COOKIES

One of the activities we did on our countdown to Christmas was pin the nose on Frosty. Kolton was so excited to play this little game and to watch Brady and I do it as well.


Our activity on Saturday was to go get hot chocolate. We decided to try out Starbucks. Everyone says their hot chocolate is really good so we went there to check it out. I, personally, preferred 7-Eleven's hot chocolate over theirs but Brady loved Starbucks hot chocolate. Kolton just thought it was cool he got to have his own. I did like that they make special kid ones that aren't hot (still warm) so he was able to actually drink it without burning himself. :)
On Sunday we made sugar cookies. Kolton's absolute favorite part was the cutting out of the cookies. He loved picking what cookie cutter he wanted to use and cutting out his cookie.

Then we decorated them. (We had the Foys over.)


He was so proud of his beautiful cookies!

Can you tell he was excited about eating them too?

We learned about "N" in preschool and made the only thing I could think of that started with "N" and was Christmas related--Nativities. I'm actually glad we made them. We got to read the story of Jesus' birth and learn about everyone that came to see him. The kids enjoyed it and I was glad we did a craft that centered around Christ's birth instead of something secular. Not that I'm against those things--I love Santa Clause!--but it was nice to have a moment with these boys to learn about Jesus.

They were cracking me up on their cell phones! They were all talking to their daddies telling them outrageous and crazy stories!


Tuesday night Brady and I went to my work's Christmas party. It was actually the first year I've ever gone and will be my last :) (I won't be working after January). It was held at Cattleman's so we got yummy food but played corny games. :) For example...we had to make paper airplanes and whomever's plane flew the farthest won a prize. I did win $5 for having germ-x in my purse. ;)
Wednesday night Brady went to the Thunder game with Sterling so Kolton and I went over there late that evening to make some wreaths (our Christmas countdown activity for that day). The boys LOVED it! Kolton did so good gluing all his pieces on there all by himself!



Since they loved it so much we had them make snowmen and reindeer as well. It was fun and good for them to make some Christmas crafts! ;)


He was so happy his was done! They were a little confused, though, why their hands were going on the reindeer's head. :)

Check out his finished products! I think he did really well!

This morning we went to Dalton's house to make some cookies! Kolton was excited!! Of course he loved cutting them out!
He enjoyed decorating them more this time than the first time. I think its because the sprinkles were cooler there. :)

The boys enjoying their cookies! (from left to right: Kashton, Kolton, Dalton, and Jaden)

Then we went outside for some crazy fun! Dalton has this green tractor and wanted to take the kids for a spin! He was definitely the best driver! Kolton had a turn (a very short turn) and about crashed in to the fence! I probably should have taught him how to stop it before I let him take off... :)


Kashton had a go at it as well. He did better than Kolton but still needs some practice. :) I think he ran in to a tree at one point. :) It was a crack up! By the time it was all said and done Kolton was scared of it!

He did have fun on it though when they weren't running in to things! ;)

It was a fun morning and I'm glad we were able to go over there! We've had a good week counting down to Christmas and I can't believe its only 9 days away! CRAZY! Time really does go by quicker the older you get!

Christmas Countdown

Well, I'm not going to put pictures of every activity we do, but I am going to include some. On the first day inside the box was instructions for us to color a picture. Kolton was SO excited that Brady and I both were going to color with him! ;)
Check out Kolton's name. :) The first letter is a "K" then "O" "O" "T". He didn't want to make an "N" or "L". He sure was proud of himself though. He actually wrote it in this order: KOTO.

Another day we put candy canes on the Christmas tree. I knew he'd love to eat one and so I thought I'd make it an activity for him. He loves to decorate trees!

On Friday, he opened another box and it held something SUPER exciting for him!

We were going to go see Santa!! This was his face as I was telling him what the paper said. (Surprisingly, he LOVES to get the papers in the box...he holds on to them for an hour or so after he opens it and gets very distraught if it gets bent or anything!) He was SO excited and immediately ran outside (Brady was working on his car) squealing and yelling telling Brady we were going to see Santa.

He asked me if he was supposed to sit on Santa's lap or stand next to him. I told him he could do either. He replied with "OK. I'll sit on his lap. Santa is nice. He'll tickle me." It was cute! I was happy he was willing to sit on his lap but didn't get my hopes up because, well, I know him too well! ;)

We went to Bass Pro Shop because I love the set up they have and you can take as many pictures as you want with your own camera of your child and Santa--no where else will let you do that anymore--and its Free! :)

Waiting in line to see Santa. He was sticking strong to his idea of sitting on Santa's lap.

And when it came his turn he DID it! Brady and I were SO surprised! Brady just took him up there and he sat right down on his lap after giving him a "hi-5". He cheesed for a few minutes and then leaned over and told him what he wanted for Christmas--Toy Story 3.

We went with our friends, the Shipmans. Here's Dalton and Nolan sitting on Santa's lap. Poor Nolan was not a fan! ;)

The Foys came as well. Here's Emery and Kade. Emery was fascinated with Santa's beard. :)

Kolton absolutely loves all the things he can play with there. The race track and trains...

And the remote control monster truck. I don't even know how many times he did this one. He just kept going back!


Here's our attempt at getting a picture of them all. ;) I think I have about 15 on my camera and this is the best one of them!
Kolton, Dalton, Kade, Emery, Nolan.


OU played in the Big XII Championship Game on Saturday. We won! It was a scary game that first quarter, though. Down 17-0. We never come back from that! But, we did and won 23-20. It wasn't a pretty win (we had several red zone opportunities and only came up with field goals most of the time) but a win is a win, right? :) I made this just to make Brady laugh then I spread it all out.

