Santa

I wasn't really sure how Miles would do with Santa this year. Last year he was only a few weeks old when we went to see the big man in red. He did fine though. A few times he turned to look at Santa like, "Who are you?" Will told Santa that he wanted a race car and race track for Christmas.

Will's Christmas Concert

Will had his first real Christmas concert this year at his preschool. They practiced the songs and hand moves and such for weeks! He did such a great job. They sang several songs and recited Bible verses about Christmas in between the songs (okay, really that was the older kids). His concert included the preschool, pre-K, and kindergarten classes. We also discovered that Will is by far the tallest kid in his class--by several inches! I did record the whole thing on our camcorder, but I think it would take next to forever to upload, so you'll just have to imagine 60+ three, four, and five year olds singing.

Dressed up and ready to go:

Christmas with Doo

When my brother was here the kids got to have early Christmas (and late birthday for Miles) with Doo. Ryan's really into biking and had asked if he could get Will his first bike. Will's had a tricycle for awhile, but he's so darn tall it was getting really hard for him to pedal it without his knees hitting the handlebars.

Waiting for Doo to bring in the bike


Trying it out inside


Miles opening presents


Taking the bike for a spin on the sidewalk

Lemons

For whatever reason both my kids liked to chew on lemons when they were little. Will still does it occasionally, but Miles has just started the trend.

Zoo Lights

Will has been talking about going back to Zoo Lights for a year now, ever since we went last year and saw the "dancing trees." My brother came to visit a couple weekends ago, so we decided to take Doo to see it with us. It was, of course, really crowded, but Will loves it so much. And it is a fun thing to go do every year. The animals aren't out, but there are animals made of lights everywhere.

The Polar Express

Most of our friends here in AZ have been to The Polar Express train at Christmastime. We didn't go last year as Miles was so little, but we made reservations for this year last December. It fills up FAST!! We went with our friends the Bowmans. They basically recreate the book. You leave the train depot, you get hot chocolate and cookies on the train, travel to the "North Pole" and Santa gets on the train, then he goes through each car and every child gets a bell. Then there's singing of Christmas carols and that's about it. It was fun, but none of us were sure it was worth the money we spent on it. THe kids enjoyed it, but Will said his favorite part was the hot chocolate. Let me tell ya--it would have been a whole lot cheaper to buy a box of Swiss Miss and have it here at home! It was a fun experience, and we will probably do it one more time when Miles is older, but it's definitely not something we're going to do every year! Maybe if there'd been snow it would have been more authentic!

Thanksgiving

I can't believe how far behind I've gotten with our blog! Well, I can, because December has been crazy busy. I figured I'd get some updates done while I have some time to myself. And apparently I need to find some hobbies if this is the best use of alone time. ;)

We spent Thanksgiving in San Antonio with John's family this year. We used to go every year, but the last time we were there Will was just a baby, so it had been a long time since we'd been together with his whole family. Will was so excited to see his cousins--it was all he talked about for weeks leading up to the trip. I wish he got to see them more often, but being so spread out it's hard to do.

We had a busy few days there. We went to Bass Pro Shop, toured some caves, went fishing, and spent quite a bit of time playing street hockey. Here are some highlights from our trip:

A conversation with Will

We were on our way home from the grocery store yesterday afternoon when Will and I had the following conversation.

Will: Mom, I don't want to leave our house.
Me: Will, we aren't going to leave our house. Why would we?
Will: When we go to heaven. I love our house and don't want to leave it.
Me: You don't really need to worry about that because that won't happen for a long, long time. Plus in heaven we'll have an even nicer house than we have here.
Will: But our house is nice now.
Me: Yeah, but it says in the Bible we'll have even nicer houses in heaven.
Will: I hope our house in heaven has a bathroom upstairs.

Oh man...it was too much for me! I was trying so hard not to laugh because he was completely serious about it. I thought it was so sweet. When I told John about it last night he said I needed to write it down so I didn't forget it, so I figured putting it on the blog was the best way to keep it.

Miles Walks!

