Christmas 2015

Christmas day brought cold and snow.  It also brought family and friends to our house for presents, good food, laughter and lots of love.

 The boys handed out gifts to everyone and then dug into their bags.

 Kaiden was pretty excited about the movie gift card!

 Laughing with Tito.

 A good time with Dad putting together Star War Legos.  Note the ugly Christmas sweaters gifted by other family members.

Christmas Play

Kaiden took part in the church's Christmas play this year.  A first, he never wants to do things like this, but he volunteered this year.  The story line was a writer trying to come up with a new twist on the same story.  She threw around ideas such as telling the story making the characters more modern, such as super heros and villians, etc.  then she was visited by the characters who told the story from their eyes.  King Herod was protrayed as a mafia boss and the kings his henchman, Mary was shown at different ages, the devil tried to talk Joseph out of accepting Jesus.  It was a nice fresh twist.

The cast during a song.

Mom filming because Dad had to work and Trevin paying close attention waiting for his brother to appear.

Kaiden delivering the last line "Merry Christmas"

We are very proud of him.

My New Favorite Photo

Christmas Cookies

The boys take cookie decorating very seriously.

Of course, they have fun also.



 

Trevin's masterpiece.

 

 

Kaiden's snow angel and two piece snowman.



Oh, Christmas Tree

The family got together to decorate the tree the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  The boys were very interested in the stories behind the ornaments.  Trevin has been doing quite a bit of redecorating.  I dome home from work and find empty branches and 5 and 6 ornaments on others.  

Tito's Birthday

I am really late with this - but the boy's spent the night before Tito's birthday.  We let Tito sleep in and made him muffins and cards.  The boys called the muffins birthday cake muffins.  

Soccer

Kaiden has been playing soccer this fall and is really enjoying it.  We have had great weather which makes it nice.  I remember putting long sleeve shirts and sweatpants on Nathan during quite a few games and shivering on the sidelines.

Adventures in Baking

We made cookies and the boys scraped the mixing bowl and pan we used.  Trevin was making sure he got every last bit out of the bowl.  When he couldn't get any more out of the bowl with his spoon...

he decided the only way was to dive in!

Pumpkin Carving

There was some pretty serious pumpkin carving going on Halloween.  There were patterns for Pokemon, and a minion.  Kaiden drew his design freestyle.  Carrie always is very artistic and cut a cat out without any kind of pattern.

Trevin wanted his to be a house - that I can help with - I can cut squares and rectangles.

Such concentration for his first Jack-O-Lantern on his own.

All lit up on the porch.

Halloween

We all dressed for Halloween this year, had dinner and then went trick or treating with the boys. I can't remember the last time I went out trick or treating. There were some pretty elaborately decorated houses in the neighborhood - a couple of them pretty scary.

Dave as Frankenstein; Carrie as a Day of the Dead Senorita - she had taken her make-up off before we took pictures.

We did get a picture before she did.

Mr. and Mrs. Turtle.  Love Stacy's leggings and shoes!

Tito as a lumberjack and me as Rosie the Riveter.

An Adam West era Batman and Pika-chu (Pokemon).

Our first house was our neighbor across the street. A friendly non-scary house.  Other houses featured dolls with glowing red eyes and heads that turned and one with a murder playing out in an upstairs window and a man in an electric chair on the front porch which was motion activated and caused Gram to jump as much as Kaiden.

We had a great time.

Haunted Birdhouses

We took the boys to Lowe's a few weeks ago for a workshop.  They got to build a haunted birdhouse.  Lowe's supplied everything, the kit, the googles, the tools, an apron for the boys to keep, a patch for finishing the project.

They both had a great time.  Kaiden was very precise, following the directions exactly.  He can also drive a nail in as well if not better than his Gram.

Trevin was pretty darn good with the hammer also.  He wasn't quite strong enough and did need some help from Tito.  He was very proud of himself.

The finished product. 

A good time was had by all, we will be coming back for more projects.

Sunday School

Trevin is old enough for Sunday School this year.  He was a little apprehensive about going, but I stayed with him and he did great.

The first Sunday was a nationwide Lutheran Service day, so the kids made these stained glass crosses to give to a local nursing home.

First Grade

I am not sure how this happened, but Kaiden started first grade at the end of August.  I asked him last week how he like first grade and he said he liked 2 things.  I was expecting lunch and recess, but he told me "First I like that my school has great teachers like Miss Free and Miss Jensen (his K and 1st grade teachers) but I really really like math! 

Vacation Bible School

While their parents were on vacation, VBS started.  They had a camp theme.

Museum

We had the boys for a few days this summer when their parents went on vacation.  One of the things they always want to do is go to the Museum of Nature and Science.  They have their favorite places we have to visit each time.  One of them is the animal dioramas. 

They have a new feature - it is hard to tell but the floor has a projected river with fish. They are trying to catch them.

And of course they have to visit the discovery zone - there are so many things to do here, but I think they like the water the best.

Tito and I wanted a picture of them in front of the bears.  This statue has been there since he and I were little and visited the museum.

Shark Attack

It was shark week when we were in Fort Collins and they had this prop to use for pictures.

I think they were land sharks!