Snowmanning

You may not be familiar with the term "snowmanning" but clearly it is a word. We had our first snowfall of the year a while ago and Sterling took the boys out to building a snowman. Since that time the boys have been so confused and whenever it snows they think it is snowmanning instead of snowing. I try to correct them but they just look at me as if I am the one that doesn't know what I am talking about.

It snowed again a few days ago and the boys loved it. Later on in the day we went outside again and the snow had melted and they kept asking where the snow was? It looks like I am outnumbered when it comes to liking the snow and the cold.

Obviously we don't get as much snow as y'all do back West but Sterling made them each a 6 inch snowman and they loved them. Here they are enjoying the snow.

Christmas in Pictures: Christmas Day

A great big thank you to everyone that sent gifts to our family this year. The following is an onslaught of pictures of a few gifts and a few pictures of them opening gifts. If I had to title this group of pictures I would call them "The spoils of the Spoiled".

This year they received so many gifts, very few of them were from us, and they love every single one of them. Here is a list of all that they received, in no particular order. I'm probably forgetting something so don't be offended if it was your gift!

1. Trampoline

2. Kitchen

3. LeapFrog Alphabet Toy

4. Snow Hats

5. Clothing

6. Cleaning Trolley: Includes vacuum, mop, broom, dustpan and squirt bottle.

7. Gift cards and Cash

8. Basketball Hoop

9. Duplo Legos

10. Food to go with the kitchen

11. Ride-on Vehicle

12. Homemade Minky quilts

13. Sock Monkey's

14. Shoes and socks

15. A new Scentsy Monkey (Makaio has almost chewed the face off of his current one)

16. Tool Bench

17. Books

18. Boomophones

19. Movies

20.  Table and Chairs

Christmas in Pictures: Christmas Eve

I tried putting the gifts out on more than one occasion this year only to experience the same result each and every time...wrapping paper everywhere and two little boys squealing with excitement. They never really understood that what they were opening was anything more than a box but the box was just as fun as the toy inside. Here is a picture of one of the above described occasions.

Finally Christmas Eve came and in order to help them understand what we had been talking about the entire month, we let them help us put parts of the Nativity up on the wall while we told the story. It was hard not to fix the placement of each of the pieces but in the end it is the story of Jesus' birth that matters more than how our manger scene looked.

After we told the story of our Savior's birth we put the presents under the tree and this added a lot of excitement to their little lives. It seemed like Kekoa couldn't fall asleep after that and spent a lot of time running around his room screaming with pure joy.

After we were asleep (the boys and I), Sterling put a few things, by their shoes, outside of their bedroom door for the morning. I woke up to a bag of peanut M&M's by my shoes and Sterling had a few Rittersport bars by his.

I couldn't get far enough away from the goods and I don't have that handy panorama thing on my camera so here are the gifts in two separate pictures.

Christmas in Pictures: Decorating

Earlier this month we decorated our tree and let the boys help. They had such a great time putting up and pulling down all of the decorations. We had to put the decorations out of their reach but it didn't stop them from playing with the tree and getting pine needles everywhere. Makaio loved the fact that the pine needles kept falling onto the ground because that meant we could get the vacuum out (almost daily) and vacuum them up.

Here they are helping decorate the tree with Sterling. As you can tell, Kekoa was so proud of the work that he did.

Merry Christmas from The Sheffield's