Random Moments

Had a little helper while cutting green beans...little helper turned into little muncher!

Bill turns 28!!! This is a classic 'Bill' face :)

Celebrated with the family-Steaks and a bunt cake. Then an impromptu who-is-the-best-at-this game started and went on for quite a while! Who can balance their whole body on an exercise ball the longest? Who can jump the farthest? Who can stand on one foot the longest? Who can hold the plank position longest? Who's the best at darts? Which of the little ones can run the fastest on the treadmill? Who can speed-jump rope the fastest? Geesh-I didn't realize how competitive we all were!

Oh life's predicaments....heard some frantic screaming from Raylan's room one evening and ran in there to find this. 

Getting your ankle stuck in the long brush we use to clean the fan blades with, don't you just hate that?!?

Time for yearly wellness check ups!

Sawyer was healthy as a horse! (45 lbs.)

Raylan was healthy as a beast! (26 lbs)

Both got poked, measured, pressured, weighed and finished it off with a nice shot at the end :)

Sawyer's class had PJ day at school last week! They all got to wear jammies, bring stuffed animals and curl up to read all day. 

Now that's the life!!!

TEEEEEF!!!

Raylan's favorite activity these days: Brushing his Teeeeef. We catch him all the time in there 'brushing' away. It's more like squirting an unnecessarily large amount of tooth paste on his tooth brush, getting it wet and then sucking it off, getting it wet again, tapping it on the edge of the sink really loudly and then clapping for himself for a job well done.   

Taking care of his pearly whites!

Baking some banana bread with our roommate, Cheyenne. 

One of the things I love most about the stage that Sawyer is in right now is listening to him read! He picked up a book the other afternoon and read it to the Day Care kids as if he'd been doing it all his life. You can tell he was mimicking Mrs. Pederson because there would be a 'Keep your hands to your self.' reminder every once in a while. He followed p the story with questions about the plot and the characters :)

I know that at some point, all kids learn how to read. But when it's YOUR kid, it's amazing.

The other thing I'm loving right now: Watching the brotherly relationship unfold. Sawyer has always been very good with Raylan since there is such a large age gap between them, but recently they have started to really enjoy playing together and being really silly. They wrap each other up in blankets and drag each other around the house...pillow fight...tickle each other until one of them ends up in tears...ya' know, the usual stuff! :) 

Christmas 2013

I know this is a little late, but this time of year is SO busy! 

We started off the festivities with my Day Care Christmas party! It's the one party of the year that almost every single parent comes to! 

Once the parents arrived, the kids did a little Christmas craft, had a bunch of yummy treats (I set up a table of treats and hot apple cider for the parents too).The kids had been practicing some Christmas carols to perform for their parents at the party for a couple of weeks and they were SO excited to sing them! They did such a GREAT job!!! They were absolutely adorable ringing their jingle bells and belting out the songs at the tops of their lungs! Then they got to open up their gift bags with all their little gifts from their friends. 

It's a pretty busy afternoon with everyone there, but I just loved it and I'm pretty sure the kids did too!!!

Nana Kathy had a week off of work and spoiled us a bit by taking Bill out to lunch and then bringing by this huge assortment of treats for me!!!!! 

She also brought Sawyer an early Christmas gift of a Rainbow loom.....it's this HUGE fad with the kids these days to make these rubber band bracelets for each other and trade them at school. Sawyer absolutely LOVES it!

Christmas morning we opened up gifts at home from Nana Jane that she sent! But did we get pictures of it? Nooooo......we facetimed with her while the kids were opening up their gifts so that's why we don't have any pictures :( She had gotten Sawyer this HUGE castle LEGO set that he was just dying to get started on and then Raylan got this enormous slide to play with outside. (Every time we go to pick him up from the nursery at church, he's playing on the slide) Thank you Nana Jane!!!! Hopefully next Christmas she will be with us!

We headed over to Nana & Papa's house in our jammies for breakfast and gift opening!

