Visit with Santa Claus

The first Friday in December was our ward Christmas party. And, as is typical with our ward, it was perfect and super fun. We had dinner, enjoyed a live nativity put on by the primary and sang some Christmas carols.

All day long the boys had been talking about how they would get to see Santa that night. They were so excited!! All through dinner, they kept asking if it was time yet, so when it actually was time to see Santa - they were ready to go! Until they actually saw Santa, of course...

Brychan did okay. He instantly became super quiet and shy. We had to do a lot of reassuring that it was okay and he could tell Santa what he wanted. He did tell Santa that he wanted dragons for Christmas (which is what he's been saying all along and still says now if you ask him).

And this is as good as it got with Kehlton. He would not take one step closer to Santa. Even when Santa offered Kehlton a present, Kehlton just stretched his little arm as far out as he could so he wouldn't have to get any closer. Maybe next year!

My little Bug and I waiting for Santa!! Wish he would have stayed this excited when Santa actually arrived!

Kehlton's Birthday

Our little guy is 2. His birthday was pretty low key; mostly because of my stellar mothering skills. Things had just been so incredibly busy for the entire month prior to his birthday that I never really had time to plan his birthday. And while I feel horrible about that, I do think he still managed to have a pretty good birthday!

The day before his birthday, Lala and I took the boys to the library, which is one of their favorite things to do. They played for a couple hours and got to bring home all the books and movies they wanted.

Kehlton's actual birthday was just spent at home, waiting for Daddy to get home from work. On my way home from work, I stopped to get him some balloons. They were obviously a big hit, as he fell asleep for his nap still tightly clutching one of his balloons. (Don't worry - I took it away as soon as he had fallen asleep!)

Kehlton loves Winnie the Pooh. This cake is as close as I could get to Winnie the Pooh. I looked everywhere for more Pooh birthday accessories, but they were all for 1st birthdays only. This little beehive cake isn't quite finished in this photo, but I'm glad I took it when I did 'cause the boys ripped into it seconds after I had taken the photo.

After Daddy got home, we had chicken nuggets and apples for dinner (one of K's favorites! For breakfast we had waffles and strawberries...) and then opened presents. Opening presents was really hard for Brychan, but he was a pretty good sport about it, and tried really hard to be patient.

Just a random photo of K...this was after a morning full of crying and rubbing his eyes, but he insisted that he was NOT tired. I set him on the couch, went back to change the laundry, came back and found this. Nope! Not tired at all.

Such a sweet boy! We sure love him - even with all his mischievous ways!!

Glendale Glitters

Okay. So first of all, a zillion apologies. It's been forever since I've posted anything, and now that I am posting something, the pictures are less than stellar cell phone photos. But, things have been insanely busy over here. A massive giveaway on my other blog. Thanksgiving. Custom Kadydid orders all over the place. Kehlton's birthday. Christmas parties, Christmas parties and more Christmas parties (I've already been to 2 parties, hosted 1 and am hosting another one tomorrow night. After that, that leaves just one more party to attend. I think.). But don't feel too bad. This blog isn't the only thing being neglected around these parts right now!

The weekend after Thanksgiving, we decided to head out to Glendale Glitters. It's an entire, month long celebration in downtown Glendale. Lots of food, lots of vendors, lots of activities and LOTS of lights! We went opening night to catch the lighting ceremony.

Brychan was kind of excited about the excursion until he saw this:

And then he was SUPER excited. About riding the bus. The blue one specifically (luckily, that is the one we ended up on!). He could have cared less about the lights, but the bus ride was everything to him.

We walked around for awhile, had some dinner and looked at the lights.

It was a fun way to kick off our holiday season!!

12 Days of Christmas Giveaway

Okay. So I really try to keep Kadydid Designs stuff off of this blog, but I'm going to share what we're doing over there so you can come check it out!

Starting today (Nov. 28), we are having 12 straight days of giveaways from 22 different blogs and/or Etsy shops. There are tons of super cute things - you can check out all of the items on the Kadydid Designs facebook page. Or just stop by the blog. Which I hope you will! :)

Just click on this cute little button...

k. Thanks! And I won't mention Kadydid Designs on here for a long while. I promise!!

Gratitude

**I put this post on my Kadydid Designs blog and just wanted to make sure it got on this one too. Sorry for the repeat for some of you!

Since this is the week for Thanksgiving, I couldn't let the week end without expressing what I'm most grateful for these days and that's my little family.

Don't get me wrong. I am grateful for SO many things. But my husband and children are what I live for each and every day.

