All Things December

Couldn't pass up posting these cute pictures although it's kind of a smorgasboard of the month. Ethan's afternoon class made gingerbread houses and he was so proud to bring it home and show everyone. (Yep, he got the Kitchen chin didn't he?)
Isaac's preschool also put on their Christmas performance. SO HILARIOUS!!! At the beginning each of the children is supposed to take their turns coming up, saying who they are and how old they are- all in Spanish. Isaac (and several others) took 3 or 4 turns at various times- just because they're silly and the opportunity presented itself when another child would be shy and slower to jump up. Each time he came up he said "Hola, me llamo Isaac Woodbury, y tengo cinco anos." In case you don't know Spanish that's "Hi, my name is Isaac Woodbury, I'm 5 years old." I just rolled my eyes the first time he said then, and laughed the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th times. Isaac is absolultely convinced that he is 5 and will hear no arguments to the contrary. Ethan is 6 and Isaac (in his mind) is just a little younger than him so he is 5. He's absolutely sure of that. Even in Spanish he's sure of that.

So cute up there! Maybe I'll get a shy child one of these days, but for now at least they're all hams and they LOVE the spotlight. Plus Isaac LOVES every minute of life as you can tell my him neverending smile.

Part of one of the songs. These shows are so hilarious to watch because it's almost pure chaos up there. The teachers try to rally them to do what they've practiced but with 40 3 and 4 year olds you get what you get. I love this one because half the kids are just watching the others or standing there. The one in the front is more interested in the lights decorating the stage and moments later he actually yelled out into the crowd "mom, where are you, let's go" and tried to climb off the stage before someone saved him from strangling himself in the lights.

December wasn't all cooking making and packing, we did manage to get in a trip to the Children's museum. Ethan is very much into role playing right now and loves to be the postal worker.

Isaac apparently has decided that the grocery store checkout should have a drive-up window. I whole heartedly agree with that trend.

And Miles, as always, is sure he's as big as the other boys and is trying to drive the full size car instead of the toy car that's his size.

One last random December picture. Here's the one and only craft I've made this fall- festive, matching bowties for our trip. Can't wait to see them all in their suits and bowties!

A Gingerbread House (At least for 10 minutes)

With just 3 weeks to get it all done this year (including all the packing and prep) we didn't get around to doing many holiday things but since I'd prepurchased this gingerbread house, we had to use it. So the night before we left, I dug it out and we put it al together.





This is Miles' "cheese" smile which I consider to be perfected. I love how every inch of his cookie has been decorated!

Isaac was more interested in sorting and eating than decorating.

Miles decorated and then licked- a lot.

Ethan, as always was very focused and decorated before eating.

The final product- not the loveliest house ever but these guys love it. This is the "come on and take the picture already mom so we can eat the candy" look. Except Miles has the woops I've been caught with an overfull mouth and dripping frosting on my face look.

I literally stepped away for 3 minutes to throw out wrappers, wash my hands, etc. and when I came back this is what I saw.

They completely dismantled the house. Ethan explained that the whole point was to eat the thing so they spent the next 10 minutes going to town on it. And then I took it all away, washed hands and tried to put hyper children to bed.

Christmas in Salt Lake

Christmas came a little early here too and the boys were thrilled. My mom made each of them these adorable blankets. Miles instantly insisted that his be spread out on the ottoman and plopped himself on top.

See? Wouldn't even get off the ottaman to hold it up.

There really weren't enough for each of them to open so we got a good chance to work on sharing and opening together. It mostly worked.

And the one present from mom and dad this year (thanks to fabulous black Friday) was playmobil pirates. They LOVE their castle and knights set from last year so we added pirates this year. I didn't realize that the little cannons actually shoot balls out. That was the biggest hit of the night. Apparently SO hilarious to shoot mom and dad while they're trying to put together tiny, intricate pirate ships.

Isaac's Birthday (A little early too!)

Everything is a little early this year, but spreading out the fun (and presents) has its advantages.
So even though Isaac's real birthday isn't until December 24th, we decided to celebrate on the 10th. We weren't going to have room to take his presents and figured he might as well have a few weeks to enjoy his toys before we left. He didn't seem to mind.


And luckily Isaac is pleased. He is currently OBSESSED with Hot Wheels and since he has plenty of cars already, we added a few tracks to his collection. His look says it all.

Miles is pretty excited to be part of the action although he spent the rest of the day crying and saying "Milo birday, Milo cars". He's still confused why his birthday was 2 months ago and isn't happening again.

