Pajama Pictures

I tried to take some pictures of the boys together in their Christmas pajamas the other day.  Getting both of them to sit still and smile at the camera without closing their eyes (in J's case) is not the easiest thing nowadays.  It's pretty impossible.  Here are some of the pictures that I got...

Very frustrating!  After all of that, I gave up and just settled for some individual pictures.  :)

I really need to get better at using my camera or take some photo editing classes to learn how to switch out faces in photographs or something.  Or maybe just be patient and wait until my boys are all old enough to sit still and smile nicely all at once.  :)

Christmas Home Tour

A lot of the blogs I read host home tours, where people link up their blog and share pictures of the Christmas decorations in their homes.  I thought I would share some of ours, since I love looking at other people's houses so much.  Here's our big tree in our family room...

And our smaller one in the living room... I went all crazy this year with a green and pink theme on this tree.  :)

Here's J with his kid-friendly nativity scene in his bedroom.  He and E love it.  

And I bought a little fake tree to put in J's room for him and E to enjoy.  We were going to put more ornaments on it, but the few we did have on there never stay on the tree, so I just stuck with those few this year.

I tried to make good use of all of those stick trees from Halloween...

And here's our grown-up nativity scene... I know a bunch of people have that Willow Tree set, but I just love it.

I have these old shutters hanging in my entryway that are perfect for hanging Christmas cards on.  I totally love getting Christmas cards!!

And that's pretty much it, except for some other little things here and there.  If any of my blog friends want to share their decorations, too, I would love to see them!  Merry Christmas!

Jackson's First Performance

We went to J's preschool Christmas program yesterday and it was a hoot!  I was wondering what the teachers were going to do with all those 3-year-olds... I can't imagine getting just Jackson to sing on cue, let alone a whole bunch of little kids together!  Phil and I were really interested to see how J would react to being on stage, too.  He pretty much did exactly what we thought he would do... he just stood there!  :)  Most of the other kiddos were singing and doing the hand gestures, but not our J.  He just kind of hung his arms down and looked down at the ground.  :)  Luckily, he wasn't the only one who just stood there, but he was the only one who started to cry a little!  He saw Phil taking pictures of him and after that it was all over.  We were thankful that he didn't bust out bawling and run off the stage - he just stood there with a few tears running down his face and his lower pouty lip sticking out.  It was precious!!  The kids basically just stood on stage and sang a bunch of songs (like "Mary Had a Baby Boy", "Where is Thumbkin?", "Twinkle, Twinkle", "Jingle Bells", "We Wish You a Merry Christmas", "Jesus Loves Me", "Happy Birthday to Jesus", etc.) and did some hand movements, but it was so cute!  Some of them were real performers - you could tell.  After the program I talked to another mother who was there for their practice run on Tuesday and she said that J did perfectly on that day!  He sang all of the songs and even made the motions!  I guess he was just overwhelmed by all of the people.  Here are some pictures...

Here he is after he spotted Phil in the audience...

 

Then afterwards we had cookies and chatted with some other families and everyone was happy!

We love his little preschool.  It's not fancy, but it's perfect for what he needs right now and his teacher is very sweet and loving.  He just adores her.  And we haven't been the best about going to church lately (since Emmett hates the nursery and screams bloody murder and one of us ends up being down there with him the whole time), so I like that Jackson is learning about Jesus somewhere other than at home.

Busy, Busy

We've done lots of fun things already since we've been back from our trip.  Last weekend Santa came to the base in a jet again and we went to watch him arrive.  There were a bunch of fun activities set up for the kiddos, but unfortunately all of this took place right during naptime so all we did was watch Santa get out of the jet and then go home.  The lines for each activity were really long, and we knew that Emmett would not last very long.  We did manage to decorate two cookies, though.  :)

Here is Jackson running around in the snow (that's all gone now) and eating it at the same time!

Later that afternoon I went and bought our Christmas trees.  I was really disappointed to not get to do our annual cut-the-tree-down-in-the-woods trip, but it was just so much easier to buy the trees this year.  There's a ton of snow up in the pass right now, and with me being 7 months pregnant and Emmett not able to walk in the snow very well we decided to forgo the trip this year.  We did buy our trees from a local high school's FFA and they cut them down in the woods around here, so the trees actually look exactly like ones we would have cut down ourselves.  Pictures to come.  :)

This past Thursday we took the boys and went downtown to watch our Christmas parade.  Our friends saved us a spot right up front and we were all snuggled in and ready to watch a few minutes before the parade started.  The weather was perfect - about 40 degrees.... until it started to rain.  Yes, rain!  YUCK!!  Luckily the rain didn't dampen anyone's spirits and the boys didn't seem to mind, so we stayed and watched the 100 floats go by.  The boys really enjoyed it and we were surprised that they lasted so long past their bedtimes with no major meltdowns.   By the end of the parade the rain had soaked through my puffer coat and I was getting really cold, so we were able to leave at the perfect time.  Here are a few pics from that night...

Okay, I know this picture is terrible of me (hello double chin), but I wanted you to see how wet we were!  Emmett would NOT keep his hat or hood on.  I tried and tried, but then I eventually gave up and just hoped for no sickness!

Then on Saturday we all got to go for a ride on the BNSF Railroad's Holiday Express train!  From what I heard, the company takes their Holiday Express train to one state every year and travels around to military bases in the state and gives free holiday train rides to military members and their families.  It was really fun!  The inside of the train was decorated with greens and lights and we got free snacks, drinks, and hot cocoa. The boys were really excited to be on the train, but they did get a little stir crazy towards the end of the trip.  And I got a little queasy on the way back with how warm the train was and the slow rocking from side to side that we were doing.  But other than that it was really fun to be on the train with a bunch of our friends.  And so nice of the railway to do this special thing for military families.

Santa even came around to each car and passed out presents... Holiday Express Christmas ornaments!

As you can see, the boys wanted NOTHING to do with Santa.  Maybe next year... hopefully!