Christmas

We started our Christmas celebrations with Brinley's dance party.  The kids had cupcakes, punch, sang Christmas carols and then Santa Claus paid everyone a visit!

 The next day, was Brinley and Clayton's school parties.  Of course, they were at the same time! Since I am head room mom for Brinley's class, I had to enlist my mother in law to attend Clayton's  (which is why I have no pictures). Brinley's party was a lot of fun.  They made a snowman picture frame, decorated a reindeer sugar cookie, ate tons of yummy food and then played musical chairs for their book exchange.  The kids had a great time and this momma was exhausted! I couldn't rest for too long because that day was my birthday and we went out to eat with my family that evening.

 We also fit it in our busy schedules to decorate the Gingerbread dog houses that our Elf on the Shelf, Winter, brought the kids.

 Christmas Eve, we went to my mom and dad's house for presents and lots of yummy appetizers and desserts! The kids got way to many presents as usual!

Brinley, Clayton, and Reese

Clayton with his train table mamaw and pops gave him. He loves it!

When we got home, the kids got into their Christmas pajamas and set out the cookies and milk for Santa

Christmas morning the kids slept until 7 and then they came downstairs to see all the goodies that Santa left them!

Clayton didn't even make it all the way down before he saw the clock for his room, he asked Santa for

Testing out the bean bags Santa brought for their playroom.  It has quickly become their favorite things to jump on

Brinley putting on a puppet show with her new theatre that Santa brought

After opening our presents, we headed over to the Smith's for Christmas brunch.  We had lot of delicious breakfast food and opened presents.  Again, the kids got more presents than they needed!

Love these stinkers

It was 85 degrees out, but Brinley loved wearing her new gifts from grandma

We had a great Christmas and I am glad it is over! I am ready to reclaim my house from toys and decorations!

Our Angel makes her acting debut

Brinley made her acting debut in our church Christmas play this past Tuesday.  She brought home her lines for her part in October and I immediately noticed she had 3 sentences to memorize, while all her CCE classmates only had 1 sentence.  She was very excited to practice her lines every night and we worked on her saying them loud too.

 

When it came time to say her lines in front of lots of parents, siblings, grandparents (including both sets of hers), she said them loud and proud.  She was the first one in the play that we could hear and understand her lines.  The other two angels followed suit and said their lines loud as well.

 

"Fear not, behold, I bring you news of joy. In Bethlehem, this very night was born a baby boy.  God sent his son from up above, to save his people with his love."

Clayton's 4th birthday party

We celebrated Clayton's 4th birthday yesterday (ten days early) with an Angry Birds party at Fun Max Jumpin. A lot of family and friends came out to help us celebrate our little man.

Clayton with the Angry Birds cake I made him. He told me "you did a great job, mom, this is a nice cake"...my sweet little boy! 

He spent most of the time sliding down the slide

I managed to get a picture at the beginning of the party before he was ringing wet with sweat!

A quick family photo before cake time

Blowing out his candles

Opening his presents in the big blow up chair

 

After leaving the party, we headed home and started opening all the gifts he got so he could play with them.  He spent the night enjoying all his new toys.  I even got woken up by him holding a toy ready to play this morning!

Soccer Season

The kids finished their soccer season the second weekend in November.  Although we spent the majority of the season with me taking Clayton to his game and Jason taking Brinley to her game, which were at the same time, their last game was spaced out so we could watch both kids and take some pictures!

Clayton had an amazing first season! He was playing up an age division and he pretty much dominated the 5 years old as a 3 year old.  He really has great ball control and is will go after the ball at any cost.  He scored at least 7 goals a game and I think his game scoring high was 10 goals (we stopped counting that game). In fact, in his last game, the other coach asked for him to be taken off the field because he dominated her team and she wanted her kids to score some goals...ha ha!

warming up with daddy

this cracked me up, he concentrates so hard and makes the funniest faces

Scoring one of his many goals of the game

He was most excited to get his trophy after the game

 

Brinley finished her 3rd season out by scoring 2 goals in her last game.  Her age division has really improved with the girls playing positions, passing the ball and playing defense.  She averaged 1 goal a game.  The scores aren't very high now since the girls understand how to stop them from scoring now.

 

a little pre game pep talk from daddy

 running the ball down the field

 passing to her team mate

 throwing the ball in

 getting her trophy at her team party the Wednesday after her last game

 

We have enjoyed having our Saturday mornings free of having to rush anywhere! The kids start basketball practice next week, so onto the next sport!

Cheerleading debut

Brinley attended a cheer leading clinic at our local high school at the beginning of the November.  She went one Saturday for 3 hours to learn a dance and a cheer.  She had a blast and was very excited to perform what she had learned at the football game the following Thursday night.

Ready.....ok!

Charger fans stand up, let's hear you.....

Originally, she was paired up with two other girls her age and she was a base holding up another little girl.  Those girls did not show up to the game, so Brinley was the only girl who got to fly with the cheerleaders holding her up! She was sooooo excited about that!

our little cheerleader finally found us in the crowd and had a wave hello!

