Christmas morning

I think I can safely say with most families with small children Christmas morning can be pretty exciting and usually pretty early. 

 Because Santa is in charge of just the stockings and us wanting to see their reactions they were given strict instructions from Daddy before they went to bed. They couldn't come into the family room until their clock said 7:00. They both did a really good job but you could hear them each time the clock changed.  

 We were both awake and when it was just a few minutes before 7 we got up and the were in the family room at exactly 7:00 :) I was still getting use to my camera and the different settings so there is a little bit of blurriness to some of these early pics. But they were good boys and got some fun things from Santa. 

 After our stockings we decided that we were ready for some breakfast. We thought the gifts waiting to be opened under the tree would be a good motivator to eat a good breakfast. We had Christmas tree pancakes, sausage, and eggs with oj and white hot chocolate. We were all pretty hungry so we all had a  pretty full tummy when we headed back over to open the gifts under the tree. 

We tried as much as we could to take our time opening our gifts. Sup is still much better at this then Thomas. Thomas rips open the package looks at it for like a second and is ready to to open another one. We always have the boys get each other a little something for Christmas. When Thomas asked Sup what he wanted he wanted a halo truck.... yes another one, so that is what he got him. When Sup asked Thomas he wanted a steak. Yes a steak, this boys loves is meat. Sup really wanted to get him the steak with the steak sauce. So on Christmas eve I went to the store and got him a nice juicy steak and we wrapped it up and put it in the frig. Thomas was so excited to get this and thought it was the best present :) 

Christmas Eve

We had a really fun and relaxing Christmas eve morning and day. But the boys were really excited when it started to get dark out, it meant that Christmas was almost here and soon Santa would stop by. 

 Each year the bots always make a big plate of cookies for Santa. We have a special plate just for him and after all the chocolate chip cookies were out of the oven and cooled they were ready to fill the plate. We have always done chocolate chip but this year we had the Christmas colored chips to be a little more festive. 

 Before we started our Christmas movies for the night we had our Christmas eve gift. There is always one special gift that we have each person open on Christmas eve. This seems to settle some of the excitement before Santa comes. 

 This year Thomas got an Angry Bird Space set and Sup got a Halo truck... a warthog for all those Halo players out there ;) with a blue Spartan. Eric got a fancy Halo book and Eric got me a nice new camera! :) I had lots of fun looking out and trying to figure out all the different functions. 

 After our gifts it was time to get ready settle down for the night and relax with some classic Christmas movies. It wasn't complete without some snacks of course, so we set them on the cookie table so we could snack throughout the shows. 

Christmas eve is always easy to get the kids to bed but it sometimes takes them a while to actually fall asleep. So when the movies were over they were jumping to get to bed. The boys put out their plate of cookies with a tall glass of milk and hurried to bed. Thomas did good staying in his bed Sup wondered out a few times before he finally fell asleep as well :)

Christmas eve morning

For those who may not be aware I am a pretty big Garfield fan, you know the big fat orange cat with John and my fav Odie. Well the Garfield Christmas special is by far my favorite Christmas movie. In the movie it starts out to be Christmas eve morning and John and Odie are so excited about going back home to the farm to celebrate this grand occasion. 

 So it might seem weird that we celebrate "Christmas eve morning" and kinda make it a big deal, but I get it from this silly movie ;) So for breakfast I was going to make bagels....if you ever never made homemade bagels or had them they are amazing!... anyway I slept in a little and didn't get to them so I went with the next best thing, donuts ;) We have a pretty good doughnut shop here so I ran up and bought some for our little family. The favorite for the boys..the ones with chocolate icing and Christmas sprinkles, they were pretty happy boys :)

 We thought it would be fun to have a snack day, not the healthiest way to eat I know, but it was "Christmas eve morning!" So a few hours after our donut feast I started on our list of fun snacks. I think for the most part the boys liked most of snacks and the fact that there was some kind of new food coming out every couple hours ;)

 Eric and I had worked out the menu a few days earlier so it was a nice relaxing day and besides going out for the donuts in the morning we never had to leave the house. Since we didn't have to go anywhere the boys opted to stay in their jammies. Who doesn't love jammy day?! :) 

One if the things I made that day was a homemade hot chocolate that was done in the crockpot. After everything was melted and warm I turned it to warm and we had warm hot chocolate the whole day! It was a really good hot chocolate, and I probably had a cup or two too much ;) But they were small cups and I went with the fun little Christmas tea cups.

Our "special present"

The boys were excited for Christmas for all of December. With Thomas in school it made more of a count down for us, so the weekend before Christmas they were a little goofy ;)

 Since they couldn't open their presents under the tree they started playing dress up like a present. Thomas took this blanket and "wrapped" Sup up. Then he went and found a bow and stuck it on top. It's a little hard to see in the pic because it is a gold bow, but it's right in the center on top where his head is under the blanket. 

Then Thomas came running out telling Eric and I that we had a "surprise present" waiting for us. And when we walked in and this is what we see :) it was pretty cute. So we had to open our "present" a couple days early ;)

Sup's Christmas party

Sup's preschool really does a lot of fun things for the kids on party days. They had the last hour of the day dedicated to the party. 

 Because I had gotten there a little late I missed some of the games they had set up in the hallway. But I think this activity was Sup's favorite anyway. They were making it "snow". They had this big sheet with all the kids holding and then they poured a bunch of ping pong balls in the middle. they said a little rhyme and it started "snowing!!" and the kids would shake the sheet and the ping pong ball went flying. 

 They had a few activities in their "big room". After Sup finished putting his nativity set together he made his way over to the playdoh. This is by far his favorite thing to do. His teachers tell me that he what he plays with almost all the time when they come in here. 

