More Catching Up: Christmas 2011

I know, I know, I know. It's almost summer for crying out loud. But I don't want to deny you the pleasure of these treasures:

 On Christmas Eve Katie and Mommy made some reindeer food for Santa's reindeer.

We put it with the milk and cookies to make sure he saw it.

 On Christmas morning we woke up to find that Santa came to our house! He left Katie this tea set...

And Ethan this basketball hoop.

Sometime after we finished opening presents Katie asked me where Santa was. She thought he was actually going to come hang out at our house and was really disappointed when I clarified that he only comes Christmas night and we don't get to see him. It was so cute and so sad at the same time.

Ethan was not a fan of his Santa outfit, but was all about dress up shoes and a hat. Aunt Linda and Grandma thought this was just the funniest thing!

 

Auntie Jenny drove in from Cali to have Christmas dinner with us. That was so fun. Good thing, too, because we needed lots of help putting together this awesome train table!

 

We all couldn't wait to get chugging along.

 It was special to have Uncle John come celebrate with us, too. We didn't know it at the time but this would be the last picture we would take of him and Grandma Jody together (they are twins, by the way.) He died a couple of weeks ago and we all miss him so much.

Catching Up: Gingerbread Houses

 We had GG and Grama over to decorate gingerbread houses this (last) year. It was a blast.

 

 Mommy made the gingerbread form scratch this time. It was DELICIOUS!

But she didn't cook it long enough and the roof collapsed under the weight of the candy before we could even finish it. Oh well. Now we know for next time.

 

 

It was so much fun!

Catching Up: Ethan's First Professional Haircut and Decorating the Tree

On November 24th Ethan had his first professional haircut. We have buzzed it at home in the past, but Daddy thought it would be cute to have "a little boy haircut." That is totally impossible for a couple of home hairdressers so Mommy took him down the road to Cool Cuts for Kids.

 He was pretty excited to sit in the car, chow down on some M&M's, and watch a movie. He barely noticed the spray bottle- at first.

 He started to get a little red-eyed when the comb touched his hair.

 And he fell apart when the scissors started clipping.

 It actually turned out really well all thins considered. (The haircut, not the outing itself. He was pretty miserable when all was said and done.)

 All that crying can really tire a guy out.

 After a good rest and some dinner we put up the Christmas tree. This year Katie was really into putting the ornaments on herself. All in that one spot. Every time. Pretty funny. Mommy snuck over there after she went to bed to spread them out a little.

 Ethan helped a bit, but was really more interested in the choo choo on Polar Express.

When we had finished putting all the ornaments up everyone pitched in to push the tree back into just the right spot.

Catching Up: Thanksgiving 2011

 

 For Thanksgiving we went over to Grandma and Grandpa's house for dinner. Uncle John was there, too!

 

 We did a little light reading.

 And our pike stretches.

 Let's not forget about those choo choos!

 Ethan had a great time soaking up all the attention his homemade  shirt got him.

 And Katie had a blast hanging out with the grown ups.

Catching Up: Thanksgiving Craft

This (last) year we made hand print turkey shirts to celebrate Thanksgiving. Fun stuff. Katie had a lot of fun showing hers off.

 Ethan was really not in the mood to pose. Or stand still in general. That little guy is always on the move.

This was the best I could do.

Catching Up: Katie's Adventures in Potty Training

Just had to share this one. In mid November Katie was having trouble making it all the way inside when she had to go, so I put the little potty out there for her. On this particular day she was just to excited to get back to the table to worry about pulling up those panties and pants.

Finally Catching Up: Vertuccio Farms November '11

 I had almost given up hope that I would get around to catching up on the posts. I thought about just skipping all the backlog stuff and going forward from the present... buuuuuut I just couldn't bring myself to skip the holidays. So here we go. 

In mid November we finally got around to using up the Groupon I had for Vertuccio Farms. Fun stuff I tell ya. Ethan had fun feeding the ducks.

 

And the lion statue in the garden was pretty exciting.

 

 Next we found our way through the hay maze. Katie was pretty proud of herself when she climbed the tower of tires.

Ethan really wanted to join her.

 After that we got to see just how strong Katie was.

 And Ethan was ecstatic that we were taking a ride on the cow "Cho-Cho."

 Big Sister thought it was pretty great that she got to sit and drive by herself.

 She smiled the whole time.

 So did Ethan. And then the ride ended. Oh wow. You would have thought the world was coming to an end.

 We tried to distract him by heading over to see more animals.

 Then, we made sure to take a silly pumpkin head picture.

And finally we posed for a picture with our newly acquired pumpkins. Later that month we made them into homemade puree. Yummmmm.