A Message From Santa!

Kyle spent a little time last night creating a special message for Macalan from Santa. I had Macalan watch it tonight. He thought it was great that Santa was talking to him! He kept saying "Hi Santa!" At one point he asked me why Santa wasn't answering him :)

I highly suggest creating your own for the little ones in your life. It was just too cute!

http://www.portablenorthpole.tv/watch/guest/bYuYVp_QJ17nnDH5YtXrbg

It's Christmastime!

I LOVE Christmas! I am the annoying person who wants to start listening to Christmas music right around October! I don't do this of course because I want to stay married! :) Kyle can be kind of a scrooge when it comes to Christmas music.

I decided to break out the decorations a little at a time over the last week or so. I have started decorating before Thanksgiving only because we are always gone for Thanksgiving. I feel like once we get back I never have enough time to decorate and enjoy it before it's time to put it all away again.

Macalan and I had fun decorating a little tree in his room this year. He has been really good about not touching it, so far! When we were all done he said, "You did a good job mom!" :) Since Sutton still doesn't know the difference I thought he could handle not having any decorations this year, especially since he's still at the Curious George stage when EVERYTHING he's not supposed to touch gets touched!

This is the first Christmas that Macalan seems to get what Santa is. He has heard the "Santa won't bring you presents if you throw a fit and take toys from your brother" speech a million times in the last couple of weeks. Last night I heard him repeating his own little version of this speech to Sutton. It went something like this: "Sutton, Santa not bring you presents if you're not a good boy!" Now you have to imagine him saying it in a high pitched "baby-talk" voice that he reserves only for when he's speaking to Sutton!

On a side note- Today as we were driving home from S.D. Sutton got a hold of one of Macalan's favorite stuffed animals. Macalan freaked out and demanded that Sutton give it back. Of course they were both strapped tightly into their car seats so neither one could move much. Sutton started to hand it back and just as Macalan went to grab it Sutton snatched it back and giggled! I think he'll be able to hold his own pretty well! Kyle and I couldn't help but laugh and Macalan told us to "Stop being silly at him!" This is what he says anytime we laugh at him. He's our sensitive child. We've tried to explain that we're not laughing at him, we're laughing with him, but that goes over the head of a two year old!

Well I need to go find my copy of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. It seems to be missing and it's one of my favorite movies to watch this time of year. Happy Holidays!

Happy Thanksgiving

On Thursday we traveled to South Dakota to be with my family for Thanksgiving. Technically, we didn't celebrate until Friday because it was difficult trying to get everyone together. The boys had lots of fun playing with their grandparents, aunts/uncles, and cousins! It is so cute seeing them develop their relationships with our families. It is especially neat to see how my dad interacts with the boys. He was such a tough guy when I was growing up and he has become such a softy with them. :)

Saturday Kyle, my dad, and I took Macalan to see a train show. He thought it was great seeing all the little model trains race around the track. I got some practice taking pictures of my niece while we were downtown. They turned out so cute! She is growing up so fast!

Later in the day I went to see The Nutcracker Ballet. This is a production I was involved in for many years while I was in dance. It was fun to see all the great changes they've made, yet it was still so much the same. While I was at that, Kyle and my dad took Macalan to a "Cowboy Christmas" (right up my dad's alley). I missed seeing Macalan sit on Santa's lap and tell him what he wants for Christmas! He even gave him a hug! This is very different from the experience we had a couple of weeks ago when we had pictures taken with Santa. Sutton of course didn't mind at all sitting on Santa's lap, but Macalan screamed and cried the whole time. The pictures are pretty funny. I really should scan them and post them.

The car rides there and back are always challenging, but it is worth giving our boys lots of fun family memories!

Thirty???

