Cookie time

I was excited to show the boys how to paint Christmas cookies. It was something my mom always did with me and my sister’s growing up, and I remember it being fun. They each got to paint 6 cookies, and they were so excited to do it. The paint is an egg yolk with food coloring mixed in it. You paint the cookie cut out before baking it. I had to help them a little bit because the dough gets soft pretty quickly, which for Kale was tough because he isn’t quite familiar with not pressing hard on things when he paints! The cookies turned out great, and they are excited to leave them out for Santa. And as Kale reminded me, we also need to leave celery and carrots for the reindeer!

The Christmas concert

Adam took Nolan to church this morning and I stayed home with Elsa and Kale.  The kids were going to be practicing for the concert later tonight, so we decided since Kale wasn't participating he wouldn't go.  The 3 of us actually had a nice time at home together.  Nolan came home from church and made it a point to tell me that he sang really loud and did all the actions at practice.  I knew he would turn it around!

My mom got to our house this afternoon for her extended stay.  She stayed at home with Kale and Elsa while Adam and I took Nolan to the concert.  Fifteen minutes before the start of the concert I took him to get dressed.  Disaster struck, as I foolishly thought he would fit in to his "too big for him last year" Christmas outfit.  I literally had nothing else to dress him in - poor planning on my part!  He had to wear the too tight black dress pants, and I did find a black/grey sweater for him to wear.  I felt so bad for him during the concert, because he kept itching his waist line where the pants were too tight!  Lesson learned - try on clothes well in advance of when you need them!

Nolan made us very proud at the concert. It's actually more of a play that involves more of the older kids, but Nolan did great being patient in between the scenes. I was hoping to get all of it on video, but our camcorder is on the fritz.  I hope what we took worked!

Not quite ready

The boys have been preparing for their Sunday School Christmas Concert for the last month at Sunday School.  Both of them have been excited and ready to go - until practice this morning.  It made me realize that sometimes we think Kale is actually older than the ripe old age of 3, and that our expectations of him might be a little high.  He did good for the first 5 minutes, and then it was downhill from there.  The worst part was that Nolan, who is usually such a good listener, fell in to it, too.  Kale is definitely the leader and Nolan more of a follower.  They both were up and walking around and not paying attention to the leader.  The practice was supposed to go for an hour, but I left with them after a 1/2 hour.  When we got home they had to sit in their room and think about what happened and how they would do it differently next time.  We decided that Kale isn't ready for his on stage debut, even though he loves singing and dancing.  Nolan will still go and will most likely do a great job!

The next weigh in

I took Elsa for a weight check today and low and behold, she is 6 lbs 8 oz. - a full 5 oz. bigger than when she was born!  Hopefully the more she grows the better she'll adjust to sleeping in her crib.  Both Adam and I forgot (a little) about what lack of sleep is like - and it's a lot harder the older we get!  Right now he is taking the first part of the night, until 12 or 1 a.m., and then I get up with her after that.  Hopefully this will continue to work, as he went back to work on Monday.  Next week he's going to be in North Carolina for 3 days. I'm very thankful my mom is going to come and stay with me to help out.  I know at some point I'll need to do it on my own when Adam travels, but I'm not ready quite yet!

Long, cold winter

It finally warmed up enough so the kids could play outside at daycare today!

The tree

The boys were so excited to get the tree put up. They are always the first to hang their ornaments. They are both so proud to do it, and they like to talk about each one and where they got it from. My favorite was when Kale pulled out this little mini picture frame ornament that I have yet to put his picture in. There is a picture of 3 kids in it right now, and he came up to me and said, “look, mom, it’s my friends!” I asked him who they were and he kept telling me his friends. After that I made sure to order a picture of him to put in it!

Celebrating Grandma

Adam and the boys had fun celebrating his mom and twin sister, Elaine's, 60th birthday on Saturday with his extended family.  We decided to only take Elsa for a little bit because she's so new and little - and there were 13 other kids under the age of 8 in attendance!  We have the mindset that it's better to be safe than sorry and keep Elsa in the house as much as possible for the first month, or at least until she puts some meat on her bones!

The second cousins