carruthers

Saturday, January 12, 2013

After Christmas Catch-Up

The two weeks after Christmas have been very eventful, but not. That makes sense, right?

The boys got these awesome Mater cups from Landon and his family. They LOVE them.

Every once in a while, when we go in to check on the boys, they have fallen asleep in front of the door so we can't open it. I usually push it open just enough to get my camera-phone through and snap a picture to make sure they're ok.

We visited Reed & Katie's church on a Sunday night because Katie (my beautiful and talented new sis-in-law) was leading worship. Amazingly, both boys sat through the entire service and were quiet the whole time. Nate drew on every page of this notebook with a pen and James sat with Uncle Reed and Auntie Becca a few rows up. --------- The funniest part of the service: The pastor was trying to make a point and repeated "the goat is gone" about a million times. It fit in with the sermon, but everyone definitely got the point, it was humorous! After about five times hearing the pastor repeat the phrase, Nate started repeating it after him: "the goat is gone.... the goat is gone...". I bet if you asked the boys where the goat was today, they would say that he's gone. James even made up a story about why the goat was gone and where he went.

Beautiful sunrise out our bathroom window New Year's Eve morning.

New Year's Eve afternoon, we picked up our good friends Will & Devon at the airport. They stayed with us for a week while Will had a break in his PA training schedule. It was SO good to see them and catch up. We haven't laughed that hard in a long time!

Speaking of laughing, we spent New Year's Eve at the Nick & Renae's house. They just relocated to New Mexico for a new job last Monday so it was a bitter-sweet evening, but SO much fun.

Yeah, that's "Just Dance" on Wii. I can't post any other pictures though, I'm sworn to secrecy.

New Year's Day, the six of us headed over to Leavenworth for the day.

It was freezing. John gave me his goat. Nope, coat - see, "the goat is gone" still sticks with me!

This would be us wine tasting in Leavenworth. It was peer pressure. ;-)

My parents were vacationing in Arizona for over two weeks - In this picture, Nate was melting down because he wanted to take his nap at Grandma & Papa's.... James just likes making weird faces in the camera.

James' new Christmas mask as sunglasses.

A couple days before Nick & Renae moved, the boys and I had Luke over for the day so everyone could be free to finish house-prep.

We hung out in the OUTDOOR McDonald's Playland for about an hour (brrrrrrr).

The boys love Luke and Hailey and Cassidy. They will be missed like crazy.

Three boys playing with their tractors.

Adios friends!

Will & Devon are gone, Nick & Renae are gone -

- time to catch up with everyone else we've been neglecting for weeks!

Friday, January 11, 2013

We're basically famous now.

The Pancreatic Walk our family did in November just posted up their pictures from the event.

Look who made the photo ops.... Lol, we're just a bunch of big nerds!

Monday, January 7, 2013

Potty Training the Natester - Day 1

Day 1 - 1:47pm

So far so good - only one miss.

Skipping the kid's potty chair, going straight to big potty like brother.

Nate isn't super into it, but he IS super into M n' Ms... so we're good!

James is super into potty training his brother. He also asks for a list of everyone who is "potty train" every time we take Nate to the restroom.

Playing Outside

A friend who has 4 boys under 5 years old told me recently that she takes her boys outside every day - rain or shine. It helps burn off energy like crazy and makes the day go much smoother at home. I've been trying to take the boys and Hugo out after lunch every afternoon to run around - and it works!

James was trying to get in the way of the leaf-blower John was using.

Christmas Day - 12/25

{Yes, I just put 12/25 next to "Christmas Day". Consistency!}

We celebrated Christmas Day at our house this year. Typically, my mom's side of the family goes to Grandma & Papa's for lunch/dinner, but this year was a bit different so we had my parents, Brian & Keri, and my Grandparents over for lunch/dinner at our house.

My parents joined us for breakfast. No pictures, but it was yummy!

Then we opened presents - Hugo first.

The boys were very excited to get new guns and masks. (They wear the masks everywhere now!)

Train piggy-banks with their names on them - Grandpa immediately pulled out his wallet and started filling the banks, haha!

Every year I make my parents a photo calendar with all the grandkids. It's a hit with the kids as much as the grandparents.

The real reason we invite Grandparents to join us for Christmas Day - Grandpa sets up all the toys for us!

In the afternoon, everyone else joined us for dinner and more presents.

Grandpa & Claire

Sweet Kenely

Great Grandma & Nate

After everyone left, we opened our stockings together. We're still trying to figure out the place of stockings in our Christmas. I grew up with stockings (kind of) being an afterthought, but lots of presents under the tree. John grew up with one big present under the tree and all sorts of cool little things in his stocking.

We had a great Christmas and we've already started talking about what we'd do differently next year:

- Fewer presents: All the kids got burnt out on presents and they really would have been happy with just a few good ones.

- Later dinner: We tried to have dinner super early so people could get home and relax in the evening, but it would have been way more relaxing to have dinner at a normal time so kids could have naps and we wouldn't be rushing around with a set schedule. A later dinner would also help separate the chaos of presents from Christmas morning and Christmas Eve.

- Figure out stockings for our family: Like I said, John and I grew up with completely different stockings but we're not attached to either way - we'll just have to talk it over for next year and see what/when we'll do it.