Jonathan's Birthday

We celebrated Jonathan's birthday on the Wednesday before Christmas.  We didn't have time to go anywhere but we still had him open his present and blow out candles.

 He was super excited for his birthday.  He made me a list of things he wanted for his birthday and also for Christmas.  He was very specific, I couldn't switch birthday for Christmas presents.  They were either for his birthday or Christmas.  Period.

 He chose plain brownies for his treat.  I offered to make cookie brownies, but he wanted plain brownies.  Luckily, I had some on hand.

 He wanted Zelda: A Link Between Worlds for the 3DS for his birthday.  We don't have a 3DS so I was curious to see what he would do when he opened the game.

 First he was excited then immediately realized that he had no way to play it.

 Luckily, that thought had occurred to me ahead of time and he had a second present.

 A 3DS!

 Now he can play his new Zelda game!  Best. Birthday. Ever.

 The 3-D is super cool, apparently.

 He had lots of fun.  He's fun to watch when he's excited.

Before his birthday I asked him if there was anything else he wanted for his party.  He said he wanted balloons.  We've never really done balloons for birthdays before, but that's what he wanted so that's what he got.  He also said he wanted a party with friends, but didn't mention it until the day of his birthday so we had to drop that one.

We did go to the planetarium two days later when we had more time.  It's his favorite place.  We also ate at the food court before which is fun because it's the only time they get to eat at McDonald's.

 It's always fun to play with the solar system simulator.

They also had a new exhibit with an infrared camera.  They had panels that were hot or cold that you could put your hands on and see them different colors on the screen.  Pretty cool.

Jonathan just loves life and it's so fun to watch him learn and grow.  Happy birthday, Jonathan!

"Christmas Eve" and December Birthdays

My family had their Christmas Eve party on the second Sunday of December.  It was a little early but it was also just the best time to get together.  We had it at Scott and Heather's clubhouse which we all thought worked out pretty well with it's large kitchen, large main room, and a game room upstairs.  We each had to pitch in and pay for its use, but it was worth it.  Also, I couldn't make red Jell-O jigglers!  That was the rule.  So, I made orange instead.  Many family members voiced their disappointment that there were no red jigglers but ate the orange ones anyway.  I still made green ones, so it was mostly still okay.

Either way, the real reason we're there is the Nativity.  There are so many kids that we're a little shepherd heavy.  We also have lots of angels and even a handful of animals.

 Here are all the shepherds all around the baby.  Baby Jesus is being played by my sister's newest grandbaby, Piper.  Also, the super-cute shepherd on the left is my sister's grandson, Davin.  So cute.  And my sister has, like, seven grandkids now.  What the heck!

 Jonathan loves being a sheep.  The ears were taken by a younger cousin, but he still had the white robe.

 Jaaromy narrated this year.

 Brigham was nice enough to play along as a shepherd.  He even smiled for me when I took pictures!

 At the end, everyone admires the baby and we sing carols.  Another great Nativity.

We also celebrated our December birthdays.  Along with two other cousins and an aunt, Jonathan's birthday is in December.

 When it was his turn, we sang Happy Birthday.

 Yay!

He got a cool rocket clock from Grandma and some cool clothes.

We also exchanged cousin presents.  Here I thought we had all the way to Christmas to get all the presents but a couple of days before the party I realized that we needed cousin presents by that weekend.  No problem, we went to Shopko since we had to go there anyway.  Luckily, the cousins we had are fairly easy to shop for.  I'd hate to have my kids, their tastes are a little more...specialized.  On the other hand, sometimes I'm surprised at what they like.  They got some fun things from their cousins and I don't think they even had to go online to get them.

I love my family Christmas party.  So many traditions.  It's interesting to see how it has changed over the years.

Christmas Concerts

In the past, I always seem to find out about Nathaniel's orchestra concerts no more than two days before the actual event - two days if I'm lucky.  So, this year I made sure he knew that I needed that information and that if they give him an announcement paper or something, I need to know about it.  Well, my pestering paid off and I knew well in advance when his concert was and even other important details, like his tour date and when and where the bus would pick him up.  Very useful information.  No rushing around trying to make last minute changes to our plans for us!

It was a really good concert.  I'm always impressed with how good they sound for Jr. High kids.

That's him just in front of the basses.  This was the very first picture I took and immediately after I took it, my camera's battery died.  Thankfully, I still have my phone but the pictures are so terrible that they're not worth sharing.

These turned out okay though.  Nathaniel's cheering section.  My parents came too.

This is pretty much the same picture, just not as in focus.  I wanted to share it anyway because I love that Jonathan is clapping.

Good Job, Nathaniel!

***

Brigham's school had their Sing-A-Long, of course.  I'm always torn about going because I'm pretty sure he's not really going to sing and he doesn't like seeing me at school anyway.  I decided to go anyway, even though it would make Jonathan's school day go way long.  I'm so glad I did because they also did a little dance.

 They sang a song first and, I was right, he didn't sing.  But I got this great picture of the headphones he wears at school.  After the song, about a third of the kids went on the stage and did a cute little dance to Trepak from The Nutcracker.  I love Trepak.  It's only about a minute long or so and then the next group came up and did the same dance.  That was Brigham's group.

 You can see him in the very back.  As far as I could see, he did all the moves.  It was so cute!

I tried to record it on my camera but it wouldn't focus!  I was so frustrated.  I finally just focused it manually but, man, it was sure cute.

***

Since Jonathan doesn't really have a school, I decided to share this video of him with his exercise ball.  Brigham got it for Christmas a couple of years ago but Jonathan is the one who uses it the most.  He's so comfortable with it, it's amazing to see him get around with it.



