2014: A Year In Review (Part 3) - December

Finally making a December post...in MAY 2015!

Yikes.

These are all out of order, but they pretty much sum up our hectic month!

My sister took out to the desert and shot us.  With her camera.  She's our go-to family photographer.  I love that she loves my kids and they love to see her.  Especially when she takes them to explore in nature.

I love that this is really what happens behind the scenes.  Momma is holding stuff.

 

I ran my first 15k!  The kids made signs with Grandma Marie the night before.  They also ate all of my chocolate that I received in my finisher's mug.

We took the boys on the Polar Express again this year.  This time my parents came with us since they had yet to go.

We didn't take the boys to get pictures taken with Santa this year because they didn't want to go. Evan instead wanted to ask this Santa to take a photo with him instead. When he did, Santa turned him down.  What kind of Santa is he?!

Tok came this year again, right after Thanksgiving.  He brought snow covered donuts and a note for the kids.

The boys were really into helping us decorate the tree. I think we only had about 4-6 broken ornaments in total this year. Not too shabby!

Mommy cuddles. That is all.

E was also big on writing letters to Santa this year. He must have written 3 or 4 to him.

"I want a toy sword and all the Chuggintons please!"

"I want a new dog that looks like Layne. that is all I want for Christmas is baby cars. Daddy and Evan and Mommy and Grayson and Grandma and Papa."

"Toy sword. Please give this to Santa."

Evan hit the treasure chest on the shark game that he likes to play at Peter Piper Pizza.  He won gobs and gobs of tickets! (I think it was close to 500.)

E's kinder class sang Christmas songs. It was the most darling thing I had seen all year.

We went driving around town looking at Christmas lights several times.  This one was the kids' favorite. Why? Because the inflatable Santa kept pulling his pants down.

These two boys sure do love each other.

On this night, G did NOT want to sleep in his room.  He was adamant about sleeping in his brother's bed.  Yes, there were a few giggles, but they did a great job.  Plus, they looked so sweet sleeping together. I'm hoping this happens more and more.

I think we started a new tradition for New Year's Eve...bowling!  It was a bit last minute, but we had a blast.  I'm hoping we can get more of our family members and friends to join us this year.  But at the same time, it was nice with just the four of us!

This carousel is always a hit at Grandma Marie's. The boys will watch it and watch it and watch it!

2014: A Year In Review (Part 3) - November

I wish that I could remember more about November.  

I know Thanksgiving was tasty. 

I chopped my hair off again.

We played and ate and played some more.

 We saw the new baby orangutan at the zoo. One of my favorite parts was having the kids watch the baby start to nurse. They know all about Mommy Milk.

We did some gardening and dirt digging.

 

We made silly faces.

Paul and I ran another race together, the Color Me Rad 5k.  His two sisters and brother-in-law joined us too.

On our way to the race.  I won this amazing Embrace the Hill sweatshirt from a running blog I follow.  It is my new favorite sweatshirt. I did not wear it during the color run.  This is one of the defining moments of when I new I was a runner.  I had just run 7 miles that morning and was about to run 3 more!

 

We took another trip up north to our friends' cabin.  The boys love it there. Paul love it there. I love it there.

They were also introduced to Super Smash Brothers there.

E took a trip to the Mesa Museum for Youth. They did some really great activities with the kids and learned all about bugs.

E also finished his soccer season.  He did AWESOME!

We watched the Jolly Roger magician at cousin Ben's birthday party.  E and G were in awe.

 G drew a self portrait.  I think it's quite accurate.  I love it.

We played a lot in many hideouts. In this one they were watching a "movie".

We also took a trip to urgent care for some ear infections.  (In hindsight, it was the beginning of many, many doctors visits we would be taking in the next 5 months.)

2014: A Year in Review (Part 2) - October

Well, we made it through the first few months of school and fall break!  Halloween crept up on us as usual this year. Luckily, E was pretty good about keeping us on track because he knew EXACTLY what he wanted to be.  We were able to find his Transformer costume at Costco for $15!  G decided he wanted to be the Orange Monster from last year.

The boys had their annual costume parade at school.  G wanted NOTHING to do with it.  I tried to coax him into just wearing his jacket.  But when G decides he does/doesn't want to do something, he sticks to it.  So this year he ended up just watching his classmate.

E loved the parade.  It's fun to see how the outgoing side of his personality is appearing more and more throughout his kindergarten year.

We also did our annual October traditions: carving pumpkins and visiting Schnepf Farms.

With our neighbor, Naoto, ready to trick-or-treat.

G finally decided to wear the monster jacket!

Our pumpkins!

Making spiders out of pipe cleaners and play-doh.

E started soccer this fall, too.

Dinner and drawing at our favorite pizza joint, Florencia.

Schnepf Farms with the cousins.

I love kindergarten work.

I love preschool work too! It's a bat hat!

E took a field trip riding the city bus to go get ice cream.  Now that's *my* kind of field trip.

2014: A Year in Review (Part 1)

Continuing with recent tradition, I've decided to finally stop procrastinating and post about the end of our 2014.

But first, let's go back to the fact that I never posted about our family vacation to San Diego back in June of 2014.

We took the boys to the beach and stayed at our favorite place, the Catamaran Resort.  It's a block away from the beach and right along the bay. We watched Hula dancers, E swam in the bay, gathered little crabs from the ocean, ate a lot, and played to our hearts content.

We also took the boys to Legoland.  The last time we went was two years prior, so I was pretty new for Grayson.  We talked to both of them about what we did and saw the first time, which made them pretty excited to see some of the same sights.

The helicopter ride was a hit again this year!

As was the fire show.

Our plan worked.  They were tuckered out and ready to go home! Another successful family vacation in the books!