December Fun

Oh I love December!  I love the holidays!  I love every part.  I really do.  It is so much work, but I really do enjoy the hustle and bustle.  I've been reflecting lately on how I have been able to be so much more productive this month than any other, it's a phenomenon.  I've still had time to relax by the fire and watch Christmas movies too...I don't get it!  Luckily, I can go back to my less productive ways in January.  On the 12 days leading up to Christmas we do a countdown of activities and traditions with our boys.  These activities make Christmas for me.  Here are a few snippets of the season!

One of my favorite traditions is the Johnson Polar Express.  This year the boys remembered that the night we watch the movie we also take them on the Polar Express.  It told them that wasn't the plan this year to throw them off.  After we tucked them in, we made hot chocolate, then crept back to their rooms with the Polar Express song playing on my phone and bells softly jingling.  It got really quiet in their room and then the boys came bounding out with big grins on their faces!  "We get to ride the Polar Express!"  They ran into Quinn's room to get him and we all jumped in the car to drive around and look at Christmas lights.  

Another one of my favorite traditions is to take the boys shopping for gifts for each other.  We go in groups and sneak around each other at the store to avoid getting caught.  Ethan and Caden are so excited for their presents for each other they can't stand it!  When my mom asked Ethan his favorite part of the whole Christmas season he says, "I just can't wait for Caden to see what I got him, it will be the best part of the whole Christmas!"  I tried to point out that giving is more fun than receiving and Ethan pointed out to me that buying a present for Caden is pretty much like buying a present for himself because they like the same things and he knows he'll get to play it too.  Oh well.

Clark found us the perfect tree this year!

I've had so much fun decorating our new house this year!  When our realtor first showed us this house I had visions of decorating the stairs for Christmas and a daughter walking down in a prom dress.  I got 1 of the 2!  And little boys wrestling on what they now call "the magical stairs" is pretty special too!   

The Nutcracker exhibit at our Children's Museum was amazing!

And I got to attend Nutcracker in a Nutshell with the Activity Day Girls, yay for me!

Ethan wanted to send a Christmas card to his old fist grade teacher.  I told him he needed to write a little letter on the back giving an update on his life.  I love what he came up with:

Quinn and I got to go to the Kindergarten holiday party.  The kids had 20 cents to buy supplies for the gingerbread houses.  While I manned the marshmallow store, 3 year old Quinn sold the licorice.  He was a tough little salesman.  No one got more than 2 pieces of licorice and ONLY after they had correctly counted out their 3 cents.  He's 3 going on 30.

The holiday brings out the love in Caden.  Everyday, we find at least 10 loves notes and cards stashed around the house from Caden.  Mom Loves Dad...Dad Loves Mom.  We all love Caden.

Caroling at a nursing home was a very sweet activity for our girls.

We went to Cheyenne Mountain Zoo for their light safari!  It was awesome!  The zoo is built into the mountain, you take a chair lift to the top.  I bought our tickets on Groupon and so we had to go a certain night.  Of course that night happened to be the coldest ever!  It was 9 degrees, but we wore lots of layers and had a great time.

I can't put my arms down!

The view coming back down from the chairlift.

We had a fun Christmas party with 12 little friends!

The boys wore their elf suits to deliver neighbor gifts.

We had a sugar cookie party with one of the boys friends one afternoon, and another family joined us that evening to make gingerbread cookies.  I don't know what I was thinking?!  Sugar overload!!!  At 10 pm Ethan was still bouncing around the house.

BEFORE COOKIE PARTY

AFTER COOKIE PARTY

Fun, fun, fun!

Grandpa Turpin's 80th Birthday Video

My Grandpa turns 80 in January.  Since the family was all together (minus my little family) for the annual Turpin Christmas party, my mom and her sisters decided to celebrate Grandpa's birthday a little early.  For the past month they have all been emailing me pictures.  I've been going through old pictures, trying to brighten them up a little in Photoshop, and made a movie using the photos.  It was so fun to go through the old pictures.  My mom and her sisters were some stylish little girls!  

Tammy, Tari, Tonya - Christmas

Grandpa with baby Ethan

I love this photo of my Grandpa as a little boy with his Grandpa. 

Grandpa, my cousin Melissa, and me

Colleen, Tari, Tonya, Tammy

Weston, Grandpa, me

I love this one!  Grandpa and Tari

Tammy, Tonya, Tari

I love this one.  I think my 10 year old mom hasn't changed a bit.

Daddy's Girls

For some reason I can't embed the movie here, but here is the link on Youtube to see it:

Grandpa's Movie

or type in:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_FoDR-d9ak

The Prayer of a 3 Year Old

Quinn is an old soul.  He cracks us up all the time with the things he say.  The other night he prayed, "bless our grandsons, bless us to have a nice Christmas season," and then as soon as the prayer was over he grabbed Caden's special penguin from his bed and ran as fast as he could to his own room.  He wasn't quite fast enough, but I have to give him an A for effort.

Thanksgiving Week

We were all so excited to host our first Thanksgiving in our new home!  We were so lucky to have my parents, Weston, Erica and Scarlett join us for Thanksgiving week!  It was a great time!

Little 2nd Grade Thanksgiving Show!

The boys were out in the driveway (it was already dark) when Grammy and Grandpa pulled up!  They just couldn't wait any longer!  It was a happy reunion with horse rides and snuggles.

The next day I took my parents to Royal Gorge Basin.  It was windy, but it died down enough that we could ride the gondola.

Quinn had been talking for weeks about taking Grandpa on the gondola.

Grammy's magic suitcase never disappoints.  

On Wednesday we hit up the Pueblo Electri-critters.  Then we put the kids to bed and the adults hit up the new Hunger Games late movie to celebrate Weston's birthday.

My little cactus family in our new desert home.

Thanksgiving!  Clark was so excited to fry a turkey for the first time.  The turkey tasted great and our house didn't burn down, so we consider it a success!

It happened to be the coldest day of the year to sit and watch the turkey fry.

That night my mom, Erica and I hit up a few Black Friday deals.  We came home and played a fun game called Things.  I've never seen my Dad and Weston laugh so hard.

On Friday we all put on our jammies to go to Canon City to ride the Santa Express train.  It had snowed a lot!  It was a beautiful time to visit the North Pole!  There was hot chocolate, cookies, and entertaining elves to make the train ride quite magical!

The boys thought it was pretty fun to walk through the moving train to find the outdoor car.

Once we arrived at the North Pole Santa got on the train.  The elves on our car did a great job building up the hype for Santa.  At one point everyone was chanting, "Santa, Santa..."  Clark got so into the spirit of the moment that he had Quinn held high above his head and was lifting him in to the air with the rhythm of the chant.  We thought he was enjoying it, and then we quickly realized he was terrified.  I still giggle when I see this picture.

He warmed right up when Santa gave him a magic bell from one of his reindeer.

So many things to be thankful for this Thaknsgiving season!  Family is at the top of my list!