O Christmas Tree!

Our day after Thanksgiving, did not start out like most peoples. We were not up at the crack of dawn getting the "best deals". We decorated our house for Christmas.

Mason and Cooper enjoyed putting window clings on a couple windows. Since Friday, Cooper has enjoyed taking them off, and putting them back on multiple times a day.

Then it was on to bigger and better things, decorating the Christmas tree. I was very curious to see how Cooper would react to the tree. Remember last year? If not here is a video from last year of Cooper when he saw the tree. If you do remember, watch the video anyway to see how small and fat (can those two things really go together?) Cooper was.

Here is how Cooper reacted to the tree this year, a much better reaction.

Watching Daddy put the tree together.Getting closerAll done. Sorry no pictures of us decorating the tree, we were all to busy decorating to take any pictures.
Aw so pretty.Our nativity
Other misc. decorationsOur nutcrackers that we won in a white elephant exchange with my family.
And last our stockings.

Thanksgiving 2009

Mason brought home this "thankful turkey", or chicken as Mason calls it, from Preschool. Every time he said "thank you" for something, or was told "thank you" he was to feed his turkey a bean. He loved keeping track of how many 'thank yous" he said or heard. We had Thanksgiving at my parents house. They had a pretty full house with just the siblings and grand kids. Mason took most of these pictures, so enjoy his photography skills.
My Dad, doesn't he look happy?
Bill and JaredMichelle and Ethan Jeffery in his stylin' new glasses.Jenny with Madeline and Me with Alaina

Cooper-SO happy to be eating!

DEALS! this month

This has been a great month for deals! Not so great having to do some extra running around, but well worth the money I saved plus having 1-3+ years worth of each of these products for the price of just a few of these at regular price is pretty nice.

Revlon eyeshadow = $1.49
Revlon mascara = $2.49
General Mills cereal = $0.61

Kleenex tissue = $0.24
Betty Crocker frosting = $0.16
Herbal Essence shampoo, conditioner, and styling products =FREE (I just had to pay the $0.20 in tax)

Disney on Ice

Friday night we took Mason and Cooper to see Disney on Ice. Here we are waiting for the show to begin.

Mickey and Minnie mouse introduced the stars of the show.
The main reason we went. Cars!

Cooper loved Cars and Lightening McQueen, but after that he was ready to go.
Mason sat with no expression on his face. I think he was concentrating, trying to take it all in.

Sebastian from The Little Mermaid

A scene from the Lion King

During The Little Mermaid and The Lion King, Mason kept asking questions like, Who is that? What are they doing? Why are they doing that? I realized he hadn't seen either of those movies, or many other movies for that matter. So the next night we watched The Little Mermaid.

We left during intermission because the only thing after the intermission was Tinkerbell. Cooper was REALLY ready to go home at that point and we didn't think either of the boys would think Tinkerbell was all that cool anyway. All they wanted was Cars to come back out.

Thanksgiving Feast

This last Thursday Mason had a Pilgrim and Indian Thanksgiving feast at Preschool. We learn a few tidbits about the first Thanksgiving, made a really cute turkey out of an apple, froot loops, and marshmallows (sorry no pic of that), and made thankful baskets. Then we had some yummy soup, cornbread, and cookies.

Our little Indian

Glasses

Jeff has been getting really bad headaches for a few months. Two weeks ago he went to get his eyes checked out, hoping something with his eyes was what was causing the headaches. The eye Doctor said he has an astigmatism in both eyes. He was given a prescription for glasses, so he picked out two pairs (one regular pair and another with 10% tint) and then had to wait a week for the glasses to come in. He has been wearing his glasses for a week now and says wearing them has helped the headaches go away, but has eye strain pain that comes with getting used to glasses.

I wish I had some cool pics of Jeff with his new glasses. He did take a few self portraits, but deleted them off the camera before I had a chance to post them. DARN!

I guess you will just have to look forward to other pictures in future posts of him with glasses.

Beyonce Clown

I just saw this on another friends blog and can't stop laughing now! Thanks Kristen!

Note to self...

DO NOT leave your two year old in the house by himself in order to go back out to the car to get the big, fit throwing, brother. If you do this....make sure you have your house keys on you, or your two year old just might LOCK you out!

Stop laughing.

It is NOT funny.

OK it is funny now, but yesterday in the freezing weather, it was not.

I am sure Cooper thought he was pretty funny shutting the door and locking it. But after not being able to figure out how to unlock the door for over 20 minutes, he was pretty freaked out.

Poor kid.

And there was nothing I could do. Jeff was still at church, in a meeting. Of course, my cell phone was in the house, with my house keys, so I went to our neighbors to use their phone. The sad thing was that I don't even know Jeff's cell phone number. Why should I? It is programed in my cell phone. So I had to call around to see if anyone else knew his number. Finally I got a hold of my dad, who knew it. But even when I called his phone, he didn't answer. Jeff was also on call, so he had the on call cell phone as well. I tried that phone and he didn't answer that either.

So the whole time I, being VERY frustrated, tried to tell Cooper, who was screaming and crying, how to un-lock the door. My attempts were in vain. FINALLY Jeff did come home, and let us in.

Once inside, we found all the blankets in our trunk out and all over the house. Jeff asked Cooper why he took all the blankets out. He said, "beeeeecause I was afraid".

I'm sure this is something Cooper will remember for a long time to come.

Chicken and Freezer Meals

I was able to get 40lbs. of boneless skinless chicken breasts for $55.20. That's only $1.38/lb! So Saturday afternoon, I made 16 meals to freeze and I still had enough chicken to freeze in individual meal sizes and have enough for 17 more meals.

I made 4 different meals: white chicken chili, cheesy chicken and rice casserole, chicken enchiladas, and chicken artichoke casserole.

My next task is to make and freeze home made pizza pockets, rolls, and other "dough" meals.

Now if I could only find a great deal on ground turkey, so I can make and freeze meat loafs, meatballs, and other "beef" meals.

Big boy update

Cooper has been sleeping in his big boy bed for 2 1/2 weeks now. He does really well most of the time staying in bed, and only fell out a few times. Every once in a while though, he gets out of bed, and is then put in his crib, which he doesn't like. About a week ago, when Jeff and I went to bed, we checked on the boys and this is what we found. Cute huh?

Family Pictures

Two weeks ago we took family pictures. Kelly Landin in our ward has a photography business (Kelly Clicks). We went to another family's house/farm in our ward and used their cool barns, garden, and other buildings on their property.

Trick-or-treating

I love that Halloween was on a Saturday this year! I wish it was always on a Saturday. We were able to visit all the grandparents (or at lest try to) and were also able to take the boys trick-or-treating in our neighborhood, AND get them in bed at their normal time. Why can't we always have Halloween on the last Saturday of October instead the the 31st?

We started out with visiting the grandparents and other family members.

Mason and Cooper with their Great Grandma Borders

At Uncle Dave and Aunt Robin's house

With Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Long


Then we were off to go trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. By the end, Mason would run up to the door ahead of us and ring the door bells and say "trick-or-treat". He is understanding the idea of trick-or-treating, Cooper...not so much.

Mason ringing our neighbor's, Todd and Paula's doorbell.

Cooper and Mason with our neighbor, Paula, whom they both LOVE!

Cooper saying, "bye Paula"