Holiday at Cheekwood

The boys and I met Missy and her kids at Cheekwood yesterday.  Brian had to work and Warren was out of town so it was just us with all the kiddos.

None of us had been to Cheekwood yet this year for their Christmas activities.  We got there at 10 am and I'm so glad we didn't go any later because we managed to do each activity right before a line formed for it.

After stopping by the model trains, we went to the art studio for the main craft.

The kids all got to make a snow globe. It was a really cool craft.

Carter designed his and needed very little help.

Missy and I were very impressed.

Next we headed upstairs to decorate cookies.  This year the cookies were huge Christie ones - they were very yummy.

The babies were there too even though they didn't make many pictures!

Concentrating hard to get the entire cookie covered in frosting ...

Lots of sprinkles!

The boys all approved of the cookies!

The next craft was decorating cards.

Rylan's:

Carter's:

Then we got to see the two reindeer in training - Jolly & Jingle.

Luke and Carter look pretty good as reindeer :)

We even got to get our pictures taken in Santa sleigh (Santa was there but the line is super long to see him and you have to buy super expensive pictures!).

Grayson woke up right before our turn so I got to get a picture with all my boys!

After all the Christmas fun we let the boys run around for about an hour since it wasn't too cold (upper 40s).  We are so glad Missy met us and we got to have a little Christmas fun at Cheekwood!

Winter Party

Carter's school had their winter parties today.  Every single class had their party from 9:30 to 10:30 am and we were encouraged to take our kids home after that.  Even though it was freezing, I walked to school so that I didn't have to worry about parking.  Luckily Brian was able to stay home with Rylan and Grayson since we aren't allowed to bring siblings.

I'm one of the room moms and we met last week at the lead room mom's house to get everything planned out.  Only a few of us were able to make it but we divided up all the supplies we needed amongst all the room moms and hopefully no one ended up with too many responsibilities.

The first activity was the craft which was decorating gingerbread houses.  I'd never thought of using an ice cream cone for a tree but it's really cute and that was the first thing Carter decorated.

Carter's teacher (Mrs. Colasso) and all the other kindergarten teachers gave us a general idea of what they wanted us to do for the party but we had flexibility in what games we wanted to play and the food we wanted to bring.

After the kids finished decorating their houses, we passed out the food but the kids didn't touch it until we finished all our games.  The first game was bingo (using marshmallows as the bingo chips).

Next we divided the kids into 2 groups and had them toss large marshmallows into baskets.   The team with the most marshmallows in their basket won.

We went through 3 rounds and Carter's team won 6 to 3 (Carter put in 2 of the 6 for his team!).

Next the kids raced to pick up all the marshmallows and put them in their basket.  The other team won that race.

After all the marshmallows were picked up, we had the kids stand in two lines across from one another.  Then we spread the marshmallows out in front of them and let them have a marshmallow fight.  It was pretty crazy!  I think Mrs. Colasso almost passed out thinking about finding hidden marshmallows when she returns from winter break!

Last the kids ate their yummy snacks.

The party went so smoothly (especially compared to Rylan's the day before).  And the kids all seemed to have lots of fun.  A lot of the parents have multiple kids at the school and had to float between classrooms - it was really nice just getting to hang out with just Carter.  I signed Carter out after the party and we jogged home trying not to freeze!

Elf on the Shelf Friday

Mr. Elf has been up to lots of mischief this week!

On Saturday morning we found that he'd toilet papered our new tinsel trees!

He must have known he shouldn't have done that because he was camouflaged in the red tree (it took both boys awhile to notice him there).

On Sunday morning we found that Mr. Elf had drawn a Minion on one of the bananas.

Mr. Elf turned himself into Spiderman on Monday ...

Mr. Elf must have finally watched Frozen because on Tuesday we found he'd made Olaf out of toilet paper (and had a sign that read "Do you wanna build a snowman?").

Mr. Elf got into my makeup on Wednesday.  The boys were very disappointed that their boy elf was playing with makeup!

He's a little messy with the eyeliner, blush, and lipstick!

On Thursday Mr. Elf used my Post-Its to make a Christmas tree.

And this morning we found a note from Mr. Elf with a little advice ...

Santa

I took all the boys to the mall after school yesterday to visit Santa.  It ended up being a perfect time because there was only one family in front of us.

Rylan had fallen asleep on the way to the mall so he was a little grumpy when we got there and said he was scared of Santa.  I didn't care about getting a good photo so I told him all he had to do was hand over his list and he seemed to be okay with that.

