Merry Christmas!

What a wonderful Christmas morning, the first in our house to be exact...even though we have lived here for four years, it was really great! We we so pumped to wake up to a white Christmas! I hear we didn't get as much as our Kansas counterparts but even just a dusting is enough to make for one awesome Christmas! Cooper got a kitchen from Santa and has served up some fabulous coffee, corn, and hamburgers. I have a feeling Brad and I will be "pretend-eating" for the next few months. Connor got walkie-talkies, a Starwars Light Sabre, and a Nerf N-Force Fury sword from Santa (I am giving that one a day before it gets taken away ;-) ) and he couldn't be more excited. Brad and I were thrilled to get our paper mache covered glass candle holder that Connor made at school and he was equally excited to give it to us...it just doesn't get much better than that!

I hope this finds everyone in good health and Merry Christmas to all!


Connor and Cooper with Santa. Cooper was so excited to see Santa, I was just sure that the excitement would turn to tears, but he was a trooper! He even told Santa that he wanted "Melmo" (Elmo) for Christmas...I had a little Mommy moment on that one!



Cooper with his new kitchen. Notice this one has a grill, deeming this particular kitchen "boy appropriate" by my husband.

Halloween in December!

I have gotten a lot of complaints from family members that they have yet to see Connor and Cooper in their Halloween costumes...so here they are! Connor was a Ninja or an "Inja" so he called it, and Cooper was a pumpkin. It was pretty cute because Cooper was super scared of his costume at first...I mean seriously, he was a pumpkin! He warmed up to it though and after that he was good!


Connor and his super scary eyeball cupcakes.



Connor showing off his "Inja" moves!


Connor and his friend Jason at Jason's house before going "trick-or-treating".


The first house they went to, they look so grown-up!


Inspecting their candy after a wild night of "trick-or-treating"!

Sock Monster

When doing laundry after we got back from Thanksgiving, I noticed that Cooper was running low on socks. I thought it to be a little odd because the kid has a ton of socks, but chalked it up to losing them to the infamous "Sock Monster" as we had traveled a couple of weekends and things always seem to come up missing after we travel.

Well, Cooper has been known to take his socks off while he is supposed to napping or down for the night and shoving them behind his crib. I usually clue in on this because when he wakes up he does not have any socks on, so I know to go behind his crib to retrieve the socks. As of late his grandmas have been watching him and probably did not know that a sock check must be done upon his awakening. This morning was like no other, he woke up with not a sock to be found. Brad also knows of Cooper's ruse to rid himself of socks, so he checked behind his crib to find this...

Apparently there really is a "Sock Monster"...his name is Cooper!

Pump it Up, Party Time!

Connor had a great party and was really excited that almost all of his friends were able to make it! This is the first time that we had a "friends" party and we were really happy with how it turned out. He decided he wanted his theme to be Halloween (this kid loves Halloween) plus it made it a little easier on me ;-)


Connor going down the big slide.


Cooper even got in on the action! He started out by "sliding" down this ramp that went up to the big slide. Every time he slid down it he would say, "weeeee"!


He then decided he wanted to try out the big slide. Don't let his face fool you, he was obsessed with this thing. He begged everyone to take him down, he even got Yello-yo, Grandma Olson, and PaPa to go down with him!


What a sweaty mess! Looks like they had fun!


He really felt like he was the king of his party, we had to make him get down to eat his cake!




Every 5-year old's dream...G.I. Joe's, Ben Ten (or Vin Ten as Connor calls it), Transformers, and Bakugan's...it doesn't get much more exciting than this folks!

Pumpkin Patch

Friday night Yellyo and Grandma came into town so we decided that on Saturday it would be a good time to visit the pumpkin patch. We went to a new one this year and it was really awesome! The best part is that it is right by our house, so we did not have to drive very far to get there. There were pony rides, train rides, a couple of mazes, big tire swings, corn pits, tiny tractor tricycles, face painting and pumpkins of course! Even though Cooper was going sans nap, he did really well...all until he stepped too close to the big tire swing and it hit him in the head knocking him flat on his back...then we were done! Luckily, we were on our way out when it happened; he was ok, just really scared and it left him with a goose egg right between his eyes...poor baby :-(

Cooper getting his face painted, he looks thrilled doesn't he?!?!

Cooper petting the "puppy". When he walked up to the goat he said, "Whoa, puppy, ruff ruff!" But as you can see, he only liked the "puppy" from afar. Looks like we need to work a little harder at animal recognition!

Looks like Coop found a comfortable seat!

Darned tire swing!

5th BIrthday Pictures

We set out to take Connor's 5th Birthday pictures and luckily they turned out pretty good. I am so thankful that I have one cooperative picture taker because the younger one...not so much! I also got a couple of Brad with the boys and as you will see, Connor still gets the award for the best subject!

Happy Birthday Connor!

After quite a long blogging hiatus, we're back just in time to wish Connor a Happy Birthday! He had a great day that involved McDonald's with friends, bowling, dinner with Grandma and Grandpa, and some great presents including the long awaited Nintendo DSi. I am so excited that this day has finally arrived because he has been asking about his 5th birthday for the last 364 days! So maybe for 1 day I will finally get a break until tomorrow when he starts asking how many days until his 6th birthday. We had a small setback this morning when he found out that his party is not tonight and he will have to wait until Sunday to go to "Hump a Lump" better known as Pump it Up! Other than that it has been a great day!

Connorism of the Day

On our way home from picking Connor up from preschool, I told him we had to make a stop at the Sprint store. As always he was disgruntled and started complaining about having to make a stop and not going straight home. This is how our conversation went down:

Me: Connor, we have to go to the Sprint store on our way home.

Connor: Why? I just want to go home, why do we always have to make stops?

Me: Because I need to pick up my new phone.

Connor: Ok, but you need to know, I'm like a volcano and if I get mad or upset from waiting too long, I will erupt and you won't be happy so you will HAVE to take me home.

Me: Silence...

What do you say to that?!?! So I of course launched into my, "we will be good in the store" lecture as to try to avoid all aforementioned eruptions. I think I may need to look into what exactly he is learning in preschool!

What would you do with 1.4 million dollars?

What would you do with 1.4 million dollars? Would you invest it, buy a new home, or maybe purchase a boat?

Let's just say you decided to buy a boat, but not just any boat, a 52 foot yacht.

Would you maybe purchase this 52 foot yacht?

Fully equipped with a kitchenette and granite counter tops, 32 inch, 27 inch, and 20 inch flat panel TVs. Oh and let's not forget the leather couches!

Ok, so after you purchased this boat, would you do this to it?

We came across this tragedy yesterday while on a boat ride. Rumor has it, this boat was delivered to the water over Labor Day weekend and was only four days old when it met its fate. The driver allegedly was not even under the influence, but you can imagine how fast he must have been going to make it that far up the point. Apparently the equipped chartplotter, navigator, and radar just were not enough to figure out directionality or maybe he missed the memo about the boat races being two weeks before! I personally think he was thinking, "I'm on a boat!" (some of you may get that!) This beauty will probably never see water again. All I can say is good luck getting reinsured!