Look at my little handsome's

oh, yeah. Santa is in the pic also :) See, all of my preparation paid off. We've been viewing last year's picture with Santa, talking about him (and his lap, Avery is very detail oriented), visiting other Santa's, even had one aborted trip when it wasn't the RIGHT Santa, and all for my one good picture. Sigh, I'm happy. I don't work, what else do I have to do, right?

Here is last year's pic, and again, what a difference a year makes!

Santa!

We took the boys on Saturday to the Cuddlers Christmas Party at the hospital. They will be so confused if we ever have to go to Providence for a medical reason, normally we go to play :) Santa was there. We've been talking about him and looking at his picture for awhile now, to be ready. I wanted them to see this Santa in preparation for the one at the mall that I like.

It took 45 min. to get Avery this close. Noah was still across the room. After about 5 min. of talk and talking Santa out of his bell...

Avery was within grabbing distance. LOL

He was a little unsure at first, but in true Avery fashion, quickly warmed up to Santa and started giving his 100 watt smile.

So I took the plunge, grabbed a candy cane off the tree, grabbed Noah, and plopped him on Santa's lap.

He wasn't sure.

It got better, but he was never fully into the guy in the big red suit.

Excuse me!

This is what happens when your oldest farts on Santa's lap.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

And here are my elves! We had these lights out for about a week before we hung them up.

So we would plug them in and the littles would go to town, making light shows on the wall.

But then we hung them outside the window and things got ugly. Avery was extremely angry that he could see them but not play with them. I had Rich get out our 3 foot tree, and here's why...

Last year we had this bad boy up, in the "dining room" which is actually the living room. This year we've switched rooms again, so there is no place to put it, and I didn't want to mess with it.

Also, last year the littles left it alone for two reasons. They couldn't crawl (well, Noah couldn't, not until Christmas night) let alone walk, and we had the fence up in the living room. We called it the pit. They couldn't get to the tree if they wanted to.

I bought lots of kid friendly ornaments on clearance at the end of last year, and here is the result!

Avery loves it! He moves the ornaments all over the tree, decorating it. Noah likes to hide things in the pot.

So, the toddler proof tree is up and everyone is happy!

Nope, they haven't changed a bit...

Sigh and sniff. As much as I protest it and try to deny it, by calling them my babies (which they are!) I guess these pictures say it all.

They were taken almost exactly a year apart. Who snuck in and replaced my sweet, chubby babies with sweet, funny boys?

Yeah, this snow is great, we love it!

I guess if you're looking at the pictures, I don't have to tell you that they didn't really enjoy this snowy experience. It took around 35 minutes to get them into their snow gear by myself. I threw all the gear to the bottom of the stairs so they would be corralled. I had to run upstairs near the end of this process to get M&M's so they would let me put their mittens on. They were crying, I was frustrated, but it had taken so long I was NOT giving up!

Noah didn't want to come out of the garage. Then he dropped Buh in the snow and couldn't pick it up with his mittens on.

Looking for Buh

Ewww, what is this stuff?

I got out the wagon and things got better when they didn't have to actually touch the snow stuff.

Later I put Avery in their sled and carried Noah while we pulled him. We stood at the end of the drive talking to the neighbor and I popped M&M's in open mouths to keep them happy. Sigh

Rich took them on the deck this weekend and it actually went better. Maybe I should have tried that first. But it only took 10 minutes to dress them with two of us.

They stomped on the snow and kicked it off with Dada.

Art shot

I didn't say we didn't have to use M&M's, just that it went faster!

No, it's not Halloween

I know I don't usually do an all Avery post, but my boy is funny! Lately, he has a thing for dressing up. Here he is in one of my winter hats.

Cowboy hat time!

This is what he does when you ask him to smile now :)

Has anyone seen Clark Kent? (not real glasses)

The Real Halloween

So here we are on October 31st. It was about 30 degrees (but no snow!) so we really bundled to go out. I wish I had taken some pics of that, but I was busy layering. They had on Baby Legs, which are essentially baby legwarmers, jeans, shirts, jackets, gloves, hats, their fireman coats, and boots. The funny thing is, we only went to about 4 houses for all of that.

We piled in the wagon about 4:30 and headed to our neighbors house. They ooohed and ahhhhed and we headed to the next house, then home. On the was was the mailbox, so we stopped there and then we got ambushed! A lady who lives by the mailbox demanded (yes, demanded) "Are you Trick or Treating?" yes. "Are you coming here?" We can. "Well, I have candy." So we went to one strangers house, LOL. Then on to the Leonards house, which is the one above us on the drive. By the time we got up there, I was no longer cold, and then we stood inside and talked for 20 minutes. I was quite toasty by the time we left.

Back home, unlayered, put on jammies, and then marveled at the people ringing the doorbell. It really was a fun night!

A little outside fun

Ok, so yes, these pictures are older. About a month and a half actually. Here the boys run around without even a jacket on, while today, there is about 5 inches of snow on the ground! We actually got more autumn than we usually do this year, so I can't complain. And who doesn't love snow, it's beautiful!

Dada was blowing bubbles for the boys. He bought some bubble swords for the boys, so they were charging the bubbles and stabbing them with the swords.

After bubbles, they took their evening walk around the house. They actually did this for about 2 weeks. Now that that backyard is leveled, it was easier for them to get all the way around. Here Avery has a big thumping stick, because of course Dada showed him how to thump things with it.

More thumping. I like this pic because you can actually see the mountain behind the house.

Our great outdoors, aka, the backyard.

Wow! Look how big they are!

The boys were communicating with the neighbors dog, Kimber. She's only about 6 months old, so she wasn't sure what to make of them :)

Ok, here's a picture of our property. I was standing at the back corner of our backyard, the unfenced part. The fence starts at the back corner of the house. The fenced part extends about 20 feet past the other side of the house, so that's our property.