Christmas

We had a really fun, quiet Christmas this year.  Both boys were really excited for Christmas and Santa's arrival.  One of our activities was to make a gingerbread house, and I was able to find a pre made one at Walmart where all you had to do was decorate it.  My mom had the exact same one at her house, and we decorated them together over FaceTime.  Her's was definitely more elegant than our toddler version :).

We also wrote letters to Santa and left them in a mailbox next to our gingerbread house.

The boys had fun both decorating and eating Christmas cookies.  Grammy Nichols sent Santa face cookies that the boys loved.  We also decorated sugar cookies to leave for Santa.

Jonathan was home for 12 days, and he's always got a project planned to keep busy.  One project was to make a little book nook for the boys.  We have this space near the top of the staircase that was kind of dead space that we didn't know what to use it for.  This ended up being the perfect solution.  The boys have loved having easy access to their books and bean bags. 

They boys of the family also got out for for some guy time a few times.  One of their trips was to lunch and the aquarium.

We got a little bit of snow one day that ended up being enough for a snowman.

When Jonathan's parents came out for Thanksgiving they brought two beds that have been in the family for a long time.  Jonathan's grandparents had them in their home, and Jonathan and his brother slept in them when they were growing up.  We decided to update them a bit and paint them.  One of Jonathan's projects was to use blue chalk paint for the bed for Jack's room.  Jack has officially been upgraded from toddler bed to big boy bed with his Paw Patrol comforter choice included!  The other bed is wrapped up waiting for Owen to get a little bit older.

 

We moved the tree into the living room on Christmas Eve night so that presents could be in the main living area.  

The boys were so excited to open all of their presents.

Mary was awake for a little while on Christmas morning in her cute Christmas outfit.  This outfit lasted about 15 minutes before she spit up all over it and had to be changed.

Both boys got remote control cars that they spent most of the morning playing with.

Here's Jack enjoying some of his Christmas gifts/projects.  I just can't believe how big this guy is getting!

The last day of Jonathan's Christmas break we went to the zoo.  It was a little bit chilly, but the boys had a lot of fun.  Everyone fell asleep in the car on the way home, which NEVER happens!

A couple days after Christmas we got another special package in the mail from Auntie Amy.  She gave Jack some cowboy boots that he is obsessed with.  He wears them with or without clothes at all hours of the day :).

It was a relaxing, fun break from the normal day-to-day where we got a lot of fun family time!  All the decorations are down now, and Jack is trying to comprehend the fact that we have to wait a whole year for it all to happen again.

One last thing I have to include, since family pictures don't happen often, is our family selfie.

It's always a shocker when everyone looks mostly normal :)

Our First 'Real' Fall

Moving to Oklahoma has given the boys an opportunity to experience actual seasons.  So far they are really enjoying the fall season with all the leaves on the ground.  Jack and Owen love any opportunity to jump in the leaves and bury their toys in them:

Grammy Nichols got the boys a birdhouse to put outside our window so that they could watch the birds.  They were so cute helping Jonathan hang it:

We have had to practice remaining calm when a bird lands on the birdhouse so that they don't scare them away.  The first time they saw birds they both slammed their bodies against the window scaring the birds away:

Now we try to remain calm and watch from a little bit of a distance:

The boys have had a great time putting up Christmas decorations.  I think only 2 ornaments have been broken so far :).  Auntie Amy was still in town for tree decorating, and I got a fun time lapse video of the tree going up.  Here are a couple of pictures:

Even Mary got into the Christmas spirit with a Santa hat!  In the bottom left picture Jack is putting the star on the tree.  Jack insisted we get a gold star for the top of the tree.  I went to two stores without any luck.  Jonathan went to a third store after work one night and found one!  We got the Fisher Price nativity scene as a gift from Grammy Nichols two years ago, and this is the first year where the boys have a decent ability to put it together and play with it.  Mary's name confuses Jack when we talk about the real Christmas story and the nativity.  We tell him about baby Jesus and his mommy Mary, but he gets stuck on the fact that we have a baby named Mary and calls baby Jesus Mary :).

Mary's 3-Month Update

Mary turned 3-months old on December 5th, and here is her monthly photo:

I took about 20 pictures and had the hardest time picking one!

Mary is still sleeping the better part of the day and night, but when she is awake she is the sweetest little person.  More recently she likes to be upright to look around and be a part of whatever is going on.  She likes to be put in the standing position, and she sits on my lap at the table when she's awake at meal times so she feels like a part of the meal.  I also got the green PrinceLionheart seat out so she could sit up on the floor.  Mary is our first child that actually enjoys tummy time instead of shrieking the entire time.  She doesn't try to roll over or anything; she just lays there sucking on her hand usually.  

Mary had a slight interest in the pacifier when she was first born, but she became disinterested around 2-months old.  She has decided to become a thumb sucker instead:

She was getting increasingly frustrated when I would swaddle her at night and fighting harder to get her hand out.  Two nights ago I decided to let her arms free to see what would happen.  All you could hear the rest of the night into the next morning was her sucking on her thumb/hand, and she slept 10 hours straight!  She slept 10.5 hours last night as well.  She was sleeping well before, but 10 hours straight was definitely a record.  I guess the thumb is a good self-soothing method for her :).

Here are just a few more pictures of our super sweet little girl:

I tried a headband on her for the first time in a while.  They were way too big when she was first born, but they finally fit!

She's just too cute for words!

Owen's 2nd Birthday

Our next birthday celebration was Owen's 2nd birthday.  Owen didn't have nearly as many requests for birthday activities since he still doesn't really understand birthdays, but we had a party for him as well.  We had spaghetti for dinner since that is his favorite meal.  I got silly straws for the boys' drinks, and Owen loved it.

