Baby Jesus

When I was putting our Christmas decorations away today, I had to take this picture of the Nativity after Kaiden rearranged it.  He didn't like the way I had it set up because not everyone could see Baby Jesus.  

Christmas Cookies

The boys come over to help me bake cookies.

Then we had to decorate the cookies.

I think that was their favorite part.

Or maybe eating the decorations was their favorite part.  This is Trevins "I didn't just eat a handful of chocolate chips," look.

The finished product.  They like making faces, so we have faces on stockings, stars, bells as well as snowmen and gingerbread men.

Footnotes:  The smudge on the pictures is a cookie dough print on the camera.  The aprons became capes as soon as we were finished.

Rocking Around the Christmas Tree

We have a couple of ornaments on the tree that play music.

The boys love to play them over and over again.

And dance around the tree.

Goldbug

When Nathan was three, his Granny give him a wonderful book.  Richard Scary's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go.  It is filled with wonderful pictures of such things as a pickle truck, a crayon car being driven by hippos and rabbits and cats.  It enchanted him and then Kaiden and now Trevin.

One of the fun things about the book is a little yellow bug named Goldberg who is hidden on every page.  The kids love looking for him.

This is us reading the Night Before Christmas with Trevin trying to find Goldbug hiding on every page.  The closest he came was finding a mouse.

Tree Decorating

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, we donned Christmas hats and decorated the tree.

It has become a tradition.  Kaiden was really into it this year, Trevin was more interested in playing with the ornaments that play music.

70!

Tito had a big birthday last week.  One of those that ends in "0".  Tito is really just a great big kid at heart, so we had a kid's birthday party.

We played children's games,

Had a photo booth with silly props.

Kaiden wanted to know why we only put 2 candles on the cake, I didn't think the cake was big enough for all 70.

Whenever Tito and I start to plan a party, he always says first we'll get the USC marching band.  Well, they were busy, there was a football game that day.  He had to settle for our band with our funny hats.

Kaiden with his fishing hat, playing the whistle.

Nathan with his restaurant coloring hat playing the popcorn push toy (he says it needs a longer handle)

Dave with his two hat fusion playing the horn and the bells.

We had prizes for the best hat and Stacy won with her reindeer antler hat, but we didn't get a picture.

Super Heros at Play

Super Family

It all started with one cape for Kaiden, then I made one for Trevin.

Then one of my big "kids" said we should all have capes.  I didn't pay much attention.  Then they kept saying it.  So I told them Santa might be nice to them.  But no, they wanted them for Halloween.  Finally I told them if I made them, I wanted pictures.

They agreed!  Then I asked them to fly.

This is what the big kids did.

This is what the little kids did.

Reversible capes, duel secret identities.

Bronco Fans

Museum

We took the boys to the Museum of Nature and Science while their parents were in Mexico. The museum is one of my favorite places and I think they love it too. They have so many hands on experiences for the boys. 

Kaiden is all suited up for his mission. 

Trevin is watching Kaiden at the control panel. 

The exhibit with the bugs is one of Kaiden's favorite.  He especially likes the display where you have to find the camouflaged bugs in the leaves and branches and flowers.  I think he can tell you where all of them are.

Trevin liked this little guy.  Kaiden was too busy finding looking at the animals and having us read all the facts to him.

There were two of these monitors with maps and facts of where the animals live.  It didn't matter which one Kaiden went to, that is the one Trevin wanted to look at - here he is ready to go back to the one he just left. 

Breakfast in the Park

One morning when we had the boys, we poured our coffee, grabbed yogurt and granola bars and headed off to the park for breakfast. It was a beautiful morning. After we ate, we let the boys run off some of their boundless energy.

Everything Kaiden does, Trevin tries to do also.  He never quite made it up the slide - it gets pretty steep at the top and he would always slip back down - but he kept trying.

The swing is really a little too large for Trevin.  He kept slipping off.  At first he didn't want to swing but after he watched Kaiden for a bit, he didn't want to get down.

One of nice things about having a little brother, you can have him fill the cowboy hat up with the wood chips to put on the slide,

until the pile gets big enough, (not to happy to have his picture taken)

to knock all over the place when you slide down.  I think this is the only time Trevin got to slide through the pile, he just kept filling up the hat so Kaiden could slide.  He didn't seem to mind.

Dog Walker

While the boys were here when their parents were in Mexico, Trevin wanted to walk Rocco.  He did a pretty good job of it.  I finally had to lock the leash because Rocco was getting too far ahead of him and needed them closer together to watch that neither one of them went astray.

Kindergarten

Kaiden started kindergarten the week before Labor Day.  It does not seem possible since I was just sending his father to kindergarten a couple of years ago.

All packed and ready to go.  He is in all day kindergarten so he has to take his lunch.  

Coming out of school on his first day - so far he loves it!

He rides the school bus and thinks it is pretty cool.  I think he looks too grown-up!

Thank you Stacy for the pictures.

Tornado and Rain

We went to the grocery store and had just checked out when the store made an announcement there was a tornado warning and a funnel cloud had been seen at the end of their parking lot, we needed to proceed to the stores shelter. Which turned out to be the meat locker - the only place in the store that did not have windows or sky lights. Kaiden had lots of questions - Why are we going in here? Why is everyone going in here? Why do we have to go in here? Why is it so cold? I asked him if he knew what a tornado was and he said he had seen it on TV - houses and cows fly around in the air. I told him we had to stay here until the tornado went away so we wouldn't be flying around in the air. King Soopers was as nice as they could be under the circumstances. They brought blankets for the children and then brought out butcher coats for the rest of us. But it still was cold!

After we got home, we had a nice gentle warm rain, which the boys enjoyed more than the tornado!

Tito and I enjoy sitting on the porch and listening to the rain and smelling the air, but these boys weren't content to do that, they wanted to run between the drops!  They didn't succeed, but had great fun trying!