SANTA!!!

We took the boys to see Santa over the weekend

Brayden even got his autograph in our book, which he thought was pretty cool
Brayden was excited about telling Santa what he wanted for Christmas.
And Tyler freaked out, which I totally expected.

But he would sit next to Santa as long as he wasn't looking at him

If you can't see him he's not there, right?? :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Ty & the laundry basket ride :)

MAGIC!!!

Not the Disney kind! :) Guy got some free tickets from a subcontractor to go to the Orlando Magic game on Saturday night (12/18). They played the 76'ers and lost, but it was still a really fun game. And you can't beat 12th row seats!! We had a blast and Brayden was beyond excited to be there! The whole way back to our car after the game he pretended like he was dribbling the ball and showing us his basketball moves. And the next morning he came in our room dressed in all his nike clothes with his basketball and some shades (guess he picked up the "cool" factor from those NBA stars, haha!) Maybe I'll have to try to find him a little basketball class if they even let 4 year olds play that yet. Here's a few pics Guy took during the game...

Guy was most excited to watch Dwight Howard play!
Ok I look possessed here, but it's our only shot of us at the game. Tyler did pretty well thanks to m+m's and other snacks to keep him busy. Food is the only way to get him to sit still!

Posing with cutout's of the players after the game...BB's muscle pose, gotta love it :)

I'd say they've got a little growing to do to be as tall as Dwight Howard!!! :)

All they really need for Christmas is a...

BOX or two!

Seriously these boxes taped together to make a train have entertained them all week. It's all they have played with!

Why did we buy them Christmas toys again??

Christmas Cookies

I made sugar cookies with the kids to decorate for Christmas. I always have to prepare myself to do this with them because it makes such a big mess! But they love it and so we do it every year. Ok I secretly love it too...sugar cookies are one of my favorites!
It's funny because I thought for sure Tyler would just eat the frosting the whole time, but he didn't even have a bite! Crazy boy! He was SO focused on his cookie and trying to get the frosting off the knife and onto the cookie. Seriously, I have never seen such concentration with him...usually he has a 5 second attention span!

And Brayden has graduated from the 'pile as much frosting as you can on your cookie' stage of life. He did such a good job decorating them and it was cute to see him think of new ideas to do on each cookie. His favorite thing was making yellow snowman and asking me why I thought the snow was yellow

Elfie brought this fun cookie cutter to our house this year!

A snowman mickey

Tyler's finished cookies

All of our decorated cookies...don't worry, we gave most of them away!

And this our cookie family that Brayden and I made!

Brayden loved eating off his own head and legs!

Frustrated!!!

So we've lived in Florida about 3 months now. And since we are only going to be here a year or so we decided to obviously rent. We had heard many horror stories before we moved here about people renting out places only to find out that the owner's were actually in foreclosure on their property and just pocketing the renters money. There are TONS of foreclosed homes in Florida...at least compared to Dallas. So we were very careful finding a place to rent because we didn't want that to happen to us. We found a 3 bedroom townhome that we are renting now and the owner has a property management company dealing with it so we felt more comfortable with that. But we were wrong! The other day Guy got a call from them and they told us that the owner has decided to short sell this place and they just wanted to let us know that it would be going on the market soon. WHAT! I seriously thought Guy was joking when he told me. We just moved in 3 months ago and we signed a year lease. We are just barely feeling settled...I still have about 4 boxes left to unpack! She told us that she didn't think it would sell because he is pricing it too high, but still you just never know. Basically, from what I understand, if someone else buys the property they still would have to honor our contract or else pay us off to get us out of here. So they won't be kicking us out and we can't end our contract without losing our security deposit which stinks. So I'm not sure what's going to happen but I am just frustrated. I don't want to have to deal with this. Especially having to deal with potential buyers walking through our house and all of our stuff all the time. We aren't paying all this rent money for that! Truthfully I think I would rather just end our contract and find a new place to live then deal with all of this. Why did he get renters in here if he was planning on selling it so soon! Annoying!!!! Right now I am just wishing we were settled somewhere with a house of our own and not having to deal with other people! We seriously have the worst luck renting!!! :)

Gettin' Ready for Christmas...

Christmas is just so much fun, especially with boys this age. It doesn't really feel like Christmas here in Florida with the warmer weather and the palm trees, but we're doing our best to celebrate the season! Here's a start to some of the stuff we've been doing...I'll add more once I upload some more pictures :)

Getting out our Christmas puzzles...seriously you can find great ones at the dollar store!
Decorating the tree...
Tyler calls it "a pretty."
Getting our ornaments for the year.
Brayden picked out this one!
Tyler's 2010 ornament
Allison's ornament

And Guy's...yes, we have a theme going on here :)
Rearranging the tree EVERY DAY!

All the ornaments apparently need a turn to be front and center! :)

Making a gingerbread house with Daddy!

We bought this on clearance last year and saved it for this year since we never eat them. We also hot glued the house together so it wouldn't fall apart with the dumb frosting!

Genius idea Guy Hill Jr! :)

Writing letters to Santa

Brayden wrote it all by himself this year!

And of course, dressing up like Santa!

We're going to go see him this weekend and Brayden is very excited about it! We'll see if Tyler even makes it on to Santa's lap.He cried last year and I'm gonna guess that we'll be repeating the screaming toddler on Santa's lap picture. But those are the best ones, right? They always make you laugh when you look back on them. And seriously what kid wasn't afraid to sit on Santa's lap? I used to be terrified!!! :)

I just love this boy!

Can I just say that I love the age of almost 2. I think it is my favorite!

I'm pretty sure everything a 2 year old does is considered adorable.

I love watching them discover the world and watching their little personalities shine through.

And I love having 3 hours every morning with just me and my Ty Ty

while Brayden is in school.

And that for 3 hours every afternoon I get to spend time with my Brayden

while Tyler takes his nap.

It's a great system we have going on right now in life.

Here's my favorite moments lately of Tyler during our mornings.

Gosh, I LOVE this boy!!!

He loves to color! On paper, his legs, walls...he's not picky!
This is Tyler for ya...He does this almost every day! Collects all the matching figures to sets, brings them in my room, and just sits there and sorts them.
And then he always picks a few to carry around with him all day
Talkin' to somebody important!

Who knew Brayden's pajama pants could make such a stylish hat??
He seriously thought he was sooo funny that he had thought to put it on his head. He was cracking himself up, which of course was hilarious to watch him being silly. What a goof ball! And yes, we picked up Brayden from school like this b/c this hat stayed on all morning long!

Peek-a-boo! :)Books can make a great hat too! :)

When he's mad, he's MAD! Don't mess with him and his waffles!!!