Countdown to Christmas!

Another fun activity we love to do to prepare for Christmas is decorating gingerbread houses.  This year we did a village so we each had one to decorate!

 Ashton was impressed with all the candy we had to choose from!

 Elf even built her own house while we all were sleeping that night!

 The final products:

Due to a schedule change, Tristan had to leave and be gone for Christmas.  But our preparations continued!  The boys had fun painting these sun-catchers one evening.

We also made some quick Christmas cookies to decorate one afternoon.

 Ashton was able to dig in and get his hands dirty right along with us.

 Waiting for the cookies to bake is so hard!!

 Decorating time!

 And the best part....eating them!

 We made a countdown chain until Tristan came home.  The boys had fun coloring and creating Christmas figures for our chain.

 We also added a cotton ball to Santa's beard each day to countdown to Christmas!

 We were very blessed to have a Secret Santa treat us to a 12 days of Christmas adventure.

 Cleaning up after all the cookie baking fun!  Look at those cute buns!

 Delicious!  I'm glad our boys enjoy baking with me in the kitchen!!

A Potty Celebration!!

Potty training has been something that Carter has worked really hard to master.  Number two on the potty has been especially scary for him.  So when he had his first success, we really wanted to celebrate his hard work!  He chose taking a trip to Charlie Safari as a family.  The lady at the front desk was so sweet and gave him this special hat when he told her why we were there to play.  

 Ashton was so brave on the big slides with his dad!

 They boys loved racing down these slides.

 They also had a great time playing over the "alligator pit".

 Even though he doesn't have any experience with video games, he is fascinated with them.  So he wanted to and play a few games.

We are so proud of the hard work Carter put in to reach this goal!!

December 2014

And just like that, it's Christmas time!  Elf arrived in our house shortly after Thanksgiving bearing the gift of fun Christmas jammies for the boys to wear throughout the season!

 She started getting into trouble right away!

 We were glad to have our fun new jammies to wear when Santa came by for a visit on the firetruck!  The boys were so excited to see him and get some candy canes.

We decided to head up to drive through the lights at Fantasy Lights in Spanaway.  It's so nice to be able to drive through and see some really cool light displays right from the car, especially with a little one like Ashton tagging along.

 This isn't super Christmas-y, but it was one of my favorite parts.

 Such a happy camper in the backseat.  Ethan was sweet and let Ashton borrow George for the ride.

We also made a trip to visit Santa for pictures at Bass Pro.  We brought home these fun ornaments to make and hang on our tree.

 More Elf shenanigans!

We headed out to see some Christmas lights one evening...it's a favorite for all the kids this time of year.  I think it's because it's dark our and they are rarely out at dark still.  Haha.  It's the little things, folks!

 Of course, we had to get a picture of this awesome lawn display!

This is a favorite time of the year for all of us.  There are so many fun traditions and activities to do as a family.

Thanksgiving 2014

Not many pics of our Thanksgiving festivities this year...but this is sure a sweet little face!!

 For one of our FHE treats we made some fun turkeys to take to Grandma Bernard's.

 Concentrating on his design.

 Proud of his finished product!

 Tristan's with the red eyes cracks me up.  It was supposed to represent the fact that we don't get much sleep with a little one around!  Haha!

Another day, another fun treat to eat!

I honestly don't remember many details about what we did for Thanksgiving this year, but I'm grateful for these fun pictures to remind me of some of the fun we had preparing for it!