Playing with Daddy

Carson and Brandon love their dad. They love him to swing them around, jump on him, get rides, etc. Bret likes to take his own turn getting a ride from Carson. Giddy-up horsie!

My cute boys

What cute boys!

Christmas goodies

Carson and I made fudge together to give to friends and neighbors. He was a great helper.

For his Primary Activity this month, Carson and the rest of the Primary had the chance to make manger scenes out of graham crackers, frosting and other treats. Baby Jesus is a marshmallow, there are animal crackers and a 'Peeps' star. He was very proud of this nativity. He plans to eat it Christmas morning.

Hats

Eric was so proud of himself for putting this hat on all by his self.

Here is Brandon saying "cheese" for the camera.

Another hat Eric put on himself. He only likes to keep hats on his head when HE puts them on. He takes them right off again, if I try to put a hat on him.

So cool!

My kids found some old sunglassses of mine and had a blast trying them on.

Thanksgiving

We had a bunch of friends over to our house for Thanksgiving, since none of us had family close by. There were 8 adults and 8 kids in our small house. Thank goodness we have a basement full of toys and a TV! I was so sick, though. I went to bed the night before with an awful cold and I wasn't any better by morning. We still had fun. I tried not to breath on anyone and took cold medicine a couple different times so I could breathe. Nobody stayed to late, which I was glad for. I was exhausted! But we played several games and ate good food.

Bret does not like carving the turkey. He doesn't think he know how to do it right. We got one of our friends to help out and they were not finding much meat on the bird. Come to find out, the turkey was upside-down. They were trying to carve its back. Oops! Once they figured that out, they found plenty of meat.

All carved! Bret and our friend Mark Spencer with the finished carved turkey!

Monkeys!

Monkey #1
Monkey #2

2 monkeys together. Silly monkeys!

Silly faces!

Backyard time

The weather has been so nice this past month (for the most part). Here are a few shots of the boys playing in the back yard without coats in the middle of November! Crazy!

Eric had it pretty easy. Carson and Brandon fought over who got to push him. They had a blast!

My boys

What good lookin' boys!!!

One of Carson's and Brandon's favorite passtimes is to play games on the computer. We get them from the library, so we usually get a new one each week.

Eric loves this bear. It has a white pom-pom on the top of its hat that fits perfectly in his mouth. The pom-pom is also great to hold on to and swing around, you know, to hit his brothers with, etc.

The Sunday of the Primary program in our ward, Carson told me he didn't feel very good. I told him he was fine and he had to go to church today so he could sing to me. (I guess I'm a mean mom, but we had missed the previous Sunday because he was sick then, too.) Anyways, by the time we got home, he was exhausted and fell asleep on the couch within 5 minutes. I knew he was sick, then, because he NEVER wants to take a nap. Poor kid!

Brandon saw me taking a picture of Carson and wanted me to take a picture of him sleeping, too. So this is a picture of Brandon pretending to sleep

Halloween

Better late than never, right? My kids had a blast scooping out guts from their pumpkins and designing their faces. Bret carved them both. We did go to a pumpkin patch this year, but I forgot my camera. I was actually getting a bunch of pumpkins for a ward activity (I was on the activity committee) so the kids liked being able to pick out about 20 pumkins. The coolest part-we spent $28 for over 20 pumpkins! It was soooo cheap!

Eeewwww!!

Three of my boys playing with pumpkin guts.

This white pumpkin that Carson picked out was really hard to carve. I don't know if it wasn't all the way ripe, or what, but Bret had to use his muscles to carve this one.

Hard at work carving Brandon's pumpkin.

The final product! Carson and Brandon each designed their own pumpkin.

This was actually taken the week before Halloween. Carson is a Power Ranger (thanks Grandma!), Brandon is Tigger, and Eric is a pumpkin. Aren't they cute!

Playing in the leaves

Carson, Brandon and I worked hard to rake up this huge pile of leaves in our backyard on Saturday. After the work, we jumped!! Meanwhile, Eric took a nap and Bret got ready for a meeting. Oh, yeah, Sunday the wind blew and blew and by the end of the day, there were twice as many leaves on the ground as there was on Saturday. So guess what we did on Monday. Yup, raked and raked and jumped and jumped.

Hope you like the collage. The slide show and I were not getting along. Maybe I'll try again another time.

slideshow??

Okay, so I want to add a cool slideshow to my blog of us playing in the leaves, but I can't figure it out. I tried adding a gadget, but it put the slideshow along the side, where I did not want it. I am a bit frustrated. Can anyone help me?

Dancing Goon

Brandon makes me laugh everyday. He also makes me want to pull my hair out in frustration several times a day. I'm working on being patient so I don't loose so much hair. Anyways, the other day I asked him to go pick out some clothes and get himself dressed for the day. He turned on some music and eventually got some pants on (I was busy trying to get Eric to finish his breakfast. He is an extremely slow eater.) I looked in the living room and there was Brandon dancing around like a goon, having a grand old time. I know you would have loved a video, but my batteries were almost dead.

Science project

The other day Carson got a book about science projects from the library. He begged all week for someone to do a project with him. Finally, Bret helped them do this easy project right before bed one night. They put warm water, yeast and sugar in a water bottle. Shook it gently and put the balloon on top. In less than an hour, the yeast had produced enough gas to expand the balloon to about this big. Carson thought it smelled just like bread. The kids had to go to bed, then, so we decided to leave it until morning to see how big the balloon would get. It actually got a lot bigger over the next couple hours until Bret and I went to bed. By morning it had shrunk back down to the size in the picture.
The boys had so much fun doing this. They thought it was sooo cool!

Soccer

So, Carson played his very last soccer game of the season on Saturday. He has had lots of fun. These pictures were actually taken a couple weeks ago, so details are a little fuzzy. Carson was one of the oldest kids on the team, so I think that is why he was one of the best kids on the team. He is really fast, though, at least compared to other kids his age.

For the games, the teams would separate onto two fields that are right next to each other and the kids (4 and 5 yr olds) would play three on three. The fields were very small and the kids got a lot more time with the ball this way. Do they play soccer this way anywhere else, or is Greeley unique in this set up?

Carson has turned around and is trying to kick the ball behind him. He thought it was a cool trick. Bret and I just thought it was hilarious!
These first few pictures, the kids are warming up before the game.

Hey Mom!

The yellow shirt is Carson. I'm not sure if he made a goal here or not, but he did make several throughout the game.


Meanwhile...Eric was chasing his own ball.

And Brandon played on the playground.

Apparently, filling your shirt up with rocks and letting them go as you go down the slide is the cool thing to do. Brandon and the other kids at the playground did this over and over.

Hangin' out with Dad.