorgeous building!


Since Karsten was sick on Friday, we were worried someone else would catch it and we wouldn't be able to make it to the concert.  Thankfully, all of the sanitizing and other things we did kept us healthy and we dropped the boys off at my parents and headed for a quick brunch before the concert.


We always try to sit in the orchestra area because we like to be up close to see everything.  We had great seats this year and enjoyed being able to watch the conductor and musicians.  This year, the pipe organ was featured in several of the songs, it was quite impressive to hear that beautiful instrument playing - hard to believe all of those pipes work together to create such beautiful music!