Cheekwood

My mom and Brian's parents visited us from Saturday, December 22nd through Thursday, December 27th.  On Sunday, we took everyone to Cheekwood after lunch.  This was the first time Brian's parents had been there.

Our first stop was the trains:

A group photo [my mom (Debbie), Rylan, Brian's mom (Cinda), Carter, Brian's dad (Art), and Brian]:

We had never been inside the Cheek Mansion were the art museum is housed but decided to check it out since we were there with so many people that could help with the kids.  There were several beautiful trees throughout the house that the kids liked finding.

All the trees were decorated to go along with Christmas books.  This the the "Polar Express" tree with a very silly Rylan:

I'm pretty sure this one was "A Christmas Carol":

I think the "Frosty the Snowman" tree was Carter's favorite.

Cheekwood isn't as pretty on a dreary winter day but it was still an impressive place.

And it was fun to show GG and Papa Art some of the gardens!

Tag Reader

Carter got a Tag Reading System awhile back (maybe his 3rd birthday or last Christmas???).  Rylan has been using it a lot lately though.  He figured out the icon to push on each page for the reader to read the entire page to him.  Rylan has never been the one really into reading (though he's a million times better than even a year ago), so it's cool to see him so interested in these books!

Cookie Cutter Ornaments

The week before Christmas, I came across this cute idea for making Christmas ornaments.  I had gotten the supplies and the boys were so excited about making the ornaments that they had to do them before school one morning.

First the boys sorted out the colors they needed.

Carter put all of his beads in the cookie cutter on his own.  For some reason he wanted a blue bead in the reindeer's stomach :)

Rylan sorted out all his colors and put in the white beads but I had to add the other colored beads for him.

Our beads didn't melt as pretty as the ones I'd seen on another blog, but they still turned out okay and the kids loved them!

Elf on the Shelf Friday

I still need to post about Christmas and all the fun we had, but we have more family coming today to visit so I haven't had time to work on a post.  But here is my last "Elf on the Shelf Friday" for the year.

On Saturday morning we woke up to Mr. Elf playing with our printer/copier and copying his behind!  The kids thought this was hilarious!

On Sunday we found Mr. Elf in the middle of making snowmen with marshmallows and pretzels.

On Monday, Mr. Elf had made snowflakes!  He must have been excited that he was going home to the North Pole where he'd get to play in the snow again.

Mr. Elf left the boys two snowflakes to open themselves and a note telling them to hang them up.

He'd already hung up most of the snowflakes he'd made.

Mr. Elf went home with Santa on Monday night when he came to our house to deliver presents.  The boys didn't look for him at all on Tuesday but I think Carter was a bit disappointed that Mr. Elf wasn't back on Wednesday.  I think if Mr. Elf was around year-round, he'd be in the same spot for days (or weeks) at a time!

The Lumineers

Before I started playing Christmas music all the time, one of the boys' favorite songs was (still is?) Ho Hey by The Lumineers.  Here's a little video of them singing in the car (sorry for the crazy camera-work, I was just holding the camera behind me while driving and not able to see what I was filming).

Santa or Bishop

Last Wednesday I took Rylan to storytime at the Brentwood Library while Carter was in school.  One of Carter's classmates, Lyla, was there with her little sister and nanny.  (Lyla has had pneumonia and her mom wanted her to skip school so she hopefully wouldn't pick up any more illnesses.)

The craft that the kids got to make was a Santa hat.  The hats are cute but I think the kids look a little more like bishops :)  Especially with that look that Rylan has here!

Rylan, Lyla, and Betsy ...

Dinner w/ Caitlyn & Alek

On Friday we met up with Amy, Chad, and their kids for dinner in Murfreesboro.  They were in town from Knoxville visiting family for Christmas and were to find time to have dinner with us.  We haven't seen them since they visited their family in September 2011.

Carter was ridiculously excited about getting to see Caitlyn.  He told me he still loved Caitlyn and remembered that she has brown hair like me.

We had to wait about 30 minutes for our table but found a spot in the take-out area where the kids could play (and be loud without hopefully driving everyone else nuts).

Caitlyn and Carter don't look that different to me but the little brothers sure do!  Alek has grown up so much (just like Rylan).

Rylan refused to get in the group shot.

Luckily the kids got most of the crazy energy out before we sat down and we made it through dinner without too much trouble :)

It was great to see old friends and we hope we get to meet up again soon!

Random Eater

Rylan had a little goody bag from his class' Christmas party on Thursday.  In it was a cute reindeer cookie.  Carter also had a few cookies and asked if he could eat one of his on the drive home.  Because Carter was eating a cookie, Rylan wanted his too.  After a few minutes, Rylan gave me his cookie back.  All he'd eaten was the pretzel antlers!

I'm not complaining, but our kids are so random with NOT eating candy and treats (they still won't touch ice cream and most candy, especially chocolate).

Mistletoes

Rylan didn't make any cute ornaments or presents for us at PDO this year (his teachers seem to be very overwhelmed with doing crafts with their 12 kids), but his teachers did do this cute craft on Thursday ...

It's really cute and I love it but I'm still working on getting the green paint of Rylan's feet! :)

Preschool Present

Carter got a cute present from his preschool teacher this year.  It's a Christmas book but Ms. Anne made the effort to write Carter's name in it in random spots on several pages.

I don't think Carter has listened to the story yet because he's always searching for his name and so excited to find it!

Opry Mills & Opry Land

A couple of weeks ago, we went to Bass Pro Shop in Opry Mills so the boys could visit Santa.

After seeing Santa, the kids got to play some free games and do some outdoors-related activities.  Carter was a pretty good shot with the rifle (he definitely needs to work on his form though!).

Rylan had more fun driving the train.

Bass Pro also had a crossbow with Nerf-like darts.

After having some fun at Bass Pro and eating a quick dinner at the food court in Opry Mills, we headed across the parking lot to Opryland to see all the lights.

Even though it was cold, we had to go check out the nativity scene because Carter is still a little obsessed with Baby Jesus.

We saw some waterfalls from above on a walkway we were on.  After wandering through the paths for several minutes, we finally made it to them.  I thought this was the one Carter wanted to see ...

But it was this one that he wanted to get to.

The lights were pretty much the exact same as last year but still a lot of fun to see!

Elf on the Shelf Friday

Mr. Elf has been up to some silly stuff again this week.

He started off with setting up the boys, Thomas Trackmaster Trains around the kids' Christmas tree on Saturday.

He apparently found some ice cream in the ice cream car!

On Sunday Mr. Elf got in trouble with the pirates.  He stole their treasure chest so they taped him up.

They even had a canon aimed at him!

And taped his mouth so he couldn't yell for help!

On Monday Mr. Elf must have made up with the pirates because he was playing Scrabble with them and some other friends.

Mr. Elf and his friends had lots of festive words on their minds ...

On Tuesday Mr. Elf replaced our stockings with some of our socks!  Silly elf!

We had homemade waffles for dinner on Tuesday and I think Mr. Elf wanted some because we found him drinking the syrup on Wednesday.

On Thursday we found Mr. Elf shaving.

He even wrote a message to the kids.

I spent some time yesterday cleaning since we have family coming to visit soon.  Mr. Elf must have decided that the vacuum looked like fun and decided to play with it last night.  Big mistake!  He got sucked up into it!

 

Only a few more days and then Mr. Elf goes back to the North Pole until next year!