December

We are in full swing preparing for Christmas around here.  Starting with our trip to Santa.

As you can see, my boys didn't even last long enough with Santa to get a picture.  Luckily, there was a carousel to cheer the boys up.  Every year I try to act excited with them and tell them that Santa is the greatest but who am I kidding?  I was terrified of Santa until the age of 13 so I'm pretty sure I have no luck of convincing my boys to sit on his lap.  I completely understand, boys.

This past weekend I also had the opportunity to play in the Messiah.  Honestly, up until the day of the first rehearsal I was pretty darn close to dropping out for multiple reasons.  However, as always, the music got to me and I was reminded why I play.  And it has absolutely nothing to do with the people around me.  It was the perfect way for me to focus my mind on Christ and I couldn't be more grateful for the reason we celebrate this whole Christmas season.

I just really don't know what faces Patrick pulls sometimes.  He's a character...:)

As I was getting ready for the first concert(this is a picture from the second night) Patrick came into the bathroom and said, "mom, why you dressed like a queen?"  I asked him if he liked my dress and he said, "it's pretty!  You have a crown!"  He knows how to butter his mommy up. ;)  

And now we're just trying to finish up all of our Christmas gifts!  Am I the only one that feels like I have to do a Christmas bundle more than just a Christmas gift?  I swear, no matter how early I plan ahead, I'm never done until Christmas eve.

    Patrick wanted to "help" daddy with our homemade gifts.

And lastly, this is us just hanging out at our house at 11:30 at night.  I can't really write more than one post without mentioning our house.

It takes quite a bit to get me super excited about something(a quality I wish I could change), but this house does not leave my thoughts.  I already love this house of ours and by the time it's built, everyone around us will be so relieved because then they won't have to hear about it anymore.  Who knew a house could hold so many hopes and dreams.

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

Best Buds

Someday, my boys might be getting in full out fist fights and yelling at the top of their lungs at each other so I want proof that at one point, they were best friends.  Honestly, I hope this phase never ends.  They have their little fights(mainly over a coveted toy) but I can honestly say that these two love being with each other.  As a mother, it's pretty great to watch.  Even when I'm having a bad day and would not consider it my best "mom day," these two have each other's backs.  

 "

I don't know what I did to deserve these two, but they're pretty great.

It's about time to catch up

Hello.

Ready for a picture overload?

Good.

So, we celebrated this little thing called Thanksgiving.  

The boys looooved the little kid table that was just their size.

I loved seeing cousins that I haven't seen in a looong time.

And in general, it was great hanging out with so many people I love.

I wish I had gotten pictures from the night before because we got to celebrate two Thanksgivings.  One with Jon's family and then one with my family.  I also got the opportunity to play in a concert on Thanksgiving morning with a long time friend who I had just recently re-connected with.  It was great and a lot of fun to get into practicing a little bit.  

In other news: Aiden got his first haircut in November.

That little tuft on the top of his head was getting a little crazy

Patiently waiting while I cut his hair

All dressed up afterwards!  

And other random happenings at our house:

Ever since moving, the kids have had a hard time sleeping at night.  Some days we're exhausted but one sweet thing that's come out of it all is that Aiden likes to hold my hand for comfort.  I love holding his hand and hearing his sweet voice asking for mine.

 Aiden is our little monkey.  Bananas are still a favorite food.

And that cooking phase that Patrick went through, it's still here.  Believe me, this takes patience on my part.  Patience I don't have a lot of the time.  But when I step back and think about it, I love it.  I love that he is sooo eager to help...as long as he doesn't burn himself in the process.

And lastly, we are in full swing of having the Christmas spirit over here.  Aiden loves re-decorating the tree on a daily basis.  

Seriously, how cute is this little man?  

November so far and our house update!

Oh hey!  It's been awhile.

Now that we're halfway through November(hard to believe), I figured now would be a good time to update what we've been doing.  First of all, we said hello to sickness again once the cold weather hit.

Let's face it, it would have been out of character for us to not get sick.  We just really love it...

Luckily we were all feeling better by the time the snow hit so we could go outside and play!

 

While we're inside, we may get a little bored and have a fascination with the fish tank.

Even the dogs join in the fun.

Random side note: I need to develop a back bone...spine?  Whatever it is that gets me outside to run in the cold!  Marathon training sounds really great in the summertime...

