Random things

Chad come home one night from work and had Grant go outside and build a small snowman with the bits of remaining snow. It was not taller than about two feet. It has celery arms, a carrot nose and two rock eyes. It literally fell down about one second after I took the pictures. Barry was sniffing around waiting and hoping for the nose and arms. Grant and Chad had a good time making it though.

Grant and Cole love to play with our RockBand/Guitar Hero guitars, drums and microphone. Cole rocks out on the guitar and Grant sings and bangs on the drums. It is hilarious to listen to Grant make up songs and sing Colonel Hathi's March from Jungle Book into the mike.

This is Sooner's new place to be when stuck in the house. She stares longingly out the window into the great wide open.

Grant loves to help Cole walk. Here is he while Cole is trying to drink his milk.
Here is cute Cole walking and smiling. It took about four shots to get one where he wasn't half out of the frame from walking and turning away.

Grant loves to snuggle up with dad on the couch in the evenings and watch some cartoons before bed. I have no idea why Grant is pouting. It happens so often I lose track.

Sooner likes to join in the snuggling whenever she can sneak herself into the mix.

When Sooner can't sneak onto someone's lap she likes to curl up on a couch cushion. This cushion is the closest to the fireplace so she stays nice and warm.

Our Christmas so far

We are enjoying celebrating Christmas this season. It has been fun to decorate our home and our tree. Grant is very excited about the presents under the tree. I am trying to remind him about the Christ side of Christmas but it doesn't seem to be sinking in quite yet. I love to decorate and bake and do the Christmasy things.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Brad and I took the boys to the Christmas light parade in downtown Prescott. It was fun. The boys liked it and it was only 30 minutes. I couldn't take pictures because it was dark. The first Saturday in December, I took the boys to the annual Christmas parade. Chad passed on the outing, claiming it was too cold. It was cold but not terrible. The downfall to the Christmas parade is that it is sooooo long every year. The boys got bored after about an hour and a half so we left and it wasn't even close to being over. It was fun while it lasted though. I didn't take any pictures of the floats because who cares about those but I did take a picture of the boys sitting on the curb watching.

Our stockings

Our tree

Our "mantle"

The advent calendar I made -- This has not proven to work as smoothly as anticipated. I realize I hung it too low. Two times I have found Grant in the early morning hours with numerous candy pieces in his hand. Normally, Grant heads straight to my bed each morning to either climb in or ask for cartoons. Now he heads for the candy bags, his "morning candy" he calls it. One morning I heard rustling and thought it was Barry causing trouble so I jumped up. I found Grant rummaging in each of the bags looking for whatever pieces he could find. Another morning Chad and I were up before the kids because Chad had to work early. I was in the kitchen telling Chad how it never failed that the kids always slept late on the mornings we were up early. Chad asked whether I knew that Grant was on the couch, which I didn't. I looked on the couch and saw Grant covered, except for his feet, with a blanket. I thought he was asleep so I lifted up the blanket quietly to check on him. Under the blanket, I found Grant with a bite size Snickers in his mouth and three or four wrappers around him on the couch. He kept his eyes closed and didn't say anything. It was hilarious. I have now removed all of the candy from the calendar and now put one in each night before bed.

This is Cole in the cute Christmas sweater Aunt Kitty bought for Grant. I forgot all about it until I was looking through some old pictures of Grant. Isn't he adorable?

Gingerbread houses

I organized a gingerbread house decorating party for Grant and some of his friends with their moms. They were actually graham cracker houses but no one cares. Grant had Aiden and Olivia Solorzano and Ava Henrie over. Jake Wright was invited but he couldn't make it. It was so much fun and pure sugar doused chaos. Each child had his/her own house to decorate. I put them together ahead of time. I bought several bags of candy and Melissa brought candy as well. I mixed up green frosting for ice cream cone trees and white frosting for all around glue. As much candy was eaten as used on the houses. Cole got woken up from his nap just before things started so he was in his booster seat watching the activity. He grabbed Grant's knife at the beginning and started eating giant scoops from Grant's frosting bowl. Because I didn't want to fight Cole and be distracted from Grant I let it be and got Grant a new knife. Cole also grabbed several stolen handfuls of M&Ms and marshmallows. When I finally put him on the floor he still managed to find a Hershey piece that had fallen and was eating it, foil wrapper and all. Grant had a great time making his house and couldn't put enough candy on it. He was putting on everything he could get his hands on. I will definitely do this again next year for Grant and his friends. Cole will still be too young I think but we'll see.

(Melissa and Ava Henrie making Ava's house)

(Laura, Olivia and Aiden Solorzano making Olivia and Aiden's houses)

(Ariel view of Grant's finished product -- Can you find a spot for anymore candy? I don't think so)

(Front view of Grant's house)

(Grant with his house)

(Grant working on his house with Cole eating frosting in the background)

(Frosting faced Cole)

(Ava Henrie with her finished house)

(Anders Henrie, Grant and Cole working hard)

(Aiden with his completed house)

(Olivia Solorzano and her yummy house)

Our first snow of the season

We got our first real snowstorm of the season on Monday, December 7, 2009. It started out raining in the morning but by about 11 it was slushing and then in the afternoon the snow started. It snowed all afternoon until about 6:30 then started raining again. It was really weird. During the night we had crazy hurricane level winds and ultimately lost power for about 7 hours during the night. Grant slept with us because his nightlight went out and I didn't want to fight with him at 1 AM about sleeping in the dark. That was the worst night's sleep I've had in a long time. It was beautiful in the morning though. There was snow all over the ground. I headed out with Grant and Cole about 9 AM to buy Grant snowboots and a new winter coat so he could play in the snow during the day. I took him to preschool because it was supposed to be on 2 hour delay with the schools but it had been cancelled. Sonya's road was really bad but with my trusty Jeep I had no trouble anywhere in town. I felt all powerful in the Jeep. Shelli came up on Tuesday to Wednesday to visit. We made cinnamon rolls and had a fun time hanging out in the cold weather. Shelli has softened though. She was freezing the whole time she was here.

(This is Grant on Monday afternoon when it was just starting to snow and stick.)

(On Tuesday, Ava Henrie came over for most of the day to play outside and inside with Grant. Here they are all bundled up after being outside for a long time)

(Grant and Ava outside in the snow)

(Cute Grant in his new snow clothes)

(Shelli in a snowball fight with Grant and Ava)

Random things

Grant has made a new friend, Jake Wright, at preschool. A couple of weeks ago, his teacher, Sonya Tenney told me that Grant and Jake had been talking all day about Jake coming over to play at our house after preschool. They were disappointed when I told them it couldn't be that day but I arranged with his mom that day to have Jake over on Thursday. Grant and Jake had a great time playing outside, playing Play-doh and playing whatever else little boys play. They don't fight. They are both quieter kids. They get a long really well. We are going to have Jake about once a week for awhile because his mom does things on Tuesdays and usually gets a babysitter. It will be fun for Grant to have a friend over I think.

Last year, Aunt Kitty started a tradition of sending my boys cute snowman jammies from BabyGAP. These are this year and last year's jammies. They are always so cute.

Cole loves to snuggle up in Grant's bed to read stories before bed. He lasts about 2 minutes on a good night then he starts climbing all over everyone and everything and creating havoc. It's fun for the few minutes it lasts though. Grant likes to share his bed with Cole.

The weekend before Thanksgiving, Grant, Cole and I took a trip to Tucson to visit friends and work on the house for new renters. We lost our old ones. We stayed with Amy Studley and her family of course. We all took a trip to the zoo because we really miss that in Prescott. The zoo still had its picture thing up from the Howloween so we took a picture of the four boys. We have gone to this event in 2007 and 2008. Things sure change fast. I love this picture because the two older boys are each reading their own zoo map and Zachary is poking Cole in the face. I think it's hilarious.

(Halloween 2009 -- about 3 weeks late)

(Halloween 2008 - we did it without the Studleys)

(Halloween 2007 - look how cute and little they are)

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was small but fun this year. We hosted my mother-in-law, my brother Brad and my sister Shelli. We had a great turkey, if I do say so myself. We played a lot of Beattles RockBand, ate a lot of pie and food and just relaxed. Barbara and Brad stayed through Sunday and drove back to Utah together. We did some Christmas shopping on Black Friday and walked around the Square.

Brad and Shelli playing RockBand

Chad trying to drum on RockBand. We both have a difficult time with the drums.

Cole and Grant helped me make apple pie this year. Cole discovered flour and made a huge flour mess but had a great time doing it. Grnat discovered the spiced apples and pie dough and had a great time stealing those. Both were great helpers but my pie didn't turn out as well this year, not surprisingly.

After dinner, we played RockBand. Grant loves to put on a guitar and "play." He was very tired though and somewhere in the midst of the rocking out, he passed out. It took us a little while to even notice he was zonked. He slept for over an hour in that position.

Random adventures of the boys

This is Grant with his letter H. We are still slowly but surely making our way through the alphabet with painting and posters. He has posters through M but I just haven't taken pictures with them yet. I have started hanging them in his room and he loves to look at them. He is now working on the alphabet at preschool so he is really learning his letters and sounds. I am asked constantly what various words start with. The other day at dinner, he even asked what pbskids.org starts with. Chad and I both just started laughing. He is also becoming aware of words that sounds the same or rhyme.

This is Grant's usual position in the morning. He gets to watch cartoons in the mornings while I sleep a little longer. Sometimes he just wakes up way too early for my liking. Cole frequently joins him.

This is one of those random make you proud of your children moments. Without any help from me, Grant sat down with Cole and this book to help him look at it and learn the animals and the sounds they make. You can see Cole pointing at pictures along with Grant. Grant really loves to help with Cole a lot of the time (when he's not pushing him to the ground and beating him or pulling his hair (you think I jest and only if I were)).

Cole got hungry one morning and tired of waiting for me to fix breakfast so he headed for the cereal cupboard and helped himself.

Grant has now entered the phase of dressing up in costumes. Thankfully it happened right around Halloween so I was able to scope out the two Goodwills in town a few times each and buy what fun things I could find. I was able to find him this cape and mask, a clown wig and some other things. I also found a fun knight costume at the dollar store. I'm now always on the hunt.

Over Halloween weekend, David, Melissa and my mom came for a visit. Cole loves David for some inexplicable reason and loves to sit and snuggle with him.

This container is supposed to hold the megablocks but it was more fun to stuff Grant in it. Cole loved putting the lid on and off and trapping Grant in. Grant loved being stuffed in their. That is Oma helping them with the game.

It wasn't just enough for Cole to put the lid on. He had to climb on top and make sure Grant couldn't escape.

Just about every afternoon, Ava Henrie from next door comes to play. It keeps Grant entertained and I'm able to get things done most of the time. There are days where they do more fighting than playing and those days I get nothing done except refereeing. On this day I as making lasagna for dinner while they were playing and they jumped all over snacking on the left over noodles.

Grant has gymnastics at the YMCA every Monday morning at 9:15. Now that Cole is mobile, it's very difficult to keep him from playing on the equipment. Cole found a giant foam rectangle and spent about 15 minutes climbing up and over it. He is very into climbing things and climbing off of things.

My sister Kristen came to visit over Veteran's Day to meet David's finace, Melissa. Grant, Cole and I picked her up from the airport. We tried to meet her at her gate but ended up being at the wrong one. We had to run over to another set of gates to catch her. It was still fun and she got to see the boys and play with them while we waited for her luggage.

Grant and Cole had a fun time playing in the chairs while they were waiting for Aunt Kitty.

This is Cole after a long day of shopping at Chandler Mall. After we picked up Kristen we went shopping with David and Melissa. They needed clothes for engagement photos so we went there for lunch and the playland for the boys. David came and hung out with us when he needed shopping breaks.

Chandler Mall has a small train that drives around the bottom floor of the mall. When Grant saw it he wanted nothing more than to take a ride. Of course, Aunt Kitty wanted nothing more than to take him on that ride so the two of them hopped in the train while Cole and I waited. Grant loved it. Thanks Aunt Kitty.

Chad's birthday was November 13. I had a present all planned for him but then about two weeks before his birthday he started whining and begging, 3 year old style, for a PS3. I knew I had to cave so my sisters helped me get the PS3. My sister, Shelli, decided that wasn't enough though and talked me into buying him the Beattles RockBand for the PS3. I put the PS3 on the seat of his car so he saw it when he headed to work on his birthday. Beattles RockBand was bought during the day on his birthday and he got that after we got back from our birthday date. We all loved playing it including the boys. Grant has his own guitar (a Wii GuitarHero guitar) that he plays with. He also loves to take a turn on the drums. Cole loves to help.

Grant and Cole love to race around our dining room table with the walkers and shopping cart we have. It's loud and it's crazy but it sure makes them happy and keeps them entertained.