On Sunday our activity was to make reindeer food. We just mixed peanuts and M&Ms and Kolton loves it! Speaking of Sunday, Kolton and his nursery class went in to singing time during Primary and Kolton did awesome! I went to spy on him and he was just sitting there singing and leading the music in his chair. Too cute! He was excited to tell me that he got picked to put an ornament on the tree! ;) I'm hoping it goes well come January when he is in Sunbeams.



On Monday I went to my friend Katee's house to help her with a project she had. She had to divide hundreds of pieces of clothing in to the right classes with name tags attached to each piece of clothing so the teachers knew who they went to. I was there for 4 hours and we probably only did a little over half of the work.

Here's a picture of what we had accomplished that day. :)
Kolton had a lot of fun over there, though. She has a son who will be 3 in May named and Kolton and him had a blast playing together. It was so cute! They played trains for probably 2 of the 4 hours we were there! Well, when we got home Kolton asked if he could watch a movie on Netflix so I put one on for him and he was sacked out after about 30 seconds. :)

Brittney sent me this picture and I think its so cute! These boys are like brothers...they really are! They love each other to death but at the same time can fight like cats and dogs! ;) Here's one of the times they loved each other and were enjoying a movie together.

Here's another lion picture from last week. Kolton and Pierson look to be pretending to be lions. :)

We went to a Thunder game a couple of weeks ago (the Monday before Thanksgiving). We were able to get a babysitter for Kolton so it was a little date night for us! The Foys and ourselves had bought tickets to this game up in the top but then a family from our ward called Brittney that day and said they couldn't use their tickets and asked if they wanted them so we scored some pretty nice seats. It was a blast! The players look so much bigger from section 119 then in section 326! :)

Wii...Helping Daddy..."K"...THANKSGIVING...and CHRISTMAS TREE

About 2 weeks ago Brady taught Kolton how to play the Wii. He mastered bowling! His 3rd game of bowling he scored a 144! He was so proud of himself! He loves to play the bowling, golf and tennis. He's even made par on all three holes of the golfing. He's a pro!
Brady decided he wanted to learn how to change the oil on our cars a couple weeks ago too. So, he went and bought everything he'd need and went at it. Kolton loved helping him by giving him tools and towels and holding the flashlight when it started to get dark. Brady has loved learning little things about the cars. The next Saturday he rotated all the tires (he was super sore afterwards :)) and keeps finding all these things to do with the cars.

We had preschool at our house last week and Kolton was SUPER excited for the letter we were learning about...

He loves the letter "K!" He points it out to me all the time when we are out and he sees it on signs and stuff. He especially loved making his kite all by himself! He did the gluing and all the placing of the pieces. All three boys did a really good job!

Things started getting crazy when they pulled out the tent and started running around in it and falling to the ground! It was hilarious! They were cracking up the WHOLE time! We also went to the park and got to run and roll down hills and play at the playground. They had LOTS of energy!

Thanksgiving we went to Brady's parents house a little after noon. "Dinner" was at 1:00. I brought a vegetable tray (I opted for that instead of pies--my usual), deviled eggs, and fruit salad. The food was SO yummy! One of my favorite parts is the stuffing. I would NEVER even taste stuffing growing up but now I love it! Funny how things like that happen! ;)

Kolton got a ride on the go-kart even though it was 40 outside! I took no part in that! Lucky he had his dad and Madison! :)


The boys did lot of playing and reading books. They had a car track set up that they were rolling balls down and then making them land in boxes. They thought that was pretty cool!

Kolton has become obsessed with his chapstick. Brady bought him his very own chapstick and he thinks he is SO cool walking around with it in his pocket.

I was not planning on going out early for black Friday at all. In fact several people asked me if I was going to and I kept saying "heck no!" But then I randomly decided to go at MIDNIGHT (yes, I'm crazy!) with Shana and Mindy. I didn't get anything insanely awesome or anything, but I had fun! I got home at about 5:45, went to bed, and then got up at 9:30 and went out with Brady and Kolton. :) We had some interesting confrontations (its crazy on Black Friday) but we had a good time!

Sunday we set up the Christmas tree. Kolton was so excited. He was bouncing off the walls!



He even got to put the star on top!

He is so excited for Christmas! He is so confused, though. He thought it was Christmas now that the tree was up and thought Santa was going to come and he could open presents the next morning. I tried explaining to him that it was Christmas time but not Christmas.

SO, to hopefully help his understanding we are doing a countdown to Christmas. Vanessa made this really cool advent calendar but I didn't have the time to copy it at this point :) so I bought 24 favor boxes from the $ store and wrapped them.
They each have a different activity for us to do that is Christmasy (well, I could only think of 16 activities so 8 have candy in them) and are all under the tree so each day he can open one and then when they are all gone it will be Christmas. Hopefully this will help him understand. Today is December 1st so we'll see what we are going to do today... :)

Check out them lions!
Kolton had school at Kade's house yesterday and the learned about "L." I think they look so cute!

On a side note, Kolton hasn't had an accident in over a week! I'm so proud!

For FHE on Monday we introduced Kolton to his chore chart. He has 4 things he has to do every day: brush his teeth, make his bed, cleanup his toys at night before he goes to bed, and set the table for dinner. Each time he does one he gets to put a sticker on his page and after 28 stickers he gets a treat. He's SO excited and loves doing all his chores! I need to enjoy it now while I can because in a couple years he'll dread them! ;)