Oh, and of course I have to post updates on our house.  Our house went from this:

end of october

To this:

first week of November

And now to this:

second week of November

I thought I was taking the picture front on but it doesn't really show the right side very well that has a piece extending out from it.  Also, we get to see a second floor and a roof next week.  It just keeps getting better and better.  

And some pictures of the inside:

Patrick is really excited about the stair part

We might happen to be those people that go every single day, sometimes twice a day, just to check everything out and walk around.  We love talking about colors, layout, decorations, etc.  We get a little impatient to have the house done, but mostly we're just trying to really enjoy this process because it's really a blessing and a lot of fun(for us) to go pick everything out for our home.  We could look at flooring all day...if only our boys had a longer attention span for this stuff. ;)

Halloween and any other picture I wanted to add from my phone

Sometimes I think about my posts and what I'm going to write or how I'm going to write them and other times, like now, I sort of dump everything we've been doing into one post.  Sooo...sorry if this post is a whole bunch of randomness.

First of all, my boys have been holding hands a lot more lately and I love it.  Completely love it.

On this particular day, Patrick was helping Aiden into his side of the car.  These two can fight hard but they also love hard.  I love to see their little relationship.

Our house is coming along since we started 1.75 weeks ago.

                                     

It's actually a little bit farther along now but I haven't taken pictures yet.  Next week, walls are going up!  We loooove taking trips down to our house.  Pictures don't do it justice.

Patrick thinks the construction site is one large playground.  Notice those pieces in his hand?  My sweet little child wanted to pick up everything the construction workers left behind because they were "being messy."  I think he would have cleaned up for a couple hours if I had let him.  

Since having children, I've done a whole lot of soul searching.  Children have a way of bringing out desirable as well as undesirable traits and I feel like some days I have no idea what I'm doing.  However, I've found that I'm definitely a one-on-one type of mom.  I love alone time with each of my boys and Patrick seems to thrive on that as well.  So, we decided to take turns doing mini dates with our boys each week.  Last week was my turn with Patrick.

A date is always better with frozen yogurt...

 And then as we were driving around, Patrick yelled that he wanted to go to the music store and "make some music!"  I was more than happy to take him and let him play on a little violin.  This kid...oh, he's too cute sometimes.  And I'm seriously thinking of starting him on violin and/or piano soon because he loves it.  Makes my heart happy.

Patrick's pre-school had a little Halloween party this last Wednesday and I had one excited little boy who wanted to show off his costume.

And of course we painted and carved pumpkins

I think Aiden is still trying to figure out the whole Halloween thing but Patrick didn't want last night to end.  And then this morning he asked me if it could be Halloween again.

Oh, just because.

Jon and I were lame and didn't even think about dressing up.  Didn't even cross my mind.  If we weren't already feeling bad about ourselves, some sweet old lady thought Jon and I were poor college kids with no job or money to dress properly...I don't know. I wasn't even in my workout clothes at the time. I blame it on the fact that Jon didn't shave that day?  She said it was his striped jacket.  I really just don't know...  At least she thought Aiden was cute.

After a little in town trick or treating with cousins, we headed out to Hibbard for our traditional chili and donuts.  

I say this a lot, but holidays are just a whole lot more fun with little kids.  

Family Pictures and other exciting news!

A few weeks ago Jessie, from Rock Creek Photography, mentioned that she was coming to the Rexburg area and was open for a couple photo shoots.  Jon and I realized we still hadn't gotten pictures on our land before we started digging and I jumped on the chance to have them done that weekend.  So, we all woke up nice and early to meet by 7:30.  Aiden was a little cranky for the whole shoot because 1-he doesn't appreciate being woken up to be taken out into the cold 2-he hadn't had his breakfast yet.  Patrick, on the other hand, turned into our little cute model.  He had no problem with the camera. 

I already added some of my favorites from Patrick and Aiden but here a few other pictures from that photo shoot.

 

 

 



I was happy that we had those pictures taken because within the next two weeks this happened:

We started our house!  We might have been a little excited that day and took about 20 trips to our land just to see if a hole was being dug.

This was before:

And this is now:

 This top picture is looking at the house from the garage side.

And this is from the opposite side.  It's hard to see the garage at the back.
On Tuesday(10/14/14) they dug the hole and then today they poured the cement for the footings.  I don't know the whole process but I do know that in a couple weeks, they will start framing.  Right now it doesn't look like much but we are sooo excited to finally be starting this whole process. 

And in case you haven't seen enough pictures in this post...

Sometimes Aiden grabs a blanket, lays down on the kitchen floor and takes a little break.  Poor guy has such a busy life.