Two darling little boys. Who are 100% all boy. Dirt, grime and go, go, go all the time. Who love each other and are fairly well behaved (most of the time).

This little guy, who turns 2 next week. I overheard David asking him today, "Kehlton, why do you always look like you're into trouble?". I had to laugh; because the answer is that he IS always into trouble. And he knows it. You know that song in The Music Man? The one that goes "Oh yes we got trouble, right here in River City. Trouble with a capitol T and that rhymes with P and that stands for Pool?" I find myself singing that song in my head on a daily basis dealing with this one. But he has the cutest little mischievous face that melts the hardest of hearts every single time. He's my little clown - he loves to make people laugh and will do just about anything for it!

His big brother, who turns 4 in March. We've had some rough patches in our little family that we've had to bear, and this little guy carried his momma through it without even realizing it. He is already such a tremendous strength to his family. When Brychan was just over a year old, we had a friend make the comment that Brychan had a spirit about him that just made you want to be near him. I hope he keeps that spirit about him. He's my studious one - he loves to learn and is smarter than he needs to be! :)

And then there's their Daddy. Who is just amazing. In fact, right now he's out driving across the valley to rescue Ashley who has a shredded tire on the side of the interstate in the dark. She didn't hesitate to call him and ask for help. I love that people know they can call on him for anything at any time. I love that he's so handy and has to ability to fix most things that those same people are calling for help on! I love that he's such a good dad; that is so obviously in love with his two little boys. He is so good to them and oh so good to me. I got lucky with him, that's for sure.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. And that you have family just as wonderful as mine to be grateful for as well.

Family Photo Preview

Jocie took some photos for us a couple of weeks ago. I'm still keeping them under wraps until I decide how I'm doing Christmas cards (or rather, how I'm having Jocie do our Christmas cards :) ).

But this one is too cute!!

Brothers

Carving Pumpkins

Are you tired of Halloween photos yet? This is the last batch, I promise!

Since we were still kind of leery of the boys returning to nursery on Sunday, we came home after sacrament meeting. We spent the afternoon carving our pumpkins that Grandma and Grandpa Stander were so nice to bring for us! We only carved 3 of the 5...Mommy's fingers were too sore and tired to do anymore! :)

Daddy and Bug cleaning pumpkin guts



Kehlton's silly pumpkin
Brychan's "spooky skeleton"
And his flying witch
Brychan really had so much fun carving pumpkins this year! I expected him to lose interest after the first pumpkin, but he stayed out there with me through all 3 of them!

One last family photo. Halloween afternoon, we stopped by a title company that David works with for their little "in office" Halloween party. I'm glad we did, cause we won $30 in gift certificates for our costumes!

Ward Trunk or Treat

The Saturday before Halloween was our annual ward Trunk or Treat. And, as usual, it was a blast! Chili cook-off, loads of games, yummy treats and way too much candy. Brychan and I also participated in a Flash Mob to Thriller. I know it's on You Tube somewhere...I'll try to track it down. (The youth and auxiliary leaders were the ones responsible for the flash mob. I had told my boys that we were doing a "monster dance" and showed them the real Thriller video. Brychan was so excited when the Flash Mob started that he wanted to do it too!).

A very excited Peter Pan

And a pretty cute little crocodile


And the entire Peter Pan crew. (By the way, in case you were wondering...super cheap, super shiny fake satin is not conducive to flattering photos. At all.)

Keller Williams Halloween Party

Friday night was our first Halloween party of the season, and luckily, we were all healthy enough to go! David's office had a fun party for the staff and all their families at Park Place condos in Surprise.

We actually stayed in one of the condos Friday night, which was a nice change in routine and a lot of fun. David has an entire week that we can use for stays at the condo; we are looking forward to taking advantage of that this next year!

Peter Pan
The pumpkin that David and Brychan carved
Captain Hook enjoying some pizza
And the little crocodile sucking down his juice box, complete with frosting covered face (and hair).
We put the boys to bed in the king size bed, came back to check on them and found them sleeping practically on top of each other. They had that whole huge bed to spread out on, but they just wanted to 'nuggle. Cute!
Saturday morning, I overheard Brychan telling Kehlton to leave the cabinet doors closed, and I told David "it's so nice when Brychan reminds Kehlton to follow the rules". Yeah right. They were locking each other in the cabinets, and Brychan was trying to convince Kehlton to stay in there. Nothing but trouble with those two!! :)
This was a fun kick-off to our Halloween weekend! I will try to get all the other photos up as soon as I can!

