Tyson's 7th birthday!

It's funny when you look at pictures of your kids from a few years back and think how little they looked.  Tyson is staring to look so grown up to me! I can't believe he has been in my life for 7 years!  He is such a good kid.  

Once again we were sick on Tyson's birthday.  We ALWAYS get sick after Christmas.  It makes me not want to visit with so much family after Christmas but I'm sure by next year I'll change my mind.  At least Ty is old enough that he understands why no one comes to his birthday and everyone else goes to his cousins and brothers birthdays.  I try really hard to make it extra special for him.  

 Tyson got  DS from Santa so he was really excited to get a game he has been looking at online forever now from Blake.  He hugged him and everything.  It was hard for him to care about much else he got for awhile.  We were all feeling better but Brett still had a cough and it has been REALLY REALLY cold this year. Bryan picked up some pizza and Grandpa Palmer came over for some cake.  Grandma Palmer had shingles of all things poor lady and didn't dare come around Brett who isn't old enough for the chicken pox shot.

 Ty loves to build things and I've been nervous to buy him legos because of little baby brothers who put little lego pieces in their mouth so I have loved Trio blocks!  They are bigger and Tyson loves to build with them.

 I always make some grand (well they aren't grand but take a long time) cake for their birthdays and I even bought little mario people to put on top but even though I had been sick for a week I still didn't feel too well.  I asked him if he wanted me to make him a cake or eat razzelberry pie from Marie calendars and he went for pie.  Score!  It's his favorite so he was happy and I was really happy to not have to spend all day making a cake.

 It has been a few years since I had a friends birthday party so we did a mario themed one.  I should post a pic of his invite because it was cute.  I didn't invite too many kids because I didn't want to over do it.  He had 4 little friends and Blake here for it.  We played some simple little games like mario bingo, pin the mustache on the mario, smash the boo balloon.  We made special coin boxes and they earned coins for games they played.  (that sounds fancier then it was).  The highlight was the pinta.

 When it is zero degrees outside (not even kidding) so my garage is like 40 degrees.  I didn't want the kids to freeze so a couple of hours before the party we put some heaters in the garage.  After a hour it was like 42 degrees in there.  So my friend let us borrow a few of her space heaters and we kept tripping the breaker with all the heaters plugