December is always so full of fun activities so I needed to do a photo dump from my phone. We'll start with a little outing after Thanksgiving while Max's parents were in town. They wanted to take us all bowling. We all had a blast, I didn't take many photos and I think this was Edwin's second time but probably first when he could carry the ball so he loved it, and wanted all the turns to be his turn! (Don't let his face fool you, haha)
The chickens are still all surviving and enjoying their feather coats this winter. Our boys have been taking over more of the chicken care and eggs are in high demand at Max's work. So the boys check on the chickens, fill their food and water and gather eggs and max sells the eggs at work and the boys can make a little money.
Edwin got to pick out some new frames and he was obsessed with these blue ones. This was the first time I let him pick, I have always wanted him to have the gray ones because I felt like they didn't distract from his baby face but he sure is proud of his blue ones and he still looks like my little baby so it's all good.
After picking out his glasses, we went to a nearby park that I had never taken my boys (I had only been to it once, for a photo shoot.) It was freezing and edwin had refused to wear a heavier coat...geeze, this kid and his opinion, so we didn't stay long.
Our decorations came out slowly. Here is my Armenian nativity set that I just love so much.
We didn't really have a set day to turn on music and simmer the cider and decorate the tree all together, we actually didn't even go get our tree together, Max just brought one home with him on black friday. We decided that it was okay to simplify some of our traditions this year and we were all okay with that. I just put the ornaments out one day and the boys slowly added ornaments over the next couple of days.
Oh yeah, Max also got braces again. We had braces together in high school, and his teeth were fine but there were a couple things about his bite and the angle of his front teeth that he wasn't super satisfied with and he has pretty good insurance right now that mostly covered the braces so he went forward with it.
So i of course had to pull out some photos from our high school days with braces. then I realized they were the olden days and had old fashioned cameras that made not-so-clear images and you can't even see the braces...
We have a lot of library days because we get quiet afternoons and its so worth having the floor covered in books.
Temple date night!
My mom actually came down to our house and brought a bunch of ornaments from my childhood then she babysat our kids so we could do our temple date. My mom brought my "baby's first Christmas" carousel ornament
Here's a couple favorites Max and I gathered over the last couple of years.
This is our pistachio shell hedgehog...we thought it was a pinecone up until last month. haha
And our peacock that we scored at an ornament exchange a couple years ago that ends up being our tree topper!
We fed our pumpkins from our garden to our chickens, they love them.
I had to capture the kindness of Miles. He's been pushing the limits lately so it's fun to catch some brotherly love.
Super flattering...but I got my secondary Lasik procedure and it has been amazing. You can't really comfortably open your eyes for a couple hours but I wanted some sort of documentation. I was lucky to get another 4 hour nap and you have to sleep with these "glasses" for the first week.
we finally got to pick up Edwin's blue glasses and he couldn't stop checking himself out!
We attempted to string popcorn again. We had tried this a couple years ago and it was just a mess of squished popcorn, grumpy children and pricked fingers. I decided to be brave and try again. we watched The new grinch movie and I was super surprised with how well Charlie and Miles did. And all the photos are blurry but oh well!
And for some reason, Charlie pulled out the weights and got diapers for everyone and made a diaper workout gang...
We had a ward Christmas party and Santa came and for some reason, I think Miles was the only one to go sit on his lap. I have never taken my kids to see Santa because we usually do photos with Max's dad who is the real Santa, but sadly they didn't come into town this year.
and here's a little sneak peak to my next blog post. A christmas tree in the making!
We had a family night where we gathered brush from our yard and made a wreath. each boy made a section with a variety of shrubbery and then Max assembled it all on the hoop. I was pretty impressed.
He just woke up really happy so we took a selfie!
The boys got Santa hats this year and they were THRILLED!
This is an advent calendar that I had as a kid and I just love that Edwin parked his cars in the pockets. And I love his dimples!
The Saturday before Christmas we gathered at My aunties house for our progressive eating day. We ate lots of food, played the bells, played jingo, and decorated cone trees. And my boys loved all their second-cousins' toys! I made some breakfast casseroles, that were a hit!
Max had high expectations for our family and tried to get us to harmonize...it was...interesting!
we left a bit early to drop off our kids with a babysitter and go on a double date with my mom and Don to see Cats. I know the reviews were horrible but I grew up with this music and watching the recorded version of the broadway play and I thought it would be fun to see with my mom. (Who had seen the actual play multiple times) And although it may be unpopular, I loved it. There was a lot off great music and dancing and overall it was enjoyable! Moving on...
They were crazy this day but this was a sweet moment.
Evidence of some of the crazy...Miles destroyed his room
And threw and broke some ornaments...but thankfully he vacuumed the glass. (And I may have been a bit happy that he got a tiny cut from the glass...natural consequences...he was fine ya'll)
We also did the traditional driving around looking at Christmas lights while drinking hot cocoa. We watched a handful of Christmas movies. we delivered some Christmas cookies and we did the Giving Manger for the first time. (More of that on the Christmas Eve blog)
And that brings us to Christmas Eve which will be its own post coming soon.