It looks like I'm never at any of these occasions.....

It was great having Alex's girlfriend, Shelbie and her daughter, Macie with us this year! 

Raylan and Macie were just into everything until Bill opened up his yearly tin of popcorn.....they planted themselves at that tin and stuffed their faces for the rest of the morning! Note to self: open up the popcorn first to keep those two occupied.

The gang.

What's cuter than two little kitties in a box? Two little kiddos in a box!

That afternoon, we were joined by the rest of the extended family to continue celebrating!

We had a delicious lunch of ham and two kinds of brisket!!

Sawyer making everyone Rainbow Loom bracelets. 

The evening ended with a cut throat White Elephant game and a dessert bar that would put Martha Stewart to shame! Another wonderful Christmas for the record books!

Deck The Halls and a Photo Dump...

Off to Costco we went to get a tree because they had them on sale for like $27! Got there and you guessed it, they had sold out an hour before we got there.....back in the car and zip over to Menards. Costco and Menards for a tree....yeah we're classy like that. 

Found a 10 ft. tree that looked as good as it could all wrapped up!

Bill and our friend Ben tied it to the roof of the SUV and we were on our way! 

I was praying that it wasn't going to go flying off somewhere on the interstate....

Bill and Ben getting it all set up (it looks terrible here, but once it aired out a bit and relaxed, it looked so full and beautiful!)

Of course if no one is on 'Raylan Patrol' he will find something to occupy himself with....and emptying out an entire box of outside light hooks was on the agenda!

He was so surprised when I plugged in this string of lights! 

Decorating the tree with our roommate, Cheyenne. 

Sawyer LOVES decorating the tree! He likes to try and put on as many ornaments as he can so then the bottom half of the tree is a lot more decorated than the top half! 

We always put all the musical ornaments towards the bottom so that the kids can go and turn them on themselves. Raylan thinks this is pretty much the best thing ever. I'm just waiting for the day when he pulls the whole thing down on top of himself though. Sawyer keeps trying to teach him to only touch the ornaments and not touch the actual branches....yeah that's not working out too well.....we can always tell when Raylan has been touching the tree because his fingers smell like a Fraser Fir! lol

Time for the iPhone Photo Dump! (Random pictures that were on my phone.)

Caught in the act!

.......or maybe Papa Steve was the one unrolling the entire roll of toilet paper and just pretended it was Raylan.......hhhmmmmmm.....

The two handsomes and Cheyenne.

Raylan sitting in Mommy & Daddy's bed watching HGTV.

 A moment of calm....sharing the Wii U nicely together.....the very next minute Raylan;s patience was all used up and snatching and whining ensued. You've gotta take the quiet moments when you can get em! 

Thanksgiving 2013

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with  family and friends! As always, the food was D-lish! Turkey and ham and all the trimmings! 

We also had a little addition this year-Janice is a friend of Kathy and Steve's from their Sunday school group. Her Thanksgiving plans fell through so she was able to join us this year!

Kathy had this little 'Thankfulness Tree' and we took leaves and wrote things that we were especially thankful for....

....and with no prompting, Sawyer did one that said 'My mom and Dad' and one that said 'Raylan'..... :)

The fork just wasn't fast enough! Shoveling it in with his hands!

This picture CRACKS me UP!!! I told Sawyer, "Smile nice for a picture!" and he gives me this!!!!! LOL

Nana Kathy got out like the best toys ever! Headlights!!!!

All the kids were running around with them on playing hide and go seek in the basement! They were just squealing with delight!

Raylan and Macie taking a ride....

Dessert time!!! Sawyer was waiting all day for it!

Raylan 'helping' Papa with some LEGOS.

Sawyer conned everyone into a few rounds of Rummikub and Picturereaka......

Raylan climbed up on a chair and decided to give Papa a few good hair pulls.

Papa Rick and Raylan.

We have so much to be thankful for but the ones that are nearest and dearest to me are right here on this couch* 

"Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, his love endures forever!" Psalm 107:1