a special day and special visitors

Just a few days after Christmas, John's parents flew into town to be with us for Tyler's special day.  Tyler chose to be baptized and we were so happy to support and love him on this special occasion.

Don't you just love the black eye.  He got that from wrestling with his little brother.  Everyone told me I could Photoshop it out.  No way, I totally want to remember him like this- dressed in white, looking all clean and pure with a big old black eye, indicative of a recent scrap with his brother.  Ha!  Now if only Robby's lip that had been split open in a similar wrestling brawl hadn't already healed from the week before...then we'd have ourselves a Carson family photo!

 I told him I will take another picture exactly like this one when he leaves for his mission, except he will be much, much bigger (boo hoo).

 It was so neat watching Tyler get baptized, but it was even more special to watch him make the decision to be baptized.  I was touched by how seriously he took it.  Several months before the date, he was actually quite hesitant about the whole thing.  As we discussed things with him, it became apparent that his hesitancy came from the fact that he understood what a big deal this was and that it really was the first big decision he would have to make for himself.  I was impressed with how he understood that this wasn't just something he was going to do on a Saturday morning in December, but that it would be the beginning of a commitment to his Savior.  It has truly been a delight to watch him mature in his decision making and in other areas of his life.  He is such a great little boy.  I am so blessed and honored to be his mom.

John's parents stayed for a few days and we enjoyed every minute of it.

Robby and Nani cooked in the kitchen.

 We got together frequently with the cousins.

 We went to the trampoline park

We began a new tradition of watching movies and working on a puzzle on new year's eve.  We finished it up the next morning, and then... 

we went to get donuts...because you can't work on a donut puzzle and not eat donuts!

(I think donuts on new years day morning might be my new favorite tradition)  

 And then we had to stick with an old tradition...

DEMOLITION DAY!

New Year's Day is demolition day at our house.  Out with the old, right?  So it's time to destroy the gingerbread houses that we made.

 I particularly like this candy cane bicycle that John made

 This year we decided to drop some of them off a ladder, 

 and then use some of them for aim practice.

(John's siblings will love this picture of John's mom)

You can't see the gingerbread houses, but they are lined up and ready to be demolished by a speeding fast ball.

so there you have it.  Christmas vacation in a nut shell.  It was a good one!

Christmas Day 2012

Christmas morning came with a bang...literally.  A crazy winter storm came in with lots of wind, thunder, lightening, and hail!.  It was an interesting way to start Christmas morning.  Needless to say, we were up early and ready to start the fun.

The boys came downstairs to find that Santa had indeed visited them and left them a few surprises.  Robby got a little kitchen- he is quite the chef, and Tyler got a Wii (which he didn't even notice for a few minutes after we came downstairs). 

Robby set right to work making food for everyone.

Even Tyler got in on the action (he says he doesn't like the kitchen, but I caught him fixing a few dishes a time or two)

As with most Christmas mornings, there was plenty of Lego construction.

And we all got to practice our driving skills with a little Mario Kart.

I was a very good restaurant customer, and Robby never complained about cooking the loads and loads of food I ordered.  He even makes a pretty good waiter.  

I tried on (and put to good use) the apron my mom sent me,

and John tried on (and thankfully did NOT put to good use) the wet suit I got him.

 And then, we played in the snow!  Yep, snow in Texas on Christmas!  It turns out that that storm not only brought thunder, lightening, wind and hail, but it also brought ice and SNOW!  It was the perfect Christmas day watching the snow fall so peacefully and beautifully.  It made me feel like I was home.  We went out in the morning while the wind was still blowing and only lasted a few minutes.  It was FRIGID!  Tyler wouldn't take off his Star Wars mask because it too cold.  Once it finally warmed up, we went outside for a little sledding...on boogie boards.  The boys loved it!

Christmas Eve 2012

I'm about a month and a half behind on blog posts, but that's about normal for me, so I'm feeling pretty good.

Here is a quick synopsis of our Christmas holiday.

This year we decided again to stick around Texas.  With Tyler's baptism so quick after Christmas and knowing that this year is the last year we will have family living close by (John's brother's family will move away this spring), we knew it was going to be a good year to stay home.  It was a great holiday break with lots of family fun and activities.  We were also blessed to have John's parents join us after Christmas for Tyler's baptism.

For Christmas Eve, we invited some dear friends over for dinner and activities.  It's not easy living away far away from family, especially at the holidays, but we are blessed to have some really great friends who are are like family to us.