My baby boy has started walking. he's still doing some crawling--especially if he needs to get somewhere fast or is chasing after Will--but if he's just cruising around, he's walking. I would have loved for Will to walk this early...how come the second one has to do things so much faster?! I would have gladly waited longer for Miles to walk. My brother requested video of his nephews, so here's one to keep him happy. I need to go through what I just uploaded from the video camera to find more to appease him. ;)



We thought it was pretty impressive he can drink and walk at the same time. Had he not been distracted by his water cup, he probably would have taken more steps. I don't know why I feel the need to add that disclaimer, but I do. :)

Sleeping baby

I had put Miles in his crib one morning when Will was at preschool so I could take a shower. He HATES when I do that and spends most of the time crying instead of playing with the toys I put in there for him. I was pretty surprised to find him sleeping when I got done with my shower! John and I had been saying how we didn't have any pictures of him sleeping, so I figured this was a perfect opportunity since his light was already on and it's not like a flash would wake him up.

Peekaboo!

Miles' new favorite thing is playing peekaboo. He's better at it when he has a blanket or something to hide behind than when he just uses his hands. If he's using his hands he puts them on top of his head, which means you're supposed to start saying "Where's Miles?" repeatedly. Once he's had enough of that he pulls his hands away and you say "Peekaboo!" It's pretty amusing!!

Costco

We met my mom at Costco one day this past week, and Will was enthralled with these kid seats. He sat down at the little table and said, "Mom, take my picture!" The recliner was really the big hit though. I'm kind of tempted to get one for each of the boys.

My handsome boys

Last night John and I were in bed at 8:00...we had put the boys to bed at 6:30 because they were so worn out from having spent the night at Gaga's on Friday. I think I was asleep around 8:30, so when Will woke up this morning around 6:00 needing to go use the potty I figured I might as well stay up instead of going back to sleep for an hour...and I'd gotten 9.5 hours of sleep as it was. Hence all the blog updates. :)

We weren't sure how dressy the church at Will's school was for his singing performance, so we dressed up more than we normally do for our church. Miles and Will both looked so handsome, I had to share their pics!

Will's church performance

Will's preschool is part of a private Lutheran school that's affiliated with a church. When we first went and toured the school we were told that families are requested to attend two services a year at the church since it supports the school. I kind of thought, "Yeah, sure, whatever." Then I found out how they get you there--twice a year the kids sing in one of the services. Tricky, huh? So the preschoolers had their Sunday a couple weeks ago. Will was pretty nervous about going up front to sing, and after the first song he came running back to where we were sitting. :) Then he ended up going back up to the front, but he sat down instead of standing with the other kids.

Not very happy about being up there:


Hiding under the pew when he came back to sit with us:


Begrudgingly returned to sing:

Mmmmmm...cake!

A special gift

If you looked at the album in my previous post you saw this picture and its lengthy comment, but I thought this was so sweet, I wanted to share it in a separate post. My friend Benah, her husband Dave, and their kids Fin and Greta came to Miles' party. Fin was carrying a box with a bow on top of it. Benah explained the box to me. Fin had drawn some pictures for Miles (a birthday cake, boogers, and a monster...what can I say, he's almost four!) for a present. He insisted on putting them in a box, so Benah said he walked all over their house looking for a box. He finally found one and put the pictures inside. He taped the box closed, put a bow on top and then wrote his name on the box. She said he was very upset because he had used a yellow crayon and you couldn't really see his name. I thought this was SO SWEET!!! I took a picture of the box before we opened presents, just so I could share this story. :)

Miles' Birthday Celebration

Here are the pictures from Miles' birthday celebration. We had a fun party for him the Saturday before his birthday with a bounce house for the bigger kids, tons of toys in the yard, and snacks and cake. I was pretty nervous in the morning because it was overcast and kept looking like it was going to rain. It did sprinkle a little at one point, and our friend Greg called to see if we wanted to borrow their pop-up in case it stayed raining. I made John go get it for some extra insurance that the rain would stop...and it did! By the time the party started at 2:30, it was gorgeous and sunny! Miles had a good time playing with all the kids, and my friend Laura got him hooked on juice boxes. Ah, his first addiction. ;) My family all stayed after the party for a pizza dinner and Miles' family party. Everyone was so generous with gifts!

Miles Birthday