Our Growing Family

Friday, December 25, 2009

Merry Christmas!

{Merry Christmas from our family to yours}

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Christmas with Harleigh

(I am behind in blogger. This was from last Friday!)

Ricky has Harleigh on Christmas Eve, so my sister and Ricky use that day as their "Santa Christmas morning" and then the rest of the day with Ricky's family. We have always done something before Christmas with Harleigh so that my parents and our family can give Harleigh her gifts and then my sister gives the boys their gifts so Harleigh can see the boys open theirs from them. Did you understand all that?! ;) Okay...now for the pictures....

Cupcakes. When I was making these Jackson said "Mommy! You forgot to put HoHo's (Santa's) face under his hat!"

While my dad ran to the store, you will never guess who knocked on the front door.....

Santa!!! The boys couldn't believe their eyes!

And the fear sets in....

At first Jackson just stood by Santa and told him what he wanted for Christmas -

"I want a toy wee-weeder (weed eater), a toy chain saw, a toy blower, and a toy bike."

Getting a little more brave....

Although Garrett was scared to sit in his lap, he wanted to give Santa a bite of his pretzel -

Garrett didn't really enjoy this moment -

We told Jackson he had to sing Santa a Christmas song -

We thought we were successful. When Santa left however, Jackson saw a pillow that had Santa on it. He said "This HoHo isn't the pretend Pawpaw HoHo." I don't know what he was talking about........I explained how that really was Santa and Pawpaw was at the store. I think he understood, but I didn't ask him about it much more....

Presents.....

Garrett decided to take his Thomas the Train to the stairs to protect it from others....

The kids dancing! I think Harleigh is secretly starting to think the boys are fun!

Watching them dance was funny! Garrett always copies Jackson. However, when Harleigh is around, it is one big domino effect. Harleigh does something....Jackson copies Harliegh....and then Garrett coping Jackson. It was pretty cute!

Harleigh reading "The Potty Train" to Jackson and Garrett.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Shaving Cream Snowman!

I decided to be brave and let the boys use shaving cream to make their own snowman. First, I can't even tell you how excited Jackson was to get to use Aaron's shaving cream. "We get to use DADDY'S shaving cream!??!?!?!" He thought his was the coolest kid around!

The hardest thing about my personality and having young kids is standing back and letting it be THEIR work. When I want to say "put the nose lower so you have room for the eyes" or "the hat is upside down," I have to bite my tongue and say "great job." To each of them, their work is perfect and that is what makes them proud and that is what makes me smile!

My plan was to draw 3 circles, squirt shaving cream inside the circle, give them little pieces I cut out for the nose, eyes, arms, etc. and stand back.

Jackson was okay with this and went to work....

While Garrett looked at me like I was crazy for trying to make him stick his hand in shaving cream....

This is when I feared that Jackson was going to put shaving cream on his WHOLE paper instead of within the perfect little circles I drew, but I kept my mouth closed and enjoyed his happiness...