 After the Nativity sets we headed back into the classroom where the kids played and sang us some little Christmas songs. They had the little blue sticks, little jingle bells and a little shaker they used for instruments. Sup's favorite were the blue sticks. I was not a bit surprised sticks in general are the most fun things to him and they were blue on top of it! he was in heaven. 

After our show it was time to eat. For the first time he actually tried the mandarin oranges in the fruit salad and he LOVED them. I have had to have them on hand now and he will eat the little cuties like two at a time! 

Getting ready for Christmas

After my my camera died, I turned to my iPad's camera. It was nice to get some pictures but it took a bit to get use to it, so these pictures are a little bit blurry. So the boys were very excited about Christmas this year. I think it has been the most exciting Christmas. 

 We were actually pretty prepared for Christmas this year as we did most of our shopping for the boys back in September. The way we have Christmas is that we wrap the gifts to each other and put them under the tree and the stockings are for Santa to fill. We were able to get most of our decorations up at the end of November so we were already ready for Christmas. 

Eric and I took an afternoon and wrapped all the gifts. The boys did really good playing in their play room down stairs as we wrapped upstairs. After we got everything wrapped we had the boys transport the gifts to the other room under the tree. To Eric and I this would be a chore but the boys thought it was the best thing. They can both read names to it was fun to see them read the tags and already know what presents were who's and who they where from. 

Book fair

Thomas had his first experience at the book fair at the beginning of December. He was really excited when it was his classes time to go down and see what books they had. It was nice that the school had sent us information so we knew what day he his class would go. 

 That morning I dropped him off and he had five dollars to spend for a book. When he got off the bus that afternoon he was so excited to tell me about his book, and was running home. When I asked him how much the book was he said a dollar, so I asked him if he had four dollars in change. He was confused and said that he gave the lady his money and she gave it back to him. Now I was a little confused? He said he had the white paper "you know like you get when you go to the grocery store" and that would tell me what I needed to know. 

 As we walked inside he opened his backpack and got into his folder and gave me the receipt and the one dollar change. He must not have realized that he had a five dollar bill and thought he just got his "dollar" back. We will have to work on money recognition ;) He picked out a dinosaur book.. big surprise I know ;) 

He was very excited to sit and look through the book and could read a little bit of it. Here he wanted to show me his favorite page, the one with a big T-Rex on it. When I asked him what others got he said that the girls all got "girly princess books" and he didn't like those at all :) 

Fun with Jared

While Gramma and Papa were here just before Thanksgiving we also had another set of Anderson's to visit us, we had a pretty full house! :) It was great :)

 Eric's brother and his family flew out from Utah to visit with us for a few days. The weather was really great so we were able to go outside and play for a bit. I'll have to thank Luisa for the pictures I used on this post, as my camera..well RIP poor little camera ;) 

 The boys had a lot of fun playing with their little cousin Jared. And for the most part were pretty good at sharing their toys with him, at least what I observed Despite my best intentions I never really put away all of the baby toys. But not to add to my procrastination but it was a good thing I didn't so we had more things for Jared to play with :)

Poor Jared did come away with one war wound. Poor little guy walked in the way of Sup swinging a little hockey stick :( He got him just below eye and Sup did feel really bad about it. I am not sure how long it lasted but it was quite the shiner 

Thanksgiving play

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving the kindergarten classes put on a little Thanksgiving play for the parents. This is something that our elementary has done for a long time and I was excited to go and see Thomas. It was a bonus that gramma and papa were able to come and see as well. 

 We got there just in time, as you can see it was all the kindergarten classes together so it was pretty large. At first I didn't even know if I would be able to pick him out but we were able to spot him at the right handed corner. 

The play was to re-enact the first Thanksgiving and somehow Thomas was picked to be one of the preachers. He had told me the week before so at least I kinda knew where to look. There were also the pilgrim men and women, indian men and women and the turkeys.

 After the big production in gym the classes were dismissed and we caught up with Thomas in his classroom. His teacher had the kids do one more production for the parents while some of the other parents got the feast ready for the kids. I think Thomas felt pretty special because he was the only preacher and was able to sit in the middle of the circle. 

After everything was ready the kids were dismissed to their seats and able to enjoy the feast. All the kids were in charge of bring things for the feast. Thomas was assigned to bring a pumpkin pie and whipping cream. Earlier that day the teacher told us that the kids made butter with the cream to have with the feast in the afternoon. It was a lot of fun to see Thomas in school :)

Cooking with Papa

The week of Thanksgiving we were able to have some family around for a few days. The boys were very excited to have everyone come and visit. Papa and Gramma had a long trip from Germany and Monday morning Papa was able to share a few yummy German recipes with us for breakfast. 

 Sup always likes to help in the kitchen so he was happy to help papa with his recipes. I didn't get a picture of the breakfast casserole that was made but Sup was able to put on all...well most of the cheese, I wouldn't be surprised if some the cheese ended up in his belly. The next dish was is something that is popular in Germany. And I hope I get this story right ;)

 They are well known for the ionic mushroom, like the ones you see in Mario if your familiar with the popular Nintendo game. The mushrooms with the red top and white spots. And they like to make the food look like this mushroom. With some help from papa Sup made all the little mushrooms we had for breakfast that morning. 

It seems that it was pretty simple to make they cut the tomatoes in half, and then took the seeds out. Then took a hard boiled egg and cut the bottom a little so they would stand and put the tomato on top. Papa took some mayo and made the little spots and woola we had our mushroom! Sup was quite proud of his creation :)