Santa delivered Christmas Eve dinner once again.  This time we got a text telling us the coordinates for where Santa dropped off the box, and we had to use the GPS on my phone to locate it.  Tyler was so excited that he (and really, he was the only one who really understood what was going on) didn't want to stop and put on his own shoes so he grabbed John's instead.

Lucky for us, Tyler was able to navigate and find our box at the park around the corner from our house.

 When we got home, we opened up all our meats and cheeses that Santa had left for our dinner, along with a new movie for us to watch!

 After dinner, we read the nativity story from the scriptures and acted it out...sorta.

 I just love this.  Robby and his cute friend Maddy were so happy to participate in this.  I love this age!

Time for bed, but not before we leave out a little treat for Santa. 

Thanksgiving

Life has been non-stop fun since November, and I'm just now getting a chance to get caught up.  It was a fantastic holiday season and I want to remember some of the great memories, so I'd better get started.

In November, my parents and brother came for Thanksgiving.  We always have so much fun when they come, and this trip was no exception.  Here are a few of the highlights, in no particular order because I'm kinda in a hurry.

We showed them our Thankful Tree- which was a new favorite family tradition during the month of November. 

 We had inadvertent matchy, matchy Sunday.  Oh how I love me some synchronized dressing and the fact that this wasn't even planned just made me happy!

 We took our annual trip to Stockyard station to see the cattle drive (no pictures of the cattle, that's old news...just pictures of us having some fun).  I am kinda bummed that I didn't get a picture of Spencer sitting on one of the longhorn cattle with the sign he made for his girlfriend that said, "Keddie Linford, will you marry me?"  He took that and a few other pictures of his trip here and put them together in a slide show for her and proposed the day he got back home.  That's good stuff right there.

 

 No visit from Grandpa Bob and Grandma Marcia would be complete without a little bowling. 

 Tyler knows the best place to bond with grandpa is at the bowling alley- smart kid

 Robby liked trying out all the video games, and he didn't even need any coins because he makes his own sound effects, which are waaaay more fun than the real thing.

 We played games

And made wishes.

We ran in the neighborhood turkey trot (Tyler's first full 5k)

We rode scooters...man, did we ride scooters.  Thankfully, the weather was nice and we got out several times. 

 I promise one of these days, I WILL do a post about the scooters- they are seriously that fun, people. I mean just look at those grins.  You can't fake this kind of happiness.

 

And of course, we baked...and ate.

 Man, it was a perfect holiday.  We did fun activities, stayed home, took naps, cuddled, watched movies, ate good food and enjoyed being together.  There is just something so rewarding about seeing your kids interact with their grandparents.  It makes me just so darn happy.  I am more than a little bit sad that Spencer will most likely not be joining grandma and grandpa on their next visit, as he will be married and living far away.  We were spoiled to have him visit so many times, and I'm glad we had those memories.

And then everyone left, so we set right to work getting ready for Christmas so that I wouldn't feel sad about them leaving.

Halloween

Halloween (yes, that was like 5 weeks ago, but better late than never).  We started with our traditional mummy dogs for dinner.

And then headed out for some trick-or-treating.

 This year we cheated and used our electric scooters, which was pretty much awesome.  John got me two of these for my birthday (that means he got me one for me and he got me one for him).  I suppose the scooters need a blog post of their own sometime because we love 'em that much!

Anyway, we headed out on the scooters because we wanted to visit some friends in our ward who don't have any small children living at home anymore and we simply adore them.  They live a little too far away to walk so we thought we'd swing by on our scooters.  It was a blast cruising through the neighborhood and seeing all of our friends and neighbors out and about.  The boys loved waving to everyone and we enjoyed checking out every one's costumes along the way.  We met up with some friends from church and finished the evening trick-or-treating with them. 

The next day we did our candy science experiment where we sorted the candy in a muffin tin and then watched what happened when we heated them up in the oven.  Tyler thought this was pretty cool, since they were learning about matter in school at that time.  He watched how the candy went from solid to liquid and back to solid when it cooled.  I was just happy with the fact that he wasn't eating all that stuff ;)  And don't worry, we did keep some of the good stuff, but it was nice to get rid of a bulk of the candy.   

Robby did great.  Halloween doesn't scare me like it used to- I mean that in the "I have a type 1 diabetic kid kind of way."  It's a bit of work, but we've certainly learned how to make it a little easier.