After dinner we opened gifts.  He was so excited to open presents!!  

The gift that he got the most excited with was his new scooter.  He was always stealing Jack's, which led to a lot of sibling fights.  He's actually really good at the scooter.  A few months back he started standing on Jack's when Jack wasn't using it, and he would practice until he finally got the hang of it.

After all the presents were opened it was time for cupcakes.  Owen's love for cake is very similar to his mother's :).  He dove right into his cupcake face first!

After cupcakes I wanted to have an activity for him since we did a piñata for Jack.  I thought that they would like silly string.  When I first sprayed them with silly string they both started screaming and crying out of either fear or frustration…I'm not sure haha.  It took some calming down and me spraying Jonathan for them to be comfortable with it.  They had fun after that:

The morning after his birthday Owen and his scooter were inseparable.  Whatever he was doing, the scooter was there.

I still think of Owen as our little baby, but he's getting big so fast.  Next year I get to start doing birthday interview's with him, which I really look forward to!

Jack's 4th Birthday

I absolutely love and look forward to Jack's birthday each year, because he gets so excited about birthdays and birthday parties.  We were talking about him turning 4, and he was getting super excited about it.  The morning of his birthday he came downstairs and asked, "Am I 4?" in a sleepy voice.

Jack wanted a hamburger for lunch, so I got him his first fast food hamburger at Sonic.  He thought it was delicious:

Had we still lived in California we would have had a birthday party for him with his little friends, but we didn't get much of a chance for new friendships in Oklahoma before his birthday.  Instead, we had a fun family celebration with decorations and a pirate ship piñata, per Jack's special request.  During Jack's nap I got all the decorations done, and the table was set in the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme that he picked out.

We had a chicken taco dinner just like last year, because that's what Jack likes.  After dinner we set up the piñata.

Jack got to open a few presents:

And Grandma and Grandpa Brink sent him $5 in his birthday card.  He was sooo excited and put it into his robot piggy bank to save it.  Any time he's gotten any type of money, he never wants to spend it…future frugal guy :).

 After presents we had cupcakes:

 Jack blew out his '4' candle:

Overall, I think he had a really great birthday!  I can't believe he's 4 already!!

Jack's Birthday Survey- 4 years old

Continuing my tradition started last year, I did a birthday survey with Jackson.  We called it an interview, and he was super cute answering the questions all excited :).

These are Jack's verbatim answers with my comments in orange:

1. What is your favorite color? Blue
2. What is your favorite toy? Dump Truck
3. What is your favorite fruit? Apple
4. What is your favorite tv show? Curious George and Wild Kratts
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Spiders and Insects…Chicken and Cheese Roll-up
6. What is your favorite outfit? Pumpkin Shirt a Halloween shirt that has a giant Jack-o-lantern on it
7. What is your favorite game? Tic-Tac-Toe  He doesn't completely understand the game, but he loves it!
8. What is your favorite snack? Gummies
9. What is your favorite animal? Elephant, Zebra, and Honey Bee
10. What is your favorite song? ABCs, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Row Row Row Your Boat, and The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round
11. What is your favorite book? Jonah and the Whale and Freddy the Frogcaster He just picked the most recent books we read haha
12. Who is your best friend? Owen
13. What is your favorite breakfast? Peanut Butter Sandwich  Almond butter and Jelly sandwich…it's all he would eat if we let him
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Bounce Up and Down on the Trampoline
15. What is your favorite drink? Apple Juice and Chocolate Milk
16. What is your favorite holiday? Halloween and Thanksgiving  It's definitely Halloween, but he's just getting excited that we have been talking about Thanksgiving
17. What do you like to take to bed with you? My pumpkin and My Frozen ball.  Take big dog and little dog to bed.
18. What are you good at? At working!
19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? Cake!
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? {pointed at me}…asked further what he wants to do as a job to make money: Playing bowling ball.  Computer! "You gotta go to work, but I don't go to work.  Kids stay at home."

I asked him what his daddy did for a job, and he said he goes to a building and gets money.  He said that Jonathan does a "paper job."  I asked him what daddy has bought him with the money he works for, and Jack went around his game room pointing out pretty much everything as what daddy bought him.

First OK Halloween!

Halloween is definitely Jack's favorite holiday, so there was a lot of excitement leading up to the big day.  While my parents were in town Jack and my mom painted a pumpkin and put spider stickers on it.  We hung fake spider webs and spiders around the house, and Jack had bat stickers in his window for the entire month of October. 

We went to a pumpkin patch a week or two before Halloween, and the boys picked out some pumpkins that we could carve.  We did a smiley face, a bat, and a bad minion from Despicable Me 2 since the boys love that movie:

 Owen was into pumpkin carving more than Jack was.  He had the best time helping:

Halloween day they wore their Halloween outfits.  Jack also had an orange jack-o-lantern shirt and Owen had a shirt that said "Fang-tastic" that they wore the day before.

Halloween night was pretty cold, which is much different than our past 3 Halloweens in California.  We got the firefighter, minion, and black cat all bundled up and headed out to trick-or-treat.

Jack was super shy this year and wouldn't say trick-or-treat to anyone.  He wanted Jonathan or me to go up to each door with him.  Owen had a blast collecting candy from each house.  They both carried little pumpkin lights to be easily seen walking through the dark neighborhood.  

When we got home each boy got a piece of candy and the treat I made for them.  I made each of them a dirt and worms pudding cup in their monster bowls.

It was a fun night, and we're happy to still be in the little years where you only have to go trick or treating for 30 minutes and can easily hide their candy from them :).