SNOW Much Fun!!

It finally warmed up enough for us to go out and play in ALL of the snow that we have had. We got several inches of fresh snow on Christmas Eve (to add to the large base we have already accumulated) and had a great time building snowmen. This December has definitely been a snowy one... Carter even had his first snow day, I didn't know they cancelled school for snow in Milwaukee. We have nearly broken the record for the snowiest December in recorded history. Looks like we moved here just in time to make history!!

Jared, Carter, and Dane (our neighbor) also worked hard to build a snow cave in the backyard. Jared thought it would be a great idea to sleep in it with Carter... I wasn't so keen on that idea. Mostly I didn't want them to get cold and come crawling into my nice warm bed in the middle of the night. They were pretty proud of the cave and were quite disappointed when the rain came today and washed it away (they never did get a chance to sleep in it... oh well, I'm sure there will be plenty more snow which equals plenty more opportunities to build another one).


And we finally made it to one of the nearby sledding hills yesterday. It was a beautiful day and I even made it down the hill a few times before deciding I wasn't quite ready to knock this baby out of me! There was a little jump that Carter had a blast going over, time and time again. Gage even got brave enough to catch some air all by his lonesome.

Although I am already getting a wee bit tired of the snow, there IS a lot of fun to be had!!!!

Merry Christmas!

HO HO WOOF!

Carter has been asking to go and see Santa at the mall for several weeks now (ever since he came home from school one day and Gage bragged that he had seen Santa at the mall that day). However, he wanted to go at a time that Daddy could go too leaving the window of opportunity very small. Well, on Monday Jared got home from work a little early and we thought a trip to see Santa would be a fun activity for Family Night. It wasn't until we got there that we learned that the night we had chosen was also "Dog Night." What's that you might ask? Well apparently for all of the dog lovers among us they have several nights set aside for dog owners to bring their dog to the mall for a chance to sit on Santa's lap and Monday night happened to be the last night in the series. Is it just me or is this craziness? Okay, so don't get me wrong, I like dogs, but I guess I wouldn't be classified as a "dog lover" because when we get a dog I will NOT be taking it to the mall for a picture with Santa.

When I saw the line I tried begging, pleading, and even resorted to bribery to try to get my boys to come back another night... all to no avail. So, what did we do?? We waited in line for an hour and a half with all of the dogs. I must admit it was entertaining to say the least. At least the dogs kept Carter and Gage entertained while we waited! So Carter's big question and my question for you is, "does Santa speak dog?!?"

Gage had a blast petting all of the dogs while we waited in line, Carter on the other hand was a little more reserved and was more concerned about where they were going to go to the bathroom.

Yes, there were plenty of dogs in costume... This little guy was dressed as one of Santa's elves. (Sometimes I think people with dogs in lou of kids are a wee bit CrAZy!)

It was quite entertaining to see peoples choice in dogs from massive Great Danes that looked more like small horses than dogs (not quite sure how they sat on Santa's lap) to the little nasty Hairless Chinese Crested... the ugliest dog I have ever seen. The funny thing is that I couldn't remember exactly what the name of the dog was so Jared joked that I should google "world's ugliest dog" and lo and behold, the hairless chinese crested came up as the top result.

And then of course the picture we waited in line an hour and a half for!! All so that Carter could tell Santa that he wanted..."a surprise!"

Merry Christmas!!

New Traditions

Since this is our first Christmas on our own we have had the opportunity to establish traditions. We have chosen which traditions we would continue from each of our families and we have been able to start some of our own traditions. One of the new traditions (something we have done before, but decided this year that we should do it every year) is that of getting together with friends to make gingerbread houses. This year Gage decided that we would make a Gingerbread train instead of a house... who says you always have to go with the in crowd. So, we made a train! The thing I love about making Gingerbread houses with kids this age is that WAY more candy makes it into their little tummies than on the gingerbread.

Merry Christmas!

