More Snow!

What's up with all the snow? It's like it's really winter around here or something. After several years of getting icky ice storms instead of snow, we've had three or four opportunities to play in the snow already, and it's still December. Fun times! We (especially a certain snow-suit-wearing-sled-ride-loving-two-year old) are hoping for a snow-filled winter for a change!

This is the first wet snow of the winter, so this is the first snowman Colter got to build. Isn't the pink scarf lovely? Mush, Daddy!

Sledding with Mommy!

I promise, I'm not sitting on my kid. He insisted I ride in front. :)

Friends?

I want to always remember my sweet boy's experiences with Grandma's snowman. At Grandma and Grandad's house, a metal dancing snowman appears during the winter months. The snowman dances and sings "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" when its sensors are activated. Last winter when Colter was one, he wasn't so sure about the snowman. In fact, it kinda freaked him out! When Colter and the noisy contraption first met, Colter would run to Mommy! Then, his mischievous cousins taught Colter to hit the snowman on the head to make it sing, so Colter decided that if his cousins thought Mr. Wonderland was funny, than the noisy snowman must be all right. We have some amusing video of a cute toddler hitting the man on the head and running away giggling.

Last spring, when we visited Colter's grandparents after the snowman had been put away, Colter wanted to know where it was. This Christmas, when the snowman was back, Colter was reunited with his old friend. He had a few moments hesitation again, but pretty quickly he remembered how to whack the poor metal man on the head to get him to dance and sing. Colter and the snowman are friends now. I'm pretty sure Colter will always associate Christmas at Grandma and Grandad's with this snowman. I don't know what we'll do if Colter gets too aggressive and breaks him! It would be a tragic loss of a Christmas tradition---the whacking the metal man on the head tradition. :)

As a side note that proves I'm blogging way after the fact but pretending that it's actually still December and not March, when Colter went to visit Grandad and Grandma last week, he asked me before he left if the snowman would be there. He wanted to sing "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" with his metal buddy. :)

There Is a Theme This Christmas...

Can you guess? Choo! Choo!

Umm....Why?

Some people can say and do the most ridiculous things and get away with it, while some get committed. Fortunately, my sister is one of those that can get away with crazy behavior and people just smile and laugh at her. What? Courtney just bit some guy on the leg? Oh, ha ha! Don't worry--she's had her shots. Really? Courtney just laughed at the lady and called her a hooker? Awww...what a cute thing to say. Seriously, my silly sister can do the most outrageous, goofy, insane things, and no one cares! She just flashes her beautiful smile, and people think she's just kidding. Well, I have news for you people. She's not kidding! She really is a nut! I love and adore her, would do anything for her, and wish that I got to see her beautiful face and listen to her absurdities every day, but I sometimes worry that she's certifiable. Not really. She's just a nutter, a loveable nutter, but a nutter all the same.

Courtey and her antics are often the life of the party, and she is a master at creating hilarious, memorable moments as exemplified this Christmas. My siblings, the significant others in our lives, and I draw names for a gift exchange each Christmas. John drew Courtney's name. Among the various things on Courtney's list was a camera cleaning set, books (not dumb ones), earrings, moccasins, a paddle ball, and a plastic Indian man. That's right. A paddle ball and a plastic Indian man. What does a twenty-three-year-old need with a paddle ball and a plastic Indian man? Where did she even get the idea to write a plastic Indian man on her list? She's goofy, I tell you. Goofy!

Well, what Courtney wants, Courtney gets no matter how bizarre, so one of the things we bought Courtney was a plastic Indian warrior and Mom and Dad gave her moccasins. Here she is posing with both. This girl doesn't look one bit crazy........(wink, wink).

The two gifts complement each other. I LOVE my goofy, silly, plastic-Indian-man loving sister.

Snow!

Somebody

loves

sledding!

Oh, and the two-year-old likes it to. :)Go, Daddy, go!

Colter's Favorite Outfit

Does anybody else's kid want to run around in their diaper all the time? 'Cuz my kid sure does! Colter's old enough for fake smiles now, in case you couldn't tell. ;)

Oh Where Oh Where Has My Sleeping Boy Gone?

