An Activity a Day Until CHRISTMAS!!!

 To say that we are excited about Christmas (or kristen if you ask gracie) in this house is a HUGE understatement.  AND, since my kids have a tendency to bicker and fight when they are bored and/or together for long (or short) amounts of time, I decided to brainstorm a bunch of ideas for activities that we could do to keep them happy.  I really do want them to get presents from Santa...and we all feared what the elf was reporting : ).  Since I didn't have this light bulb moment until a little over a week before Christmas, coming up with enough activities was easy peasy!  First up...painting snow!  Which they loved!!!

 evan also thought it was hysterical to take aim at me

 combining their efforts to make a beautiful masterpiece

 on a side note...evan wanted to do green, so when i found some red food coloring, i thought PERFECT...christmas colors.  well, evan ran around and sprayed a little here and a little there and didn't focus on one area too much.  gracie had red, and she would go from one spot to the next spraying gobs of red water in the snow.  you know what red water sprayed in white snow looks like???  by the time she was tired of the activity it looked like at least one small animal had been massacred in our yard.  needless to say, i encouraged everyone to run back and forth multiple times to break up some of the red...and i stressed the entire night that the cops were going to show up at my house curious about the significant amount of red splatters in our backyard.

 and, now that i gave you that picture...take a moment to look at these pictures because they are much sweeter...

show time!  who doesn't love all the great christmas shows on tv right now??  both of my kids are not sad when i have to shower after exercising because they know they get to watch a show!  gracie usually doesn't last for more than a handful of minutes, but she is definitely fired up about the idea!  this is them watching prep & landing...as you can see evan wants to make sure gracie gets every moment.  prep & landing is one of his favorites!  and, how adorable are they...both of them got cozied up like this on their own...

We HEART Snow

Thank goodness for good snow gear for these kiddos (mainly Evan)!  I think he would stay outside until it was medically necessary for him to come inside.  Usually it takes significant bribes of a warm fire and hot chocolate before he is even willing to consider the possibility of coming inside.  Gracie loves the snow, but she has a much shorter tolerance for cold weather.  If she is done...she is done.  One day she actually went and sat on the doorstep inside our garage because she was (in her words) all done, freezing and ready to play downstairs.

both kids really enjoy eating snow...gracie wasn't sad about how heavy it was snowing last weekend.  it just meant she didn't have to work as hard to eat the snow.  and since her gloves are the cotton ones that get wet and cold (part of why she doesn't like to stay outside that long), she really, really enjoyed not having to stick her hands in the snow!

this would be bret getting attacked by some of the neighborhood kids

First Snow!

I will be the first to admit, I'm pretty clueless when it comes to anything that might be happening in the world today.  I rarely turn the TV onto anything other than a cartoon for E to watch while I'm putting Gracie down for a nap.  Our car is usually tuned into kid's music.  After some relentless teasing from Bret and friends, I did download a news app on my phone.  But, we seem to have a couple of iPad and iPhone addicts in our house, so I don't tend to look at my phone unless someone is calling or I hear it beep that I have a message.  But, yesterday, I might have set the bar at an all time low for being clueless.  In the evening I got a text from Bret saying he couldn't believe we were going to get 4-7" of snow (side note: he was in Chicago).  I had no clue, and when I went to turn out the Christmas lights before going upstairs last night, I couldn't believe what I saw...we had 2+ inches of snow.  Seriously?  I didn't even know it was snowing.  Regardless, the kids were super pumped to wake up the a white winter wonderland!  I managed to hold them off until 9 before we went outside...they wanted to go out and play in the pitch black at 6:30.

 evan was really excited to go out back and play on the swing set.  you know what is better than going down a slide in the summer?  going down a slide in the winter with snow on the ground...instant human sledding.  They were FLYING down the slide, and both of them would slide a good 2-3 feet beyond the end of the slide before coming to a stop.  a few times, one of them wasn't fast enough moving from the end of the slide, so we had human bowling and even dog bowling a couple of times.  When I first saw E go down, I started cracking up and told him he was a rocket ship.  That prompted Gracie to identify what she was EVERY time she went down the slide.  She would stand at the top and say, "i'm an elephant!" and then go down the slide.  she was minnie mouse (her absolute favorite thing in the whole world...after bobo and blanket), an elephant, a monkey, a rocket ship, and a few other things before she was done.

Whatever You DO...DON'T SMILE

I will admit this year I panicked on the Christmas card.  Since we moved recently and not many people knew our address, I was adamant about getting the cards out at the 1st of December.  So, I picked out my favorite pictures from the year, and whipped up a christmas letter of sorts  that I only created for one purpose... to have the address in the card as well as on the envelope.  The day after I dropped them in the mail, the kids and I hung our Christmas wreaths on the windows, and then we went outside to take some pictures to show Bret.  Instead of taking house pictures, I managed to convince the kids to smile for a few pictures.  AND, I happened to get some really cute, made for Christmas card shots.  I still like my Christmas card  pictures, but I especially love the one of Evan and Gracie putting their heads together below.

don't be surprised when this picture ends up in next year's card!

one big benefit of gracie's age is that she is ready for the "whatever you do, don't smile game".  we started doing that with evan when he was throwing tantrums or upset at around the same age...when he would be out of control, we would say, "whatever you do, don't laugh and definitely don't smile".  at 2 they adore being defiant, so what does he do, smiles and laughs and forgets about his boo boo or tantrum.  It worked so well, that I started doing it for pictures...works like a charm!  If they won't take any pictures (but I'm not willing to let the moment pass because of their cute outfits or the occasion), I say, "i'm taking a picture, but whatever you do, don't stand next to each other and absolutely DO NOT SMILE".  the result...a picture that i'm obsessed with...thinking its a framer.