Since we weren't doing a party for him this year, I decided we at least needed to do a family dinner somewhere fun. He requested either Chuck E. Cheese or to go bowling. I figured bowling would be more universally accepted (I have since learned I am wrong and that I married into a family that LOVES Chuck E. Cheese so next year we'll be there apparently while they all turn into 4 year olds again and I roll my eyes).

And since we were bowling I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make these cute bowling pin cupcakes.

Here's my 2 helpers devouring the extra un-frosted cupcakes.

And the finished product. Unfortunately not as cute or easy and I thought, but Isaac doesn't seem to mind. I was planning to make 10 pins since that's the accurate number, but after 6 I gave up. To make them you stack a mini cupcake (no wrapper) upsidedown on a regular cupcake and then put a doughnut hole on top, then frost the whole thing, dip the whole thing in melted frosting, and then add the stripes. Mine didn't stay formed very well so dipping them upside down got a little tricky.

Roses were super quick and easy though so I threw in a couple of those. Isaac was just as thrilled with them (go figure) because he got to put sprinkles on them himself- apparently red, blue, and green are the perfect combination.

Then off we headed to Fat Cats bowling alley to meet Taylor's parents and his sister and fiance for bowling and fabulous pizza.

Did I mention my kids LOVE bowling??? And they're just sure they can carry the balls themselves- even Miles was just sure he could carry an 8 pound ball (and did several times before we nabbed it from him).

The triumphant birthday boy. Hey, these kids are optimists. Knocking ANYTHING down is a good thing. They're boys- they like to knock things down.

And grams and grandpa brought the best surprise of all- magic tricks!

See that's Miles with an 8 pound ball.

And a few seconds later we're still all waiting for it to roll down the lane, but he's pretty excited to watch it go and SUPER excited that he did it by himself. I'm still cringing thinking of him dropping it on his toes.

And here's Taylor proudly showing off his turkey (that's 3 strikes in a row in case you didn't know- I didn't).

In case you didn't get that he's actually making a turkey SIGN for you.

And here are the 2 birthday kids. Barb's birthday is actually on the 10th, 20 years and 14 days before Isaac so we celebrated together. You got that right? Barb's making the 2 for 24 and then Isaac's in front of the 4. Super cute though.

Isaac was completely mesmerized by the fire and didn't want to blow out his candles.

Miles dug right in.

And then he'd had enough of bowling (which was fairly evident by him removing his shoes and declaring "all done bowlin").

So we left the grownups to their second game and headed off to the jungle gym.

So cute with his Grams!

Happy Birthday Isaac! We can't wait for your real birthday when you'll really be foura-foura!

A Little Christmas Cheer to Share

With just 3 weeks between Thanksgiving and our Christmas trip, I had to get moving on our neighbor/friend/teacher gifts and keep it simple this year. First the boys and I headed off to Sears to get a cute portrait for our card. Unfortunately the whole experience was a bust and this is literally the only shot where they're all even looking- and bizarrely Ethan is twice the size of the other 2. So that wasn't going to work. Luckily my sister taught me a little photo shop this fall so I cropped out their smiling faces, downloaded some free brushes to make ornament shapes, a tadaa! a finished card!


Here's their cute close-ups.

I think the card turned out great for a first try and super cheap since we printed them at home on coupon freebie photo paper and ink.

And it was super easy to alter the card for Ethan to take to his teachers.

And for Isaac to take to his (he just has several more teachers than Ethan).

And then of course there was the 3 days of baking, decorating, bagging, card attaching, and ribboning- but actually fun when my kids helped (most of the time) and accompanied by Christmas musid. (Plus it was like 15 degrees outside so I was happy to have the stove on for 3 days :)

These are my new favorite. Just bake your favorite chocolate chip cookies, let cook, then dip in white dipping chocolate and sprinkle with crushed candy canes. So good!

All my cookies will be those one next year- super fast and easy. Unfortunately Taylor has previously requested I make sugar cookies for the bags (the others only got made because little, okay and mine too, hands made a few too many sugar cookies disappear before they were given away). So 150 sugar cookies later I realized just how labor intense they are. Cute, and good, but labor intensive.

Friday Ethan and Isaac took their cookies to their teachers and then Friday night we spent as a family driving around the neighborhood and town ringing doorbells and giving cookies.

Priceless to see the neighbors melt when Isaac or Miles gave them cookies!