Christmas Pictures

I did a few photos of the boys in their Christmas outfits a couple weeks ago. I think they look so handsome! These were all I could get out of them, they dont really like to hold still for long =P I love these little guys!! Connor - 18 Months        Cameron - 3.5 Years

Saving Up For Fishies!!

A while back Cameron told us he wanted to get a fish. We told him that he could get one when he had saved up enough money... we counted what he already had in his piggy bank and told him he had to save a total of $20 (even though it cost more to get the fish and tank) in order to be able to get one. So every time we went to Walmart we would go look at the fish and talk about how he was getting closer to having enough money. I would give him some if he helped me with chores or did something nice for Connor, or just any little task that we figured was worth a small payment. So today he finally reached his goal of having $20 in his piggy bank. So we rolled his coins and took them to the bank. He came in with me to exhange the rolls for cash and he thought that was pretty fun. Then him and Connor each got to choose a fish they wanted. Cameron wanted an all black one and Connor chose a gold and black one. I asked Cameron what he wanted to name the fish (since Connor cant really name his yet) and he said Phineas and Ferb lol. So Camerons fish is Phineas and Connors is Ferb :)

 Cameron looking at the new fish in the bag...

 Putting the rocks in with Bret...

 Filling the tank with water...

 Bret giving Cameron food to give the fish...

Cameron feeding the fish their first meal in our house :) We told him if he wanted to get plants and caves and decorative things for his tank he would need to save up again and that he could ask Santa to bring him something for the tank in his stocking too. So for now the tank just has two little tiny fish and nothing else, but Im sure there will be more in the future!

Gingerbread Train

While my mom was here we bought a little Gingerbread Train kit to make with the kids. Connor was pretty much dissinterested and really only wanted to eat it =P But Cameron really liked it! He helped me assemble the pieces and then put the candies on. I havent made a Gingerbread House or anything in a long long time so I enjoyed it too!

 Getting the icing in the bags... Cameron needed little tastes here and there :)

 Connor sneaking tastes of the candy while we worked on getting it together. Thats all he really cared about!

 Putting the icing on the peices to assemble the train...

Between assembly and decorating Cameron needed a little taste of the icing lol... I thought he would think it was fun to eat it this way, and he did!

Our finished product!

Temple Square Lights

This past weekend my parents came to visit! It was so fun to have them here and to get to spend time with them. We didnt plan a whole lot while they were here so we could just enjoy spending some time at home with them and let the kids play with them. But one of the few things we did plan was a night out to dinner and then a trip to Temple Square to see all the Christmas lights. It was so amazing all those lights and how meticulously arranged they were on the trees. The only downside was it was FREEZING! And it started snowing while were were there. But I thought the snow coming down made it just that much more beautiful. We didnt stay long since the kids were half frozen by the time we left. But even though it was a short trip it was lots of fun!

Tape Roads... Lots of fun!

Today I made Cameron a little city on the floor using painters tape! I got the idea from Pinterest and knew he would love it... and he does! We made a few parking lots, an airport, a construction site, a dump and a gas station. Im pretty sure this is pure heaven for him. Hopefully Connor wont rip it up as soon as he gets up!

 This is our little gas station... pumps out of tape lol

Here he is landing an airplane on the runway at the airport... and you can see the planes and helicopters parked too.

 We even put a parking lot up on the couch!

Halloween!!

This year my boys were both so excited for Trick or Treating! Cameron really understood what he was going to get to do since he remembered from last year and Connor just understood that whatever it was we were going to do would mean he got candy lol. Cameron wanted to be an astronaut (thank goodness it was a costume this year I could find! Unlike the garbage man last year!) And Connor was a monkey because he is my little monkey, always climbing on everything! This was the best photo I could get of the both of them together, either one wasnt looking at me or the woudnt stand close enough to eachother or one was running away lol.

 Once Connor got a peice of candy in his bucket he wanted to eat it... the first couple candies dissapeared quickly! We had to convince him to leave it in there!

 We had just left when I took this photo and already Connor had a "candy face."

 This is Cameron and his buddy Jackson from across the street :) We went with them this year, so glad we found some friends to go with!

 Connor got tired of walking and decided being pushed in a stroller while eating his candy was a better alternative =P



Pumpkin Carving 2011

I had to forego the Pumpkin Patch post because it was not a pleseant experience this year... A couple days before my camera broke and I had to send it off to Nikon for repair :( So I borrowed a point and shoot from my aunt for the pumpkin patch and of course I can work a fancy DSLR but for some reason I couldnt get the point and shoot to take decent photos! And then, we went to go to a pumpkin patch I had found and we realized once we were there (by now it was already 6:15pm) that they charged admission plus the price of your pumpkins. So we set off to find another one that we didnt have to pay admissions for. By the time we got to one it was already dark and freezing :( So I was kinda grumpy since I couldnt get any good pictures, it was cold and dark, we couldnt barely see to find our pumpkins etc...

So... on to the carving!

 Connor decided to taste his pumpkin while he was cleaning it out... he realized very very quickly it didnt taste very good!

 This picture is for Bret... he thought it was so funny to do this in the background lol

 We cant do anything without power tools in this house!! Which of course Cameron doesnt mind, it made him very happy!

The Great Bug Hunt

This morning for our preschool lesson we learned about bugs... my least favorite creatures by far. But Cameron is fascinated with them and loves to find them so I figured it would be a good lesson for him. I found some word sheets with different parts of the bug (thorax, legs, antennas, etc) for us to talk about and look at. We painted thumbprint lady bugs and he thought that was a lot of fun too. Then did a few worksheets and we were off to the bug hunt! Before we left I had to go down to the basement to grab something and how ironic (and a little gross) is it that there was this big black grasshopper thing sitting at the bottom of my stairs?! So I yelled to Cameron to bring me the bug catching jar and we snagged it up! I cant quite get over that this nasty thing was in my house lol but it made his day!

 Cameron searching in the plants for bugs....

 We found this little tiny slug and talked about it for a little while. We chatted about how some bugs have hard shells like the grasshopper and they are fast, while other bugs are soft and slow. Sadly for this little guy Cameron got a little excited at one point and kinda squished him.... I know, horrible. =P

 We decided against putting the slug in with the grasshopper, for one at this point he was squished... and for two I explained that bigger bugs eat little bugs so Cameron didnt want to do that. So here is our lone yucky grasshopper....

 We started looking under rocks for bugs now, and good thing we did! They were everywhere! We found a few little slugs and then we stumbled upon a big group of rolly polly bugs (aka potato bugs). Cameron loved that they would roll up into a ball when they were scared and then straighten out and crawl around on his hand. We put 3-4 of these in our jar :)

 Here is our jar with the grasshopper and the rolly pollys....

 Next we spotted this BIG spider! It was a frail little thing but quite large in size. It was really fast too and I wasnt about to pick it up... so we didnt catch it. But we watched it for a little while crawling around on the rocks.

 Cameron observing the bugs we caught when we were all done. After we finished we went inside and painted the bugs we saw. Well, I painted them and Cameron just painted =P It was a fun morning!