Sick Boy

We discovered Wednesday morning that Kehlton has Hand, Foot and Mouth disease. For those who are unfamiliar with it: it is a viral illness that causes fever and painful blistering sores all over the child's hands, feet, inside of their mouths and, in my sons case, all over his little bum. It is highly contagious, so we have to stay clear of everybody until his rash clears up (which could be awhile). I'm hoping that either my oldest doesn't get it at all or that he comes down with it tomorrow so we don't have to drag this out for a month.

So far, yesterday was the worst of it. Kehlton was up all night Wednesday night, and by yesterday, the sores in his mouth were bad enough that he didn't want to eat anything (or take any medication!), just because he had too many owies. He still isn't eating any real food...just lots of pudding, popsicles and milk. After a ridiculously short nap, he screamed for 2 hours solid. I finally reached my breaking point and called Daddy to come home from work. As soon as Daddy walked in the door, all the dramatics ceased. Of course.

But. Since Daddy came home, I was able to treat Brychan (who by this point was feeling severely neglected) to a little one on one time. With a little bit of masking tape, we turned the entire family room into a huge car track.

We had a ramp, a tunnel, a forest and a farm. There was room for cars and for little mice.

We had lots of fun playing, and are still having lots of fun with it this morning.

Even the sickie managed to have some fun.
For a little bit, anyway. :( Here's to hoping this doesn't really last for 2 weeks...

Vertuccio Farm

I am really far behind on blogging, I know. Life has been SUPER busy the last couple of weeks. A visit from Grandma and Grandpa Stander, many trips to the park, play dates, a trip to the Children's Museum plus work, church and Etsy. Insane! but, here are a few photos from our trip to Vertuccio Farm down in Mesa.

Unfortunately, it was really dark by the time we got there, so we didn't get many photos. We went with Jocie, Hallie and Grandma and Grandpa. It was SO much fun! We will definitely have to make another trip over there before the season is over!

A Hard Knock Life!

We had a garage sale this morning. In planning for this sale, we knew we would need to include the boys somehow, so we decided to let them do a treat stand. We did this last year with my girlfriend's boys and they made out like bandits! We spent all day yesterday making cookies, frosting cookies and applying sprinkles. Brychan was very excited to earn some money to buy a new dragon (the one he currently has evidently needs a friend).

So this morning, we got them all set up with their little table, reminded them that they needed to smile and say thank you and all that jazz. And then they waited. And waited. And waited. Not one single person would buy a cookie!
Brychan was getting very discouraged and sad. I sent a text out to Lala and Papa, who both promptly called in their orders (thank you very much!!), resulting in Brychan doing a little happy dance in our front yard. But soon after, when everybody kept passing by his table, he was wondering why nobody would buy his cookies.

Finally, a car full of 4 grandmothers pulled up, smiled at the boys and started rummaging. Without any prompting from me, Brychan took a cookie, walked up to one of the ladies, and held it up to her without saying a word. She complimented his cookie, and then he came back to me, sad that she didn't buy her cookie. I (hinting as loudly as I could) told him he needed to use his words and ask the lady if she would like to buy the cookie. My poor son mustered up every ounce of courage he had in his 3 year old little body, walked up to the same lady, held up his cookie (with Kehlton right behind him holding up a second cookie), and asked "Would you please like to buy a cookie?". She. Said. No. I was shocked. He was crushed. Seriously?!? It took everything I had not to cry with my broken hearted little boy. I guess it was a good lesson for him to learn; that people get to make their own choices whether we like it or not. But, really? Couldn't at least one of those ladies have forked over a dollar to make 2 little boys extremely happy?

After nap today, we are going to buy a new dragon. He may not have earned his money, but he worked hard for it. And was a champ about it. And Papa Davis? Your cookies are in the mail!!

Park

Sorry photos have been lacking a bit lately, but we really haven't been doing much of anything out of the ordinary around here! This morning, we met some friends at the park. There would have been more photos if my batteries hadn't died! Hopefully this will tide you over until we do have something more interesting going on!

Brychan, Kehlton, Tirzah and Wes

Friday Fun

This morning, we decided to pull out some artsy stuff. I'll tell you what, this easel was the best $15 I ever spent at Ikea. The boys LOVE it! Chalkboard on one side, white board on the other, with a roll of drawing paper underneath - fantastic!
Brychan has been working on writing the letters in his name (he hasn't decided if he's right or left handed. He's still completely ambidextrous. Maybe he'll stay that way?).

And who doesn't like a marker tower?
Painting, however, was the biggest hit. Kehlton's masterpiece is already hanging on the fridge waiting for Daddy's viewing.
And Brychan is still working on his. I wouldn't be surprised if he's still sitting there in another hour...