Nap time has gotten interesting this week. My boy has been boycotting his bed, and I've tried numerous ploys to get him to take a nap. I've moved his mattress to the floor, let him make a nest with his stuffed animals on the floor, let him sleep in the recliner in his room, etc. I don't care where he sleeps, I just want him to sleep! While I love to play with and entertain Colter, alone time has its value as well. There's a reason God designed children to need lots of sleep. :)

Since Colter has been completely anti-crib during the afternoon, I've resorted to letting him sleep on Mommy and Daddy's bed, which seems to work. The only problems is, he goes missing! When I go to wake him up, he's not in the bed. I found in the closet on top of a storage bin the other day. Today when it was time to get him up, I could not find him. It was bewildering. :) I finally spied his head sticking out from under the bed in the narrow place between our bed and the wall where I stick things like the fan and exercise ball so the room doesn't look cluttered. I pulled him out from under the bed before I thought to get the camera, but here's the sleeping boy anyway. He was actually about halfway under the bed and the much of the rest of him was hidden by the dust ruffle. Sneaky boy! What's wrong with sleeping on a nice, comfy mattress anyway?

Where Did These Kids All Come From?

I remember the days when my roommates from college, my bestest friends, Rachel and Gina, could get together with our husbands and play games or at least hear each other converse. There has been an invasion, and those days are long gone (for now)! Seriously, where did these kids all come from? We were just in college a year or two ago...right? How did we reproduce so quickly? Oh, wait. It's been more like nine years since we all lived together! ACK. Time flies!

Who needs uninterrupted conversation when there's these kids to adore? Notice the eyes Colter and Taylor are making at each other, Rachel? Hmm... True love?

I'm submitting this photo as proof that's it's impossible to get five children under five to all look at the camera and smile at the same time. Riley did great!

Toddler Tree Hugger

What is it about a tree that says, "Climb me?" Since when do two-year-olds climb trees? Since now!

Neither this tree or monkey boy are really big enough for any real tree climbing to take place, but it won't be long! John and I planted this tree six years ago. It was only a foot or two taller than Colter when we planted it. When we moved in to this house, there wasn't a tree in the yard; my tree-loving soul was very distressed. We planted quite a few, and they are actually starting to look like real trees instead of twigs. Yay! Trees make me happy, and obviously my boy has a thing for them as well.

Chocolate Overdose?

This is a common look at our house. My boy loves to help me in the kitchen! Obviously, much of his love for baking is because of the inevitable bowl licking. Yum! Smart boy. While I've got a lot of pictures of a sweet chocolate covered face...This is a new one. Too much batter, maybe?

Moments with Our Boy or "The Floor Hurt My Eyebrow"

While putting a hair clip in my hair than taking it out, putting it in, and taking it out, Colter ended up with a strand of my hair. He immediately said, "Oh dear! I fix it Mommy!" and preceded to try and attach the piece of hair back to my head.

When we were taking a walk, Colter and I were discussing the colors of different things around us. We say green grass, brown trees, and the blue sky. Colter noticed the one cloud up in the sky, and said, "There's a white cloud. (Sadly) I can't reach it. I can fly up to it though!" I want to know more about that statement--did he mean in an airplane? Does he think he can fly like a bird? Hmm... I guess I'll never know what he had in mind.

Sometimes Colter and I build a "nest" out of pillows and blankets on his floor if he's having trouble sleeping. I lie with him on his floor until he falls asleep and then sneak back to my bed. One morning after Colter had ended up on the floor, he woke up and came into our room and crawled in bed with us. He asked me why I wasn't on the floor with him anymore, and I told him the floor hurt my back, so I had come back to sleep in the bed. He nodded knowingly and stated, "the floor hurt my eyebrow."

Whenever I suggest something Colter decides he would like to do, or if he comes up with something he is trying to get me to let him do--anything from watch Little Bear to taking a bubble bath, he says "That would be nice." So cute!

The other night Colter kept getting books one at a time from his bedroom and giving them to me on the couch to read to him. After we had read around a dozen books, he brought in his Bible for me to read. I read a few verses from random pages and then he took it and started reading to me. He opened it up and started to read, "God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for our food."

Showering Tanner

It's probably not okay to give newborn babies a shower. They wouldn't appreciate having their sleep interrupted by a splash of water in the face. It is okay to shower them with gifts though. Even if the baby happens to be baby number four! Even a fourth kid deserves new stuff. :) Remember Tanner? The car baby? Today we showered him. With presents. Not water.