Silly kid.  Cracks me up.

Gingerbread Houses/November Birthdays/Baby Shower

The holidays are a busy time and it's hard enough to get together once let alone three times in one month.  My family decided to kill three birds with one stone and celebrate November birthdays and have a baby shower for my niece all on the day we decorated gingerbread houses the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  I was prepared for kind of a busy Saturday but, ever efficient, my family wrapped it up in about three hours.  Not bad.

 We were a little late so it was already chaotic when we got there, but my boys each found a spot to work.

 Both of them decorated a little more than they have in the past, which is good.

 I was busy helping Brigham so my dad was nice enough to catch some pictures for me.

 My brother's dog, Jovie, cracked me up sitting like this on the stairs.

 Still hard at work.

 Brigham let me help him decorate and did a little more on his own this year.

 Then he took a break to play with the guys.

 It was fun to visit with everyone.

It's a great tradition, the longer we do it the more the boys like it.

Bring on Christmas!

Trick-or-Treating

Every year I tell myself that I am not going to put off getting everyone's costume together.  Every year I put off getting everyone's costume together.  Jonathan decided he wanted to be Emmet from The Lego Movie.  I wasn't sure if I should make him look like a lego figure, with a box body and everything or if I should just make him look like a construction worker.  I decided that it would be much easier to make him a construction worker.  If I hadn't put off getting his costume together I might have had time to be more creative and thrifty.  But, since I didn't, I went the more expensive, but fast, route.

 I found the perfect box to make into the Piece of Resistance.  It just took several coats of spray paint to make it ready.  I bought the pants and jacket online.  They were the most expensive part.  But I found the reflective tape at Home Depot, so not all of it was done for me.

 He was super cute and also popular on the Trick-or-Treating route.

 Brigham didn't want to be anything.  He's just the right size for so many of our costumes.  Mario, Luigi, Link.  He didn't want to be any of them.  He didn't want to be a pumpkin again either.  Every time I asked him what he wanted to be he would say "no costume".  When it was time to go Trick-or-Treating I asked him if he wanted to go and he said "yes".  I asked him what costume he wanted to wear and he said "no costume".  I told him that he had to wear a costume if he wanted to go Trick-or-Treating.  He thought for a second then said "pumpkin again".  So, I put him in his pumpkin costume which is really just a pumpkin headband and an orange shirt turned inside out.  Last year I cut out felt shapes and used double-sided tape to stick them to his shirt.  It didn't work super well, they kept falling off when we were Trick-or-Treating.  This year I decided to use electrical tape.  It was tricky but worked much better.  Unfortunately, Brigham remembered the felt falling off and spent most of the night holding on to the face pieces even though they weren't going anywhere.  He was so cute though.

 I had my Jan Brady costume that I haven't been able to wear in about ten years.  I wish I had a picture of the pants, they are amazing.  Green corduroy bell-bottoms.  You're missing out.  I had an amazing gold turtleneck shirt that I would wear with it but I must have given it way.  I decided to wear my Jan Brady t-shirt.  I little too on-the-nose but the best I could do in a pinch.  Like I said, I waited until the last minute.  We were late getting started because I was pulling my costume out of storage and taping a pumpkin face onto Brigham's shirt.  Next year I will have my traditional goal of not waiting until the last minute to put together costumes.

We never go very far, my boys are surprisingly impatient about getting free candy if it involves a lot of walking and talking to strangers.  And by "surprising" I mean not at all surprising.  I was a little surprised, genuinely, that Brigham could have kept going.  When we got back he was more than happy to go to my parents' house to Trick-or-Treat.  We stayed longer than I meant to and it was getting late.  I wanted to visit Jaaromy's parents too and I asked Brigham if he wanted to go to Grandma Patti's and he said yes.  I decided that it was just too late so we didn't but he could have gone all night, apparently.

As I get older Halloween is less and less fun for me, but these boys are cute and it was fun putting the costumes together.  I loved Jonathan's Emmet and Brigham's pumpkin.  So cute.  Plus, it was so warm that we didn't even need jackets.  It was a nice night.

Field Trip to the Aquarium

Jonathan has been learning about animals in school and we were talking about fish specifically and the lesson suggested we look online at the aquarium site to see some videos about fish.  Well, the boys happened to have the next day off of school so I decided we should see the real thing.  We haven't actually been to the new aquarium yet.  I had heard that some of the exhibits weren't quite complete so I wasn't in a rush.  It also happened to be Halloween.  I would have rather not gone on Halloween but that was the day the boys had off of school.  They had some Halloween decorations up and they handed out candy bags for kids to trick-or-treat with throughout the aquarium.  Jonathan trick-or-treated but Brigham wasn't really interested in the cheap candy they were handing out.

 The new aquarium is really nice.  Lots of room for fun displays like this.

 The penguin tank was amazing.  I could watch them swim around forever.  It's amazing how fast they could go.

 We watched them some more above the water.

 Perfect.

 Jonathan was brave enough to try out the rope bridge.

 He did great.

 We remember this display from the old aquarium.  Jonathan loves to pretend he's getting eaten.

 The shark tank and tunnel were also amazing.

 This shark swam over the tunnel and just parked himself on top of it.

 They must have taught the sharks that fish are friends, not food because there were so many little tiny fish.  I don't know how they don't get eaten.

 Still sitting on the tunnel.

 Sometimes we weren't sure who was eating who.  You never know with pumpkins.

We even saw some sea turtles.  They were always hard to see in the old aquarium.

It was such a fun visit with just the three of us.  We'll have to go back with the other two sometime, it's a really nice facility.