Can Turkeys get Bronchitis??

Life during the holiday season can become so hectic that I feel like we celebrate the day and  move on. This year is no different. We flew through Halloween, I mean I was making C's costume the morning of his schools vocabulary parade! As Thanksgiving was fast approaching I realized that the kids have no idea why we celebrate Thanksgiving day at all. So what does one do when they want to teach their 5 and 2 year old the meaning of Thanksgiving...go to Amazon, Pinterest and Target of course!

I found so many cute ideas and books that were simple enough lil C would take something away from it and yet interesting enough to catch big C's attention. This is a huge problem with several things right now.

I found this book when searching on Amazon. Michelle Medlock Adams writes a whole series of board books that explain holidays to little ones with from a biblical perspective. Lil C loves it and we have read it every night since she opened it.

                                           

Big C is reading now so I wanted a "chapter book". I struggled to find a level one reader but I think this one will last us a few years! He has read most of it a little at a time each night this week. And I was so impressed at how much he already knew as we read. Apparently he is learning at school :)

 

 

I found this really cute worksheet on Pinterest.

 

 

I have been working on colors pretty hard core with lil C lately so she really had fun with this...and I'm sure she ate a few along the way!

 

I'm really not sure who had more fun with this Little People set, me or the kids. I may have played with it more than they did! I also got a great deal on it so that's a bonus.

                                         

                                                        

Clayton's class invited parents to school to see the cutest play ever!! My little man played the pilgrim minister in search of freedom. After the play we helped the class make a special snack of cute little turkeys.

          

                                           

                                           

Thanksgiving dinner would not be complete without handprint placemats!

And unfortunately that's where our Thanksgiving celebration week ended. The kids and I went down to South Georgia to celebrate with my in laws but the Friday before Thanksgiving Clayton started feeling bad. By the time Thanksgiving came around the whole family, North and South Georgia, were horribly sick with some type of respiratory infection. Fever, chills, coughing, nausea etc. I took one bite of Turkey and went back to bed :( Hopefully December holds much better health!   

Easter 2012

The children's birthdays often fall around or on Easter so we have to get creative in celebration. This year we planned Clayton's birthday trip on Ester weekend so we did a few activities leading up to the weekend. While we didn't want to take away from Clayton's weekend we for sure didn't want to miss the meaning of Easter. 

The week before Easter we read some stories and did some activities to help the messages hit home.

Clayton's preschool Spring Fling craft. 

Coloring eggs

Charlotte doing her best to stay out of the way but still in the mix :)

Clayton's birthday weekend was celebrated with a trip to Legoland and a stay at Coronado Island. Sunday morning (Easter) we spent the morning on the beach enjoying each other and the dolphins playing in the waves.

Charlotte is not a fan of the sand

Daddy's first time at the beach with the kids.

Daddy/son footprints

Love this

I could not think of a better way to spend a quiet, cool, peaceful morning with my family and remembering the ultimate sacrifice the God made for us.

St Patrick's Day 2012

I love St. Patrick's Day! It may be one of my favorite holidays actually. This year it fell on a Saturday and on a day Ft Irwin was expected to have horrible weather including 20+ mph winds. I knew we were going to be spending all day inside and I knew that Jason would be home which sometimes means that the normal schedule goes down the drain :) I spent a decent amount of time Pinterest (this time with a direction other than time wasting) looking for fun, easy, indoor St Patty themed activities. 

Clayton started the day with a glass of ice cold green milk with a rainbow Fruit Loop straw 

Then for morning snack we did a graphing project using Lucky Charms. He was surprising great at graphing and grasped the concept immediately. Maybe math is his thing?

For lunch I made the kiddos a fruit rainbow. it was gone super fast. They love fruit!!

I love those chubby little fingers

We went out to dinner so I got a few hat/ bow pictures before we left.

 

All in all it was a great day and Clayton loved the extra sugary snacks plus dinner out!

christmas eve and christmas day 2012

Once we moved to California we declared that we would not travel at Christmas time. With two kids and the gifts and the time off and the stress it is just not worth it. Harsh? Maybe but it is one of the best decisions we have made! There is just something so nice and loving and celebratory about spending the Christmas season with our little family, taking our time with gifts and making so many memories and traditions.

This year was the first year that we celebrated without ANY family. While it was sad and I got a little emotional on Christmas morning we made the best of it and had a great weekend.

On Christmas Eve we invited our friends the Moyer's over for dinner. It was also their first year of not traveling home so we wanted to make sure they had a nice Christmas Eve dinner. Jason fried a turkey and Andrea and I made some yummy sides and desserts to compliment. After dinner the kiddos played as the adults chatted.

Clayton and Charlotte are VERY blessed little people (as are we!), but seriously they had SO many gifts to open. We started at 9 am on Christmas Eve and opened  a present an hour each until our guest arrived and then opened the rest after the Moyer's went home.

 Wow messy face!

 This mug was my gift from Charlotte. The footprints become "visible" when the coffee is hot...I love Harry Potter!

 Jingle Slippers

 These little building "molecules" (Crayola Jumbles) are great for both the kids! They were actually Charlotte's gift though

 Channeling her inner Italian with the hand talking (oh and I made her tutu!)

 With Ms. Andrea

 LOVE Alphie!

After the present opening the kids settled into their Christmas Eve pajamas courtesy of Grandma, who has bought me Christmas eve PJ's since I was Charleigh's age. Once the babes were read the Night Before Christmas and settled into bed Santa stopped by and set up for Christmas morning.

We had to wake the munchkins the next morning but once they got downstairs it was on and the fun and chaos went on for the rest of the day! Here are some fun pictures of the kids and their gifts and some videos of them trying out their new stuff. This year was one of my favorite Christmases so far. Maybe it was that my little family is complete, all together, the low key nature or just the Spirit. I hope you all had an amazing Christmas as well!!

 Charlotte couldn't handle all the excitement so she napped!

 With hot coffee

 Angry birds

 Ball Pit

 Clayton trying to skate
Trying out the bike
Clayton showing Charlotte the ins and outs of her new toy