programs

A few Sunday's ago was Spencer's primary program at church. I was pretty excited, so we got him all ready to do his part and all dressed up and he even let me comb his hair (which is a miracle in itself), but much to my dismay 9and that is putting it mildly) he would not join the program. We promised playing darts with Daddy and a prize in primary- but to no avail.
The next week for some reason he was totally fine with singing a Chritmas song in church.
Then it was the school program, and there were hundreds of people there. He said "I don't know if I can do this!" But he did.

They did a robot dance. It was very cute.

Disneyland

We went to Disneyland in the first week of December. Before Disneyland we had a really fun time visiting 2 grandma's because we stayed at Grandma Roberts and Grandma Gosney was there visiting at the same time as us. It was really fun to see them.
We didn't tell Spencer that we were going to Disneyland because we wanted to surprise him. The pictures from our last Disneyland trip are our screen saver, so he remembers going, but maybe not as much as we thought. On the bus they kept saying things about Disneyland, but he was just off in his own world not noticing. He even said "Everything is just Disney!" But he still didn't make the connection, so we just had to tell him. His initial reaction was pretty good though.

We got there before the park actually opened, so here we are waiting to go in, our first attempt at a family picture in Disneyland- and a classic.

It was a little busier than we had hoped, but the longest line as about 25 minutes, and most were less than 10. We got on more than 20 rides- so that was great. Our first ride was Dumbo. I think it's a requirement to cry at least once at Disneyland, James cried because they give you a feather and then when you get on the ride they take it away- I agree, that is rather rude. By the end of the ride though he was fine.
Next was one of Devon's favorites "Mr Toad's Wild Ride." spencer thought it was too dark and spooky- but it's a classic.
This is classic James. He did so well at Disneyland. He is pretty mellow and just goes along, until he decides he wants something his way- then watch out. It is funny how different siblings can be.
We got to see Santa. They also had reindeer instead of goats at the ranch. I had to laugh because James kept yelling "A cow! A cow!"
The only character we got to talk to was Pluto- but even James knew who he was from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

We boys enjoying the scenery from the steamboat.
Mark Twain island as been re-done since the first time I went, and it was really fun. They had a tree house to climb.

Some crazy bridges. I had to put this picture up to show how fast you get over things at Disneyland. He had just fallen on the bridge.
Now we're good.
They had lots of caves to explore in.
and a huge pile of treasure to climb on.
This was almost our last ride, the canal boats, which are really only fun because you go through the mouth of a whale.
We had a great time. Spencer is big enough to go on all of the big rides except Indiana Jones which was closed anyway. He liked the fast rides, but he did not like the spooky rides. He was literally shaking in the Haunted Mansion- which wasn't even that scary sine it was decorated like "The Nightmare Before Christmas." Right after that we went on Splash Mountain and he said "I like this ride because it's a happy ride!" James did great, especially considering that he only slept on "Pirates of the Caribean." i think Spencer's favorite rides were "Splash Mountain" and "Small World." James was so entranced on Small World I could not get him to turn his head to look at anything else. The fireworks were amazing, I am glad we stayed to see them, although James was asleep and Spencer was mostly asleep- we enjoyed them. We were so glad that everyone was healthy and had a great time!

O Christmas Tree

We put up our Christmas tree the weekend after Thanksgiving. That is actually pretty late for us, but I didn't think we would have room with everyone here visiting. Spencer was almost as impatient as me to get it up. The boys loved decorating it- and James has loved un-decorating and re-decorating it since then.




Merry Christmas!

catching up with the boys

Spencer loves to decorate. This is a turkey. He came up with it all on his own. His creativity always amazes me- and makes big messes.
We have taken lots of videos of the boys lately. It has been so fun to see James learn how to talk. He really started talking in sentences, and his personality has come out so much lately. He is scaring Devon, and then he says "I scare me?" Which means "Did I scare you?"
Apparently scaring is a theme in our house because Spencer loves to write scary stories that mostly consist of the words "boo" and "woo" and the occasional goblin and witch when we tell him how to spell that.



My boys aren't too into dress-up, but on this day they both wanted to get in costumes, and James never wanted to take his off.


Our boys love the movie How the Grinch stole Christmas. At more intense parts James yells "The Grinch, The Grinch, The Grinch!"



Once again, i have no idea where Spencer gets his ideas. He was putting tape on his hands to be Spiderman and climb the walls. He kept asking me what would really work to climb wall- but I am not as good at experimenting.





one day Spencer found the muffin liners and said- we should make boats out of these. So we learned about sinking and floating and got really wet- but it did follow my rule- it kept them busy for longer than it took to clean up. When they were done Spencer said "What else can I do that is science?"

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving this year. My parents and my grandma and sister Natalie got to come visit us. Our very nice neighbor let my parents and grandma stay in her house so we were not too crowded. It turned out wonderful. The waether was not too great- but it was so nice to spend time with family. It was especially nice for the boys to get to know their great-grandma who they don't see too much.
Here is Spencer, ready to eat. It's a good thing he's sitting down so you can't see that he is wearing shorts- it took 30 minutes to get him to put a shirt with a collar on- so that was good enough!
The boys mostly at rolls and pie- but the rest of us enjoyed a delicious dinner.

I tried lots of new recipes thanks to Emilee for the ideas. I have never liked cranberry sauce, but with real cranberries it's great!
It was fun to decorate the table too.
We also took the loop drive. We had to laugh that there were sheep there- welcome to the res.

Don't I have a cute family?

visit to San Antonio

Boy, I am so behind on our blog- and it's not for lack of happenings- it's probably because a ton has been happening. I will try to catch up in the next few days.
Right after Halloween the boys and I left for a trip to San Antonio. The boys loved flying. We had a great time with my sister and her girls. Spencer did a lot of decorating their house for Halloween (yes, Halloween was over). I am not as good at taking pictures, but here are a few
We went to the Children's Discovery Museum in San Antonio. It is the only one I have been to that has a mini grocery store- the kids loved it!

Spencer takes after daddy- we've got to stock up!

They had a lot of the classic things- huge bubbles, water ways, car race tracks- but some new things too. It was a lot of fun.
We didn't get pictures of the other things we did. We went to the botanical gardens, and on a little train and had a picnic. Poor James got sick- but otherwise the trip was great.

James loved playing with Ruby
And Spencer never left Kate and Olivia alone. It was fun to spend some time and get to know them better. I can finally tell the twins apart!