 

I think we may have created a cheer leading monster because she woke up the next morning asking if she was going to get to cheer at that night's game!

Halloween 2012

Our Halloween celebrations started on Friday this year.  Brinley wore her costume to school to participate in the storybook parade.  That evening, we went back to school (actually I never left since I was up there decorating and setting up) for the Monster Mash dance.  The kids had fun dancing to the music and trying crazy food like zombie boogers (chickpeas), rat droppings (raisins), vampires blood (V8 juice) and zombie brains (crushed pineapple) as part of the fear factor booths.

 

Brinley and Clayton with our neighbors at Monster Mash 

Saturday, after soccer games in the morning, was our only chance to carve pumpkins.  The kids had a great time picking out the gooey part of the pumpkin. This year, the kids opted to pick out a pre-designed template and for daddy to carve them verses them drawing and cutting out the pumpkins themselves.  So, we then collected all the seeds and I toasted the seeds with a yummy recipe I made from pinterest.   

Saturday night was our church Halloween carnival, so the Walker's joined us! For only $10, we played all the games and ate lots of yummy food.

Austin, Clayton, Addison, and Brinley

The kids wore their spooky shirts on Halloween

Halloween night, the kids put on their costumes and were ready to trick or treat! Jason had worn his costume to work, so the kids begged him to wear his costume.  He took them trick or treating around our circle.

Jason then took over candy duty while I took the kids (along with the our neighbors) to the next circle over from us.  This circle was hopping with trick or treaters and we ran into many friends from school.

At one point, Clayton was stopped going up to the doors because he was tired.  I found him like this...

Me and my babies

Halloween was a great success and I am glad it is over! I think Halloween should be celebrated the last Saturday of the month to prevent this week long of celebrating with it being in the middle of the week! Regardless, the kids had a great time!!!!!

Pumpkin Patch

After church on Sunday, we headed to a church that has an awesome pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins for carving.  We usually visit the Oil Ranch pumpkin patch every year, but our hectic schedules have not allowed us to do that this year :-(

 

The kids a fun time running around and trying to find the biggest pumpkin and walking through the pumpkin house.  Even Jason was impressed with how big some of the pumpkins were.  We chose our pumpkins, took some pictures and headed home to relax!

 Brinley with the pumpkin she picked out to carve

 Clayton had more fun trying to pick up the big pumpkins

 Brinley pulling the wagon with her and Clayton's pumpkins

 Clayton had to help push the wagon once Daddy added his pumpkin inside.

Tooth Fairy gets some help

Ever since Brinley lost her first tooth in August, she has been wiggling and eating lots of apples to get the other ones to come out.  About 3 weeks ago, I looked at her mouth and realized that another adult tooth had come in behind her baby teeth.  We waited 3 weeks, but the baby teeth were not loose at all.  We went to the dentist on Monday, and he confirmed what I had been thinking, we were going to have to pull 3 teeth so those adult teeth could move up.

 Brinley was very excited about having her teeth pulled (weirdo!) only because she was going to be able to leave 3 teeth for the tooth fairy! Friday morning, we dropped Clayton off at school and headed to the dentist.  They used the gas mask to relax her, numbing cream to numb the gums before giving the Novocain shot.  He told me it would take an hour, but she was done in 30 minutes because she did so well! She did not fight anything and he said she asked 5 times if she was going to be able to take the teeth home.

After the numbness wore off, I asked her if it hurt and she replied, "Not one bit!" The only thing my little trooper complained about was having to eat soft foods all weekend.  It never bothered her (I wish I had her pain tolerance!) She was very excited that the tooth fairy left her $10 for her 3 teeth and bought herself headphones to listen to her music on.

Thankfully, it was a wonderful experience all around.  I was fearful that it would traumatize her and I would never get her back to the dentist, but that was not the case at all!!!

Soccer

Our lives have become engulfed in soccer.  With both kids playing this year, we now practice two days a week and have two games on Saturday.  We hit the jackpot for the first games this past Saturday because both kids played at the same location right after each other.  I know this is probably the only time I will be able to enjoy that luxury and I will probably be missing most of Brinley's games due to taking Clayton to his (since Jason coaches her team), so it was nice to get pictures of both kids playing this past Saturday!

 

Clayton is playing with the 4/5 year old team since after he went to camp this summer, it was determined he was too good and too aggressive to play with the 3 years olds.  It was a good call because he is still pretty dominant over the 4/5 year old as well....his Daddy is so proud! In his game, he scored the only 4 goals for his team.  He loves soccer and would play/practice everyday if we let him!

 Of course, he spends most of his time talking/narrating what is going on!

 first goal of the game

Brinley is in her 3rd year playing soccer.  They have moved up to playing 4-on-4 on a much bigger field.  It amazes me the level of play the girls are doing compared to last year! They are playing positions, passing the ball and strategizing! She scored a goal in her scrimmage last week, but did not get one for her first game.  With the bigger fields, defenders, etc, the scores are a lot lower than last year.