My Little Lady

Had we not moved, Gracie would be in preschool for two days a week. BUT, since kindergarten is now full days, we opted to put Evan in four days a week and hold off on Gracie until next year when he is in kindergarten.  That means four days a week for a few hours a day, it is just Gracie and I hanging out!  I'll admit, most of those days, we are running errands and doing chores, but we do manage to squeeze in a little play time too!  And, the past few days, gracie has been having some play time in the office while I update our very neglected blog!

After Thanksgiving Exercising

So, what do you do when its cold outside and you've been couped up inside for a couple of days??  Bundle up and run laps and then play tag!  Well, at least that is what you do if you are a high energy kid of mine!

super blurry...but she you can tell she is loving being outside!

 i think he would have stayed outside until frostbite set in.  the only way i could get him to come back inside was to bribe him with hot chocolate...judge away.  i'm a huge fan of bribery ; ).

 this one loved being outside until she stopped running and realized it was cold.  then, she was in a bit of a pickle since i was still chasing evan. what does a girl do when she doesn't want to be out of her mommy's sight but she is cold and wants to go inside???  stop everything and throw a tantrum...obviously.

 this is the face of a boy that JUST realized his mom started running the opposite direction he thought she was running and HE is about to get TAGGED!

Thanksgiving Weekend

This Thanksgiving, we headed up to CP for Thanksgiving's extended weekend.  It was a nice relaxing time, and the kids even allowed us to sleep in...all the way to 7 am some days ; )!  

 grandpa jeff and grandma pam spent a lot of time entertaining the kiddos with trains, cars and playing bears.  gracie had grandma pam putting the bears night night at least a half dozen times a day!  i'm pretty sure every time gracie asked grandma pam to go night night, she was secretly hoping that meant that they got to go night night and take a little snooze themselves!  but, every time, she had her putting the bears to sleep in a bed.

  

 a little pre bed snuggles and reading

 one day gracie saw pam styling her hair, and every day after that, gracie dug out the rollars and asked pam to put them in her hair.  evan was willing to help out too

 so pretty!!!

gracie's ready for some turkey!  and, of course, she had to bring a bear and tried to bring the cat (it was the thing you put to prevent a draft at the bottom of the door) with her!  evan was ready too but not as thrilled about having a picture taken.

Gracie is Potty Trained (for the 2nd time)

 Quite some time ago, Gracie entertained the idea of being potty trained.  It stuck for no more than a month.  But, a few weeks ago, she decided to give it a go again!!!  Unfortunately,  we were traveling on back to back vacations and she kept wanting to use public restrooms.  i realized that it was because she really wanted to be like the big kids, and evan doesn't typically announce that he needs to use the restroom at home.  BUT, when we are out and about, he definitely does.  so, gracie was following suit.  she got her chance once our vacations were over, and the best part of her day might be picking out her undies in the morning : ).  She also has kept her love of public restrooms...other than really grossing me out, it does help her not have accidents when we are running errands.  she HAS to go potty in EVERY, SINGLE store we enter.  i must constantly tell her not to touch anything because now, when we go into a public restroom she says, "i put my hands here (her lap) or on mommy" and the second she sits down, she says "wash hands mommy!"

she is also always ready for her close up ; ).  whenever i get the camera out, she immediately walks super close to me and yells CHEESE!

Bathroom Updates!

We have a little history with wax rings and laminate wood flooring, so i don't think bret was completely surprised when he noticed some damage on the floor around the toilet.  but, it was enough that we had no desire to put down more laminate just to have the same thing happen!  so, we enlisted the handy services of packaw, and bret learned a lot about tiling!  he did a great job with the grout, baseboards and quarter round.  he absolutely hates lengthy projects where the house is in a state of disorder, so no one was more excited than bret to have this project completed!  sorry...no before updates, but it was a taupe color wall with a light wood laminate flooring.  i'm loving our changes : )!

 first time grouting tile!

the kids really, really, really wanted to help out!!

the finished project!!!  both bret and my dad were very patient with me on this project because i had a vision ;).  I really wanted the linen tile which meant checking the options at multiple stores, and then i wanted them staggered, and i wanted to linen pattern to alternate : ).  is it better if i completely get that i'm being really high maintenance?

Halloween Activities!

This year for Halloween, we celebrated at a friend's house the weekend prior to Trick OR Treating.  Evan was not sad to have multiple opportunities to wear his costume!  He was a parasaurolophus / trex.  gracie had a costume change for her halloween.  she started out as melanie mouse, but she spied evan's clifford costume and there was no changing her mind!

 the kids with all of their friends!  evan is the old guy on the block...and surrounded by girls!

then, i discovered some halloween cookie cutters, and the kids didn't have to twist my arm (ok fine...they didn't even have to ask) to get the supplies to make sugar cookies!  they loved the idea of decorating them, but really just wanted to eat them!  evan did actually make an attempt to decorate them while gracie would put her knife in the icing and only make it halfway to the cookie before re-routing it to her mouth!

trick or treating!  because of crazy weather, our trick or treating was actually postponed for a day.  thank goodness because  the next day was significantly better!  as you can see, gracie decided to be clifford for actual halloween.  we walked down to a neighbors beforehand and couldn't belive how many kids were on our street alone.  i think the masses of kids might have overwhelmed gracie because i ended up carrying her for a little bit.

 ready to get some candy!

 and, yes, you are seeing this correctly.  that is absolutely bret dressed in an ape costume.  he has to leave the mask off because he scares small children : )