December Fun

December has been SO busy but we've managed to have some fun too! "Hey mom, look at me...I'm Elfie's twin! I even smile like him"
Brayden and I "tried" to make a gingerbread house one Sunday after church. We were too impatient to wait for the frosting on the house to dry completely so naturally our house totally collapsed once we put all the candy on it. But thankfully we have a high tech construction management professional in the house who put it back together for us with a glue gun! Thanks dad! Seriously next year I think I am just going to glue gun it together in the first place...its not like we ever eat the thing anyways. Actually, I think next year I'll sit back and relax and let Guy make it with the kids. That sounds like a better idea! :)
We had our best tree ever this year! It was so pretty and BB took decorating it very seriously!

And Tyler surprisingly never knocked it down. A true miracle!

Brayden pretty much rearranged our tree daily. All ornaments got their turn at being in the front
I found Tyler in this basket one day. He emptied it and crawled in with his favorite toy. Its this super annoying singing/dancing hamster that wiggles its arms and legs and sings "We Wish you a Merry Christmas" in the most obnoxious way. It pretty much drives me crazy, but for the boys, it never gets old...which is why it drives me crazy! :)
Brayden with his 2009 ornament...Lightning McQueen of course! He is obsessed! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Hill for the pj's you got him for Christmas. They have been a hit!
We loved driving around and looking at Christmas lights. There are a few neighborhoods here that go all out so we let Brayden stick his head out the sun roof for the best view...we were only going like 2 mph :)
We took the boys to the Polar Express Train ride again this year and had so much fun. Here's Brayden with the tallest Santa ever!

Pretending to be a penguin on the spray painted snow...best we can do here in Texas!

He loves Charlie Brown and was very excited to see this!

It's frosty and a reindeer

Before the train ride they had this little program concert thing and they had all the kids come up and yell...I mean sing, a song together! Brayden pretty much loved it. It was a nice glimpse at what our future will be like at a million school programs! Oh, I just can't wait...

He was beyond excited to finally get on the train

All Aboard

Look who's coming...

It's SANTA

Santa tried to hold Ty's finger and say hello

and Tyler pretty much FREAKED out!

Santa makes him cry every time!!!

Merry Christmas everybody!

Why????

Why is my child obsessed with coloring on himself? And why is it always on his face? I really thought we were past this, but as you can see...we are not! I walked in on him yesterday colored from head to toe with markers again (just like here and here) and he told me that Tyler did it. Haha, he has quickly learned the joys of having a younger sibling to blame things on. The only problem with this story was that I was getting Ty down for a nap when this happened. So, his story changed to that he was coloring on paper and he accidentally got a little marker on himself. Really Brayden, all over your face??? Finally, after a few more story changes, he fessed up to it and said, "your right, it was me" as if i didn't know. Haha, the 3 year old mind is a funny thing. I'm just glad that Ty was in bed because I'm sure if he was with Brayden he would have been colored on too. I can only imagine!

Many many purple baths later we finally got most of it off. These markers claim to be washable but they are from the dollar store and I just don't believe it with the amount of scrubbing we had to do. I think Crayola markers are the only real washable ones! So I'm hoping that BB will remember how much it hurt to get all the marker off and he won't do this again! Fingers crossed This is what I was planning on posting today...Brayden's black eye he got from walking into a shelf at Kohls while he was looking down at a toy he was holding. Ya, that was some drama at the store! This was taken, of course, before the coloring incident because now his face is a nice shade of pink which looks really good with his black eye that he won't let us wash around. Guy let him go to the store with him last night and I had to laugh when they got home because Brayden seriously looked like he had been punched in the face a few times. Yes, it makes us look like awesome parents!

And to top things off, today I walked in on him cutting Tyler's hair with his kid scissors. I KNOW! I was so mad. Poor little Ty has a few chunks missing now which is very sad. So all art supplies have now disappeared forever...or until I say so! We'll see if I can survive the rest of this week... I really have my doubts!!!

Guy's 27th Birthday & ICE!!!

Guy turned 27 last week (Dec. 10) so we had a little party for him to celebrate. Brayden took it very seriously and wanted him to have a lightning mcqueen party just like he did when he turned 3. Luckily I saved all those decoration so it worked out perfectly!

We made Guy cupcakes and Brayden put all his favorite cars on top of them

Blowing out the candles

YUM

Tyler was in heaven with his cupcake...I have a feeling he will love his 1st birthday!!

After cake, we drove out to the Gaylord Texan hotel for Guy's birthday present! At Christmas time they decorate the hotel with over 1.2 million lights and they have a huge ICE display with 2 million pounds of hand carved ice. Ya, its pretty crazy and we finally decided that we needed to see it! This is the ceiling of the middle of the hotel atrium!

Tyler was in awe of all the lights the whole time! He loved it!

They had a 50 foot rotating Christmas tree

in the center And this tree had a miniature train that ran through it. It was pretty cool

Brayden loved the trains and we had to literally pull him away from them

Ty watched them with no expression so I have no clue if he liked them or not. I figure since he wasn't crying, he must have liked them

The boys with the birthday daddy Crossing one of the many bridges inside Brayden was not thrilled about this picture but at least he's looking

Inside Santa's workshop...he even had a cookie conveyor belt!

And the biggest gingerbread house ever!!!

We finally made it over to the ICE display when it was our time to go and they gave us these super warm coats to wear since its 9 degrees in there. Brayden was cracking us up in his coat cause he could hardly move in it!!

Walking in...had to get a backside view

The theme this year was Dr. Suess How the Grinch Stole Christmas and it was all hand carved by 40 artisans from Harbin, China. It was pretty crazy!

One of the best parts was the room with the 20 foot ice slides. Here's BB at the top of the kids one lookin so cool in his coat. haha

This is one side of the ice slide room

BB going down the kids one...he was brave and went down the bigger one too!

This picture is kinda blurry but it was the best I could get of Guy going down while holding Tyler!

It was pretty fun!!! :)

Brayden going through the little mini door

This was one of my favorites! SO cute!

Mr. Grinch

Getting ready to go in the ice tunnel

Family shot

Guy found his birthday cake and I told him to lick it but he wouldn't

The last room was a full nativity carved out of ice. It was amazing

Tyler was SO ready to go at the end

It was such a fun way to celebrate our favorite guy's birthday!