Whether I was ready or not today I turned 30! I can't believe how that just snuck up on me. I don't feel old or anything like that, but it's a little weird saying I'm 30 years old. I brought cupcakes to school for my kids today and they had a great time guessing my age. Most of them were pretty close, but of course I had to have someone guess 80!
I feel like I have been celebrating all week. On Saturday Kyle and our families surprised me after the ISU-Nebraska game at the hotel. His mom and our nieces spent the afternoon decorating the hotel room and my sister snuck out of the game early to go pick up a cake for me! It was a nice and fun surprise. My mom has been here this week watching the boys since we don't have daycare so on Tuesday we all went out to eat at Red Lobster. This is a rare occurence because Red Lobster brings out the devil child in Macalan. Don't ask my why or how, but every time we go there he becomes loud and crabby and I feel like one of "those" people who interrupt the dinner of everyone else. Thankfully he was pretty well behaved.
Besides all the birthday celebrating I've been exhausted this week with getting ready for conferences, reading and writing a paper for my grad class, and dealing with Macalan's nightmares. Every night this week he has woken up screaming and crying and climbs into our bed. I know I should just take him back to his bed because I am creating a monster, but I am sooo tired I don't care. It's funny how all of a sudden he has started to realize that there are things that scare him. He mostly complains about either a monster or dinosaur that's going to get him. It's so sad! I wish I could take that scared feeling away from him. Sutton continues to be a champ when it comes to sleeping! He is such a laid back kid!
On top of all of this I am trying to get my photography business started. I am starting slow and very basic, but I'm so very excited about this! I was lucky enough to get my lighting for my birthday so my goal for the weekend is to figure out how everything works and take some practice pictures. Anyone who reads my blog please keep me in mind for taking pictures of your family and little ones! I hope to start a new blog for my business as soon as I get a few more details figured out. I have the urge to jump in and do a million different things with this, but I have to remember how much I have on my plate and to take everything one day at a time. I would sincerely appreciate good thoughts as I begin this new adventure! :)

A Cowboy Birthday Party

Sutton enjoyed his birthday party this weekend. He will officially be one on Tuesday, but we wanted to have a party for friends and family so we decided to celebrate this weekend.

We decided on a cowboy theme. Luckily a couple of years ago my school did a western theme so I was able to borrow a lot of the decorations. It was a money and a time saver! I was also able to get a Wilton cowboy cake pan off of ebay. Thanks to my friend Jaime for spending over three hours of her Friday night helping me get it decorated. Now that I've decorated a cake like that, even though it was time consuming, I think I might try it again for Macalan's birthday.

Sutton was spoiled rotten with lots of fun toys. Macalan had fun helping open the presents and promptly taking them away from him. Someday Sutton will get his revenge! :)

He LOVED the cake. In fact he ate two pieces. He wasn't sure what to think about the ice cream, as you can tell from the picture.

As we were singing Happy Birthday (with Mac crying in the background, he HATES that song), I couldn't help but get a little teary eyed. The first year goes by so fast and this past year has been filled with so many special memories. Sutton was a little bit of a surprise to us, but has been such a blessing. I can't imagine life without him. I'm looking forward to many more years of birthday celebrations!

I will update later in the week with his one year stats.

A child fills a place in your heart you never knew was empty.

Big Woods Run

Yesterday my sister and I ran another 5K. We did the Big Woods Run in Faribault. I was a little nervous because I haven't had the chance to run a three mile distance since school started. I thought I would really struggle, especially since I had no idea what the route was like.

When we got to the church where it was being held at we found out we had to ride a bus to the starting point for the 5K. The guy driving the bus didn't even know where he was taking us! People who had done the run before had to tell him where to go. When the race finally started most of us couldn't start running because there was a huge bottleneck of people trying to get on the path that led into the woods.

Right away I could tell it was going to be a tough run. The path through the woods was covered with leaves making it hard to see the tree roots sticking up out of the ground. Lots of people wiped out around me. Thankfully neither my sister nor I fell! About half way through there was a steep hill to run down and then we immediately had to run back up a hill. I usually save hills for the end of my runs so I was a little tired, but managed to run the whole way! The last mile felt like it took forever! It was great to accomplish another run.

Afterward LIsa and I turned in our slips for a door prize. It turns out all the door prizes were either small fleece blankets or a jar of homemade jelly. The jellies were all made by the ladies from the church that was hosting the event. We joked that only in middle America would you get a jar of jelly after finishing a race:)

Hopefully we can do it again next year!

Fall Photo Shoot

I was so happy I was able to get some really great pictures of the boys today! When Kyle got home from the ISU game we headed to a farm that belongs to the parents of one of my co-workers. They had lots of great old buildings that made the perfect backdrop for pictures. It wasn't easy, but thankfully I had lots of help to make the boys laugh and have fun.

After looking at these pictures it makes me really want to jump into photography, but I can't do that until grad school is done. One thing at a time. I can't wait to get these ordered!