Life Lately

This sweet boy wanted to do some videos the other night and was just too cute. He told us his months and counted to 20. I love how he says August!

On Sunday my mom, Melisa and I did our annual Christmas candy making. I must say it was kind of a mess this year with LOTS of butter :) But overall they turned out yummy and cute (minus my fudge). We tried some new things and tried to keep things simple.

Here are 2 of the 4 trays I sent to day-care, work, and with Kyle

Tuesday it was a rain boots kind of day. I took different shoes to wear around the office but these cute boots sure did come in handy.

Wednesday I took off work to attend Cooper's class party and help setup for it. The room mom is one of his soccer teammate's mom. Tiffany did such a great job planning fun games for the kids.

I helped kids with the jingle bell toss

Last week the kids made gingerbread houses and this is Cooper's

After the party we swung by day-care and stole this boy. He was so excited to skip nap and go play with us. Here he did a fist pump and said 'yes!'

When we got home he said he had a treat in his bag and pulled this out. I asked who these people were and he said 'the ladies on my bus' (the bus he rides to and from speech). I thought that was so sweet they gave him a treat. I didn't think to send anything to them for Christmas but they will definitely be getting something for New Years!

Cooper brought this home from school and I must say I am impressed. I asked the teacher if he traced it and she said 'no, but he was really concentrating.' Cooper loves to draw and I have no clue where he gets those skills because it isn't me. Maybe Kyle has a hidden talent I don't know about.

And the boys brought these ornaments home from school. The tree is Casen's and the other two are Cooper's. Y'all I have to say, homemade Christmas ornaments are the best!! I used to think they were totally lame but now that I am a mom I love them! I love anything with a handprint, footprint, or their picture! Throughout the year I put them in frames and display them around my house.

Thank you to the teachers who take the time to make these with my boys! Do you think I can convince the boys to make things like this for me until they are 30?

Yesterday afternoon I got a sweet note from Casen's speech teacher. They made cookies during class. She said she has noticed Casen's progress in interacting with other kids and maturity. I am so proud of this boy and the progress he has made lately.

Yesterday afternoon we took advantage of the gorgeous weather and went to the park to play for a little while.

While there Casen saw an outdoor grill and we had this conversation. I just love when he says 'oh my' and 'oh my gosh!'

Today was polar express day at school so Cooper got to wear pjs.

And today is my last day at work for 2017! This is the first time in 10 years I have been able to take the last week of the year off and I am so excited!

Sylvester Christmas

This past weekend started with a trip to Carenow. Casen had drainage from his ear and gunky eyes. Sure enough he had a sinus and ear infection. But this boy is a trooper and never complained about not feeling well.

Saturday morning the boys had so much fun catching up on their advent calendar they got from their cousins in Germany. Star Wars Legos was perfect for them.

The boys played so well together for hours and about this time I heard-

Cooper- I think I'm going to play by myself for a while

Casen- I don't want to play by myself because I love you

aww those sweet words and guilt trip made my heart swell....and it worked.

Then I headed to Ennis to help my mom and Melisa setup for Sylvester Christmas. Once again this year we rented a room instead of having it at someone's house and it is so nice.

Tinsley tried out the photo spot for me :)

3:00 mingling and happy hour

4:00 Advent wreath and dinner

This year was Italian food

Then it was group picture time. We setup two picture areas but realized afterwards with groups as big as ours we didn't make it wide enough. Here are all the great-grandkids and the 3 youngest grandkids with granddad. It is quite difficult to wrangle all of these toddlers :)

Grandad has 25 great-grandchildren and 23 out of 25 were there. I think that is pretty amazing that so many of us made it! And we have two more babies expected to arrive in January and February.  

Sweet Andie Rose recently turned two and she wasted no time embracing the terrible twos. This was right before she threw herself on the ground because she had no desire to be part of pictures.

Grandad with 15 of 16 grandchildren. Only my sister Angela is missing.

For the first time this year we had 3 family skits. My mom's grandkids did 12 days of Christmas abbreviated, Sandra's did Away in a Manger and Dominic the Donkey, and Sherry's did Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer. I don't have any pictures because I videoed it but here is the adorable donkey.

We got the kids rounded up to do the gift exchange between them.

We updated the cute photo frame Amber made last year.

Melisa's family

And our family

 

And then the Johnsons minus the Minears

I caught these two cousins having fun together

In this area we brought toys and the kids played and ran around without messing anything up or driving the adults crazy 

Casen finally slowed down around 7 to eat something and he had two helpings

Then we played some fun games my mom organized- scavenger hunt, pictionary, marshmallow toss, candy cane fishing, and a few more I can't remember.

The night was so much fun and most of us didn't stop until 11pm.

Next year will be Aunt Sherry's turn to host and I am already looking forward to it.

Here is last year's recap.

Karate/Jujitsu

When the boys were finished with soccer in November I knew I wanted them to do another activity before the spring. Originally I thought Cooper wanted to do basketball, but he said we would rather do karate.

So earlier this month we checked out a karate place. As you can see by the pictures below the boys had fun. Casen was shy at first and did great at following directions. Cooper was a bit wound up and thought he was already a black belt (I blame Lego Ninjago).

The place was nice and I like that the boys would learn self-control and respect. However, the prices were outrageous. You had to pay for 90 sessions per kid (that never expire) and I just wasn't comfortable with that. That is a lot of money to invest in something they may not like. And in reality I wanted it to be an off season activity to get some energy out and try something new.

Besides the money there were also some other things that concerned me (class times, sizes of classes, etc).

So earlier this week we tried out another place that has jujitsu. This place is just a monthly fee and the kids can go twice a week. They are also in the same class which can be good because it is easier on our schedule but bad because they may not leave each other alone. This class is a lot faster paced and they had a great time. However, it didn't have the self-control/respect aspect that I liked about karate.

The boys had fun and we will start in January.

Here their goal is not to be knocked off the guy