Pre-Christmas Festivities

We had a lot of fun getting ready for Christmas this year.  McKay is old enough now to get excited about Santa and the joy of Christmas, it helps that he has an older sister who helps bring the excitement.  First off we decorated the house, which isn't much, but we did finally have a real sized tree this year.  The kids got to decorate the 4 foot tree all by themselves and keep it up in their play room and we made chains to help count down to Christmas.  At the start of December we went to the Winter Garden A Glow at the Botanical Gardens.  They put up a ton of lights and we got to see Santa and Mrs. Clause.  I wasn't sure how McKay was going to do, since last year he was not a big fan of Santa, but I prepped him and he kept saying "Santa nice guy".  We all enjoyed the lights and hot chocolate and luckily this year wasn't as cold as a few years ago.  We then had a lot of fun building gingerbread houses together.  Brooklyn helped me put the structures together and then McKay helped decorate  a few.  They had a blast, even though they weren't feeling great.  They had just gotten over a yucky stomach bug.

Brooklyn and I had a lot of fun at the Nutcracker Jr. and Clara's Tea Party with Grandma and Riaan.  Brooklyn has had so much fun going to this every year and it is something we look forward to doing together.  The girls got their faces painted and danced with the ballerinas.  We all ate some treats before we headed over to the show.  We really enjoyed our time together and it was fun doing it with  my mom and cousin Riaan.  Craig and I then went to the real Nutcracker the next week, always a fun date night.

We then rounded out our pre-Christmas festivities with a walk through of the lights in downtown Caldwell with some cousins. They do such a great job and the kids loved walking through them. Its amazing how much joy Christmas lights can bring.  Every time we would drive passed Christmas lights McKay would say "lights, my side. Pretty".  A few days before Christmas we had some friends over to decorate Christmas cookies.  It was a mess, but a lot of fun to get cookies ready for Santa.  It was fun talking to the kids about Christmas and about the real meaning of Christmas.

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth

I can't believe it but Brooklyn has now lost two teeth.  Her two bottom middle teeth had been loose for a while and I finally convinced her to let me pull one of the out.  She lost the first one December 5th.  She was a little nervous when I went to pull but there were no tears.  She wrote a note to the tooth fairy to make sure she didn't take her tooth.  I then convinced her to let me pull out the second one less than a week later on December 11th.  You could already see the other tooth growing in behind it.  Again no tears and the tooth fairy came to visit her again.  I think it will be a little while before the tooth fairy comes again, but she was pretty proud to show anyone and everyone that she had lost two teeth.

pre-tooth pull out

post-second tooth pull out

All smiles afterwards

Fall Fun

We had such a fun fall time.  We tried to stay outside as long as we could before the cold weather came in.  We went to the park as often as possible, we went to the zoo with cousins, played in the rain and rode bikes and scooters almost every day.  We went up to McCall a few times and enjoyed the last of the decent weather.  We also really enjoyed using our fire pit.  The kids loved roasting marshmallows and hanging by the fire.

Craig and I also had the opportunity to go up to Coeur d'alene for a long weekend without the kids while he had a conference.  Craig was able to play a few rounds of golf with his dad and brother, I got a massage and relaxed.  We ate at some super yummy restaurants, went for a hike by the lake and walked around town.  Luckily my parents were very willing to watch the kids and they had a blast while we were gone.  It is always nice to get away for a few days.

My family also had our annual fun run for Move Over MSA.  It went really well and we were able to raise quite a bit of money for research.  The kids had a lot of fun doing the kids race.  Brooklyn did the whole mile and McKay ran an entire lap around the track, it was quite impressive.

We had a lot of fun spending time with family and are so glad that we live so close to so much of our family.  We are sad that the warmer weather is behind us, but look forward to playing in the snow. Recently McKay has really been into Moana and Brooklyn has been really likes The Greatest Showman.  We listen to the soundtracks in the car a lot, like every time we get in the car.  McKay loves to sing the Moana theme song at the top of his lungs.  he only knows like every third word but he sings it loud and proud.  Brooklyn pretty much knows every word to every song.  It is fun to listen to them sing and it cracks me up every time McKay sings, which he now sings along to the Greatest Showman as well.  I don't mid listening to these songs over and over again because it brings a smile to my face every time I hear them while I'm driving.

Happy Thanksgiving

We had such a wonderful Thanksgiving with Craig's family.  Craig's parents hosted and we got together with all of Craig's brothers and their families.  The kids enjoyed being with their cousins and it was nice splitting up all of the food assignments.  The kids had fun helping me make pies the day before because this year we decided to do pie night the day before Thanksgiving, which I think was a brilliant idea, the more food the better.  I love Thanksgiving, I mean what can be better than eating way too much food and spending time with family.