The boys were having trouble coming up with a Christmas list so I dumbly gave them the Toys R Us Christmas book.  They circled just about everything.  Eventually Carter wrote down six things (most cost about $100).  I told him Santa wouldn't get him all that, but it was good that Santa had some ideas to choose from.  He ended up shortening his list to two things (a Lego Movie Lego set and a giant dinosaur set).  I'm not sure Santa will be getting both still :)

Rylan's list was all action figures except for one of Carter's items taped on (I think Carter convinced him to do that in hopes that Rylan would get the toy he wanted and then he could play with it too).  I'm sure Rylan will get  part of his list :)

The boys are 100% convinced they saw the real Santa yesterday.  They think most Santas are just his elves dressing up like Santa because he can't be everywhere at the same time.  But the boys said this guys' beard was real and so he's the real Santa.

Santa was actually really good and knew the boys weren't getting a picture done so he talked to them about being good and listening to their parents.  Hopefully that sinks in a little because it's been a rough month in the behavior department!

Carter had to get his picture as an elf on the way out - he loves these things!

Christmas Drawing

This came home with Carter from school yesterday.  There are lots of fun details ...

One present is a dog.  There are milk and cookies on the table that Santa forgot to eat.  Santa is holding his super long list (the black line).  Very cute!

First Basketball Game

Carter had his very first basketball game last Saturday.  His team is the Tigers and their uniforms are orange.  Brian got to choose any name and color he wanted (there were no limits).  That made it hard for him to choose so he let Carter come up with something.

All of Carter's games are at an elementary school gym about 10 minutes from our house (Trinity Elementary).  The school is a lot older and really makes us appreciate our elementary school!

Carter's first game experience was a little rough.  The kids play 3 v 3 and all 6 of the kids on his team have never played before.  The team he was playing against had 2 or 3 boys that have played together on their team for 3 years (according to one the parents on that team).  And they were really, really, really good.  They understood the game and could not miss a shot.  Luckily there is a cap to how many points an individual can score (14 points) so their baskets eventually stopped being counted.  Even though our team has improved tremendously in practice and scrimmaged the last practice so they could understand the game better, they seemed very lost on Saturday.  They were a bit overwhelmed and seemed to forget what they were supposed to do and they were not aggressive at all with defense and rebounds.  But they did get a little better as the game went on and I think tomorrow will be a little better.  Basketball actually has a lot of rules and is pretty complicated for 5 and 6 year olds to understand after just a few practices.

The final score of the game was 42 to 2.  Fisher made one basket and I so wish I got it on video.  He was so excited!  He ran around the court with the biggest goofy smile.  He gave Brian a high five and smiled so big at the parents watching.  I think everyone in the gym was cheering for him!

I tried to take some pictures on Saturday but only got in a few before Grayson got fussy and needed a lot of attention (a screaming baby is super loud in a gym!).

Joey passing the ball in to Carter ...

Brian started having Carter pass the ball in because Carter is a little scared of the ball hitting him in the face and often gets out of the way of a hard pass ...

Carter about to pass the ball ...

Carter dribbling up the court ...

Carter and Fisher (the one that scored our only basket).

A short video of Carter dribbling up the court (we need to teach our team that the refs don't call double dribbling right now - we kept picking up our dribble and trying to pass the ball which would get stolen almost every time).

Carter has another game tomorrow.  I'm excited to see the kids play again!

Elf on the Shelf Friday

There's been lots of fun with Mr. Elf this week ...

On Saturday morning, Mr. Elf gave Carter some encouragement for his very first basketball game.  (Note: His team is the Tigers.)

After Christmas last year, I got a lot of new ornaments for our downstairs tree, including a new star.  However, the new star is kind of heavy and I couldn't get it to stand up straight.  Brian is supposed to work on it for me but hasn't gotten around to it.  Looks like Mr. Elf wanted us to remember that the tree is missing something!

On Monday morning we found Mr. Elf busting out of a Rice Krispies box.  He must have gotten stuck!  Crackle will never be the same!

On Tuesday Mr. Elf was roasting marshmallows over candles with his Transformer buddies.

On Wednesday he was having a candy fight with the Christmas Pez dispensers.

Looks like one dog got taken out with a mint!

Mr. Elf left the big boys some presents on Thursday.  They got two new Christmas books and the Pez dispensers that were new from the day before.

I'm not sure what Mr. Elf was doing this morning!  It looks like he took a ride down the steps inside a roll of toilet paper!!!