Tantrum

Liam has been in a sour mood all day and refused to take a nap.  Luckily, when he was screaming because I wasn't making dinner at 4:30, it was the shortest tantrum of the day.

He event had put on his jammies!  Too bad we had to go out later...

Monster Trucks

I don't know why Google Chrome isn't letting me blog, but I thought for a whole week that maybe the system was down.  Or I would have posted before.

Three weeks ago the kids brought a pop-up truck book home from the library.  One of the pop-up trucks was a monster truck.  It was running over a pop-up car.  Reese, with her tender heard, asked if there were people in the car when the truck was running it over.  She was very concerned.  We had to explain that monster trucks were just for fun, and that they didn't hurt people (on purpose, but we left that part out).  To prove the point, Will found some monster truck footage on Youtube.  Ever since the kids have been obsessed with monster trucks.

 

 

We let them earn a trip to see monster trucks in real life.

 

It was really loud.  Thank goodness we have family and friends with those ear muff sound cancelling thingies.  I have no idea what they are really called.

I got a groupon (Thanks for the tip, Mom) for really good seats for less than we would have paid for bad seats if we had gone through the box office.  Score 1 for being frugal!

 

Also, rather than buy souvenirs at the event, I used some fabric scraps to sew them some monster truck goody bags for free and filled them with things for much less than purchasing them there. Score 2 for being frugal!

 

Toys R Us was having a Hot Wheels sale and Hot Wheels happens to make monster truck toys. This truck, Obsessed, was one of the trucks at our show!

 

Monster truck shirts pre-purchased at Target for 1/4 the cost of buying at the event.  I put them in the kids drawers the night before so when they got dressed in the morning they would find them and get excited.

And Obsessed is the truck in blue

 

We got a little footage of him before Liam even opened his bag (we waited until we were there to give the kids the goody bags) to find his toy matched a truck in the arena!

 

PS: In case anyone else ever tries to save money by pre-buying souvenirs, they always seem to have a glow in the dark or light up trinket to buy at big events, and I looked online to see if I could find what they sell at monster truck rallies.  I couldn't, and ended up getting the kids glow stick wands at the dollar store so they would have something to wave around.

In the unlikely event that you are going to a monster truck rally and want to save money like me, they sell LIGHT UP CHECKERED FLAGS.  Had I known this, I would have purchased a small amount of checkered fabric and sewn or glued them to a glow stick.  And then I would have gone to the event to find that they are only $5 anyway.

 



Reese Art

couch, wood paneling, colorful rug.

Reese with gingerbread man

Christmas Stuff

Not on Christmas, but Liam wanted to take pictures of his toys.

Nativity countdown calendar

in front of the tree

Tree on Christmas morning

Reese's bookshelf dollhouse.

Presents!  Liam in his new superman costume, playing with Reese's new Jake and the Neverland Pirates toys.

Doritos!  Awe, Reese and Liam know how to spoil him

The favorite toy of the day, the Leap Pad

Oh, the other favorite toy of the day, the ipad mini

rawhide candy cane as big as she is.

More pictures with toys

New Sunday outfit

We did purple for Christmas this year

cuties.

Happy Christmas!  Sorry I don't have any pictures with relatives!  For the record,we spent Christmas eve at Grandma Great's, Christmas morning at home, Christmas night at Gramma Faber's, as well as the next few days.

More Christmas stuff

Liam had a preschool Christmas program with singing and stuff.  It was adorable.

Liam being super excited to go to school. Mostly because after the program they did a gift exchange.

Liam did about 40% of the words and actions.

Santa came and he was so starstruck that he forgot what he wants for Christmas

Liam sometimes singing, sometimes daydreaming.

Liam's part of the ABC poem was "L is for Lamp that shines oh, so bright.  A welcome to those who pass in the night."  He could say it pretty well until he hit the microphone.

Reese had a Holiday party (it's not a Christmas party once you get to public school.  Which is fine, she has a rather diverse class.)  They made decorated picture frames for pictures of themselves and wrapped them up in hand-made wrapping paper:

I like the frame but I like the wrapping more.

Then Will had a Christmas party for kids at work.  They had balloon animals and a photo op. So we got some pictures:

At first he said "sword hat" and the balloon guy was gonna make him one before I made sure we clarified it was "sword AND hat".  The viking horns do look like they could be swords, though.

Reese got a pink monkey, and offered to share with with Liam when the hilt of his sword popped on the way home.  Sometimes she is the best big sister.

And just because, this is Peach.

Ward Christmas Party

I was the committee chair for our ward Christmas party planning.  The party went well.  Part of the activities was a photo op.  I set up some backgrounds and a ward member who is also a photographer took pictures. We haven't gotten the professional-grade ones back yet, but here are some that I took with my camera.

And I made snowman mashed potatoes for the Christmas buffet.

Reese's Christmas Poinsettia