Christmas 2013

I'm finally recovering from the whole Thanksgiving-Christmas season and I might actually be able to write about it. Frankly, though, I don't remember a lot of the details. The whole thing was kind of a blur and I doubt that will change in the future.

See, there's Halloween, then thirteen days later, my birthday. Then 9 days later, Amy's birthday. Then about four to seven days after that, Thanksgiving. Then about eighteen days later, Johnny's birthday. Then twelve days later, Christmas. And don't forget New Years!!!!! Now, it may seem to the untrained eye that eighteen days is PLENTY of time to get ready for Johnny's birthday. But that's the thing: everything has to be planned out at least six weeks in advance so that everyone can mark their calendars for whatever celebration is going to happen because December is a busy month for everyone. And I'm totally not organized enough to make the whole birthday/holiday/another birthday thing run smoothly.

I digress.

Christmas was actually a pretty good time. We spent Christmas Eve with my family and the boys had a blast playing with their Gma, Uncle Scott, and Aunt Crystal, as they always do.

Amy showing off her "First Christmas" sleeper.

Amy and my Aunt Teri

Then Christmas Day, we spent the  morning lazing around and opening presents as the boys saw fit. See, Johnny isn't big on presents. I mean, he likes to get stuff, but he'll open on present, get excited about whatever it is and play with it for awhile before he can be convinced to open another one. I guess it doesn't have to be like that, I could push it and make him open gift after gift after gift, but he seems to enjoy taking it slower, and I'm down with that.

Hank, on the other hand, LOVES opening presents. He even asks Johnny to open some of his presents, and that actually works out pretty well since Johnny has very little interest in it.

This year, the big present from John and me was a bicycle for each kid. Well, a bicycle for Johnny and a balance bike for Hank.

Other presents were crayons, markers, big coloring books, books, and helmets, of course. I didn't want to go overboard on toys because I knew they were going to get lots of toys from other family members, and they can be pretty easily overwhelmed by stuff. Especially since they had raked in quite the haul not even two weeks prior for Johnny's birthday. (Well, Johnny raked it in, but he lets Hank play with a lot of his stuff.) So, I just got them things that we kind of needed anyway. It worked out well.

I forgot that we went to the park to try out Hank's new tee

Then we spent the afternoon with John's family and had a nice dinner with everyone. The boys had a great time playing with the toys from the Dursos and also playing with their grandparents and aunts. And for me, it was relaxing to let other people entertain my kids, hold my baby, and feed me. :)

Backlog: The Pumpkin Patch

About a month ago we hit up the Del Mar Pumpkin Station, which seems to be THE place to hit up in the fall if you have small children. They have tons of pumpkins and also, lots of little-kid-friendly rides. So, one Saturday in October when we didn't have any plans, we got the boys excited about picking out pumpkins and drove up there for the morning.

Admittedly, the tickets for the rides were a little steep ($3 a ticket?? Whaaaaaaat??), but we enjoyed hanging out there for a couple of hours, so I suppose it was worth it.

Of course Johnny wanted to go on the Old El Paso train first thing. It was a little tiny train with a little tiny track and he was so cute sitting there enjoying his ride. Just happy to be hanging out on a train.

Hank, on the other hand, scoped out the bounce house first. Which was a win.

 

Then enter the large inflatable slide. After Johnny finished the train ride, he wanted to go down the slide. There were two: a normal sized one, and a super-sized one. I tried to get him to go on the normal size first, but he wasn’t having it. He wanted to do the big white one. Oooookay! We got let in with the next batch of kids waiting in line with instructions to take off shoes, go down feet first, and leave the area after five slides. So Johnny climbed up.

 

And wouldn’t come down.

I was trying to encourage him to come down the slide, but it just wasn’t happening. Any time someone yelled “You can do it, Johnny!” (other parents had caught on to which child he was and thought they would be helpful) he would move further away from the precipice. So John went to get him.

 And he STILL wouldn't go down the slide. So they came down the stairs.

But he still wanted to go down a slide, so I convinced him to go on the small one. Honestly, though, I don't think he would have gone down this one, either, if Hank hadn't been fearless about the whole thing.

Hank hasn't met a slide he can't conquer.

Johnny finally went down and was a little freaked out, as you can tell by his face.

"Hey, this is actually fun!"

 After our success with the smaller slide, the boys wanted to do the large slide. Hank had no problems going down the full five times.

Johnny, on the other hand, went down once...

 And then I had to go get him. Unlike Daddy, though, I was not willing to move my 8-months-pregnant butt backward down those "stairs" so I dragged Johnny with me down the slide.

 The rest of the rides weren't quite as crazy. Another train ride.

 A spinning swing ride for Hank.

 And a rocket ride for Johnny.

 Then, of course, picking out pumpkins.

Hank picked out this tiny pumpkin and said, "This pumpkin is for Mitch!" I nearly died.

Considering they talked about the pumpkin patch for weeks afterward, I'd say they had a good time.

Halloween 2013

I know. It's the middle of November. So sue me.

Neither Johnny nor Hank are particularly into dressing up. Johnny likes to put on the occasional hat, and Hank will follow suit if that's what Johnny is doing, but that's about the end of it. A full-on adorable Hulk costume like my nephew Jack wore is not something either of my kids will do willingly. So, my goal was to come up with a costume for the boys that A) they would like and B) looked mostly like normal clothing so they would put it on.

Enter the construction worker costume.

Both boys have been obsessed with construction vehicles for the past month, so convincing them to be construction workers for Halloween was an easy sell. Johnny informed me that they needed hard hats, tool belts and boots if they wanted to go on a construction site. Well, okay then, kid! I managed to get them child-size hard hats, a couple white T-shirts, and one tool belt (we already had a green one from Aunt Julie, thanks for that!). The boots were a no-go. Mostly because neither kid would try on a single freaking shoe when we would go to the store. So, no boots. Johnny was a little disappointed by that, but hey, I tried. Not hard, admittedly, but I gave a few gos.

Of course they are SFP employees!

Johnny was SO CUTE putting his arm around Hank for photos.

I know. The cuteness abounds, does it not?

Grandma and Grandpa Durso and Aunt Leslie came with us to enjoy the fun.

Little trick-or-treaters

They got a little overzealous with the doorbell ringing and knocking though.

Since last year's Halloween was less than stellar, I really talked up the trick-or-treating this year. I coached the boys on ringing the doorbell and what to say when the person answered the door. I put a lot of emphasis on CANDY.

And they nailed it.

They were ridiculously adorable running up to the door, each ringing the doorbell (sorry neighbors!) and then saying "Trick-or-treat!" in their sweet little voices. Then they'd pick their candies carefully, (well, randomly, really, since they don't didn't know much about candy) and I'd say thank you for them (though sometimes they would say it themselves without prompting) and they'd run away yelling "Next house!"

Not bad for a 2 and 3 year old, right? Of course, if the homeowner didn't stand up with their bowl of candy fast enough, they were in danger of Hank coming back in and taking a second candy, but seeing as our cul-de-sac gets about four trick-or-treaters, and because the boys were cute, no one seemed to mind. :)

The evening went a little downhill when we traveled over to our friend's neighborhood to do some trick-or-treating with them and Johnny decided he was over it. Both of the boys were pretty beat, I think, from all the running and performing, so after about 30 minutes of complaining that we weren't staying at Blake and Asher's house (a favorite place of theirs) we called it a night.

All in all, it was a pretty awesome Halloween. I'm hoping they'll be even more into it next year!