O Tannenbaum

I absolutely LoVe our Christmas tree!! Maybe it's the fact that we didn't put a tree up last year that makes this tree that much better... in our defense it was the first time we didn't put a tree up because we were gone for 3 weeks for Christmas and New Years. It seems as though the last few times we have had a tree we borrowed a fake tree... which just isn't right by my book, I'm all about a real Christmas tree, mess and all!! We wanted to go cut one down at one of the Christmas tree farms around here, but since they are only open on the weekends and Jared was out of town the first two weekends in December and I was gone the weekend before that, so we decided that Home Depot would have to do... hey their price is right!

We were debating between two trees and then it was discovered that one of the trees had a birds nest in it. Apparently, finding a bird's nest in your tree is said to be sign of good luck in Icelandic lore. Who can't use a little good luck? Besides, Carter and Gage were emphatic that we get the tree with the nest so there really wasn't any question.

Thanks Akiko for tagging me, and getting me to make a post about our Christmas tree!

Ice Skating Comedy

Imagine a seven and a half month pregnant woman on ice skates, keeping in mind the compromised balance when you are pregnant... to that picture add a 5 year old who has never been ice skating, on ice skates... now add a 2 year old on ice skates (and no he has never been ice skating either)! Now imagine all of the laughs the other ice skaters and observers had as they watched our little trio make our way around the rink. Okay so Jared was there with us too, he just was just a lot more proficient then the rest of us (do you really think I would go ice skating at an outdoor rink when it was 17 degrees out without some coersion?) All I can say is that I don't think I have laughed that hard in a long time... we had a great time!

Is it Christmas??

Last night we had our first snow.... this was BiG EXciTeMEnT at our house. My boys have been waiting for it to snow since we moved here in June. When Carter found out that we would be moving away from Arizona he was so sad to leave... until we told him that it snows in Wisconsin. I think he half expected there to be snow when we got here... in June! Since then he has been waiting and waiting and waiting for this day. Well this morning you would have thought it was Christmas at our house. Carter woke up Gage and they were jumping all over the place. They got their snow boots on and were ready to go out in the snow in their PJ's! Carter was a bit bummed when he realized he had to get ready for school, but he HuRRieD so he would have time to go out and play for a little bit before we left for school. I got nailed with quite a few snowballs before the day had barely begun!

After dropping Carter off I decided to go for a walk with Gage to enjoy the beauty and crispness of the fresh fallen snow... before I loath it. It was harder than I thought pushing the stroller uphill through the snow, even though it was only a few inches (and no it wasn't uphill both ways and we didn't have bare feet) It was beautiful and it was much more enjoyable then walking on the treadmill. We picked up a friend of Gage's on the way home to come and play and I overheard the boys chatting about the snow and heard Gage tell Garrett that "it MUST be Christmas!!"

Gage was not about to have his picture taken this early in the morning!!

On our walk we stopped at the park and made snow angels! Gage thought that was pretty amazing. (Confession: I did not make a snow angel... are you kidding, lay down in the wet snow... I'm an AZ weenie, however, I did subject my poor submissive two year old. At least he liked it!)

I love how the cold air makes my camera fog up.

So fun!! I'm sure we will ALL be hating it before April gets here, but we might as well enjoy it for the time being!

What BiG bOyS we have!!

Just a little update on my two little rugrats! Gage has officially made the transition to big boy undies!! He is doing so good. He's been ready for a while now but I wasn't about to try to make this transition until we got back from our month in Arizona. He was begging to wear his Cars undies one day so we put them on and of course he peed in them, we tried another pair and he peed in those too... well after we went to the store and bought a new bag of M&M's (aka Pee Treats) we were good to go. I guess all it takes is a little sugar to motivate that kid. Fortunately for me he's been pooping in the toilet for months and months now so we already had that under our belt. And really now that he's potty trained I have to ask myself WHY? It really is more convenient for all involved when they just go in their diaper... they all end up potty trained sooner or later. I think his bladder is the size of a peanut! We went to run errands the other day and we had 4 stores to go to, all of which I just had to get a couple things (except Target, I can't go there without wandering). Anyway, we had to go find the bathroom in 3 of the 4 stores! Sigh! Oh well, at least we will save on diapers and won't have 2 kids in diapers at the same time.

Check out my big boy undies!!

Carter is still loving Kindergarten. He is super excited about reading. There are a couple other kids in his class that are also reading so they get to go meet with the reading specialist once a week to read together. He LoVeS it! They have been reading some non-fiction books which he really likes. His teacher has also been sending home chapter books (aka I can read books with several different stories in them) and the first thing he wants to do when he gets home is to read his chapter to me. So Fun!! I had my first parent teacher conference this week. It was nice to meet with his teacher and find out what really goes on during the day, the portrayal of school from a 5 year old is a bit scarry at times. She said he's super smart, LoVeS to learn, he's social, funny, and LOUD... hmm I wonder where he gets that from?!? Sorry Carter, but you've got Mangum blood! Her only complaint was that he finishes his work really quickly and then he goofs off and distracts the other kids... is it just me or is this a no brainer??... Give him more work to do!

He has also learned to tie his shoes which he thinks is ultra cool because he will help Mrs. Schmid by tying the other kids shoes for her when she is busy.

I love my boys!! Just two more months and we'll be adding another one to the equation!! The other day Carter was reading to me and out of the corner of his eye he could see the little guy bumping around inside my tummy, he started giggling so hard and thought it was so funny that he could see him moving. Here is a picture of the little guy... Okay really it's just me but he's in there, can't wait to see what he looks like!

Why do we take pictures of ourselves in such a bloated state, I mean really... I always end up looking back and realizing how horribly awful I looked!

Fun Projects

Here are some fun projects I've done in the last little while. I'm not usually a very creative person but I can copy someone elses great ideas. The first one is a nursing cover aka "hooter hider." Some friends and I got together to sew these one morning... it was a lot of fun and I guess now I can nurse in style... not that I'm nursing right now... when the baby comes. (The thought of nursing my almost 3 year old is seriously disturbing to me so I wanted to clear up any confusion that may have occured!!)

Okay so maybe it looks more like an apron, but hey maybe once I'm done nursing I can add some apron strings and get some more use out of it. Mostly I love the fabric, Amy Butler is amazing.

This is an apron that my sister-in-law, Nic, helped me make. She is amazing and whips up all sorts of fun stuff. While I was in AZ I went to her house one afternoon and we made this. I LoVe it!! Thanks again Nic!

I stole this idea from my friend Autie. She did the same thing with the word "Give." Carter informed me that we didn't have any Thanksgiving decorations, so I made this a couple of days ago. It was a fun little project to do in the evening while Jared was on-call.

Picking What? ... No, Not Our Noses, ApPLes!

Last week Carter and Jared both had a random Thursday off from school and work so we headed to a local family fruit farm to do some apple picking. It was so stinkin fun! We picked apples, played tag in the orchard, ate apples, threw dried up corn kernals at each other, laughed, rolled in the grass and mostly just enjoyed a day together as a family. The boys absolutely LoVEd picking the apples, we started out with just a bag but quickly realized there was much more fun to be had so we ended up coming home with a whole bushel (about 42 lbs! Needless to say I have been making lots of applesauce.) Gage was mostly interested in picking an apple then proceeding to eat it... I know he ate at least 3, maybe more. Carter's favorite part was of course climbing the ladder. I loved being able to spend the day with my 3 favorite boys!!

At the same family farm there was also a pumpkin patch, seeing that it was the day before Halloween and we still hadn't carved pumpkins we decided to pick a couple... they were slim pickings, unless you like pumpkins of the rotten variety. We managed to find a couple and the price was unbeatable, $1 a pumpkin!

On the way home we decided to take full advantage of the nice weather and stop at the park and jump in the leaves. The boys had a ball, I am sure they have never seen so many leaves in their life! We obviously weren't the first people with this idea as there was already a huge pile of leaves waiting for us when we got there... perfectly planned!

At home we carved a couple of pumpkins. Carter designed his own and carved it with the help of his dad. Gage on the other hand was content to sit back and watch. And we all love the roasted pumpkin seeds!

It was a perfect day!