Tanner's beautiful mommy with the beautiful cake that I made all by myself

Look at this really fun quilt my sister Courtney made! Cute!
While Tanner was getting showered, Colter and his cousins were outside building a fort (?) out of leaves. Then Colter and my grandparents' dog--I think its name is Pepper--had some sort of discussion.

Which I believe led to a disagreement.So Colter buried the dog, whose name may or not be Pepper, with leaves.And Pepper did not seem to mind one bit. Nice Pepper. :)

Trick or Treat 2009

Two-year-olds only need so much candy, but no one could resist this king of beasts. Colter proved to be a very successful candy hunter; his Halloween haul will last for weeks! We'll have to send some to school for John's students. Hopefully, the lion won't notice if some of the candy goes missing. :) One would think an elephant would be wary of lions, but instead running in fear, Dumbo the elephant a.k.a. Colter's buddy Carter, gave the lion a big (slightly sticky) hug. Cute!

Halloween Party!

Happy Halloween! Over the past few years, it has become a family tradition to have a Halloween party each fall at my parents' house. Costumes are required and the menu features creepy cuisine. Even though the party is a fairly new tradition, there's been lots of fun memories and hilarious moments--like my grandfather not recognizing my aunt because of her hilly-billy-man costume, my uncle being pretend slaughtered by my hockey-mask-wearing sister and giving the little kids nightmares, a poor motorcyclist just happening to have a wreck on the highway my parents live on the same night as the party and opening eyes to see a bunch of ghouls and goblins trying to offer assistance, etc. etc. etc. Lots of fun times that get crazier every year!

Colter's grandma and grandad gave Colter a lion costume this year, so I decided to be all adorable and choose themed costumes for our family. We were The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe! (Can you tell I'm a book worm?) Colter was the lion, I was the evil white witch, and John was the wardrobe. He wore a robe, and we put a sticker on him that said "ward." Hee hee. :)

BOO! Oh, wait. These cutie-pie cousins aren't very scary--they're just darn CUTE!Costumed Cousins--Oh, and Uncle Sawyer the mummy.

Part of the fun is making "gross grub." Most of is doesn't actually taste gross if one and bring herself to swallow it. Some of the food looks pretty disgusting, like this kitty litter casserole. Eww! It actually wasn't bad. We dine on things like simple pimples, skin and bones, eyeballs, witch's brew, monster toes, etc. It's pretty interesting.


We play games like bobbing for apples, and this year Poppy took us all on a very eventful haunted hayride. Lots of silly (scary!) fun!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today is my birthday, so I got to do what I wanted to do, and I wanted to go on a family hike and go shopping, so WE DID. First, we made the trip to Ha Ha Tonka State Park, and I got to go on a nice stroll through the fall colors with my two favorite boys. The trails were a little wet, but there happened to be a break in the rain while we were at the park, so really, the weather was pretty much perfect! We took a trail to a natural bridge that we weren't able to make it to during a previous visit to the park.

Weird, red, Ha Ha Tonka bugs

We are super smart hikers and didn't look at any maps before we started walking down the trail and didn't know exactly where or how far we were going. We thought we were walking to the natural bridge and back, but the trail actually went on past the bridge and circled around another route back to the parking lot. When we first passed the bridge, we didn't realize that's what it was--it was cool, but I think we were expecting something a bit more dramatic or at least a rock formation over a creek. Maybe in the spring there's running water for the rock to form a bridge across, but we didn't take the rock that we walked under as a bridge since it didn't go over any water. Anyway, we walked passed what was the bridge, but we didn't know it, and I didn't take any pictures, partly because I didn't realize that was the bridge and partly because I thought we would walk under the cool rock again on our way back. We didn't. We ended up walking around back to the car and I hadn't taken any pictures! So while I ran down the slippery, rocky hill to take pictures, John and Colter lounged about on a bench and played with the leaves for a few minutes.

Colter found a giant leaf bigger than his head! It's hard to tell how big the leaf was from the angle in the picture, but trust me, it was a big leaf. It was a bit windy, and we had fun trying to catch leaves as they fell from the trees.After our walk, we got some frozen custard to celebrate my second 29th birthday and then hit the outlet mall in Osage Beach where I bought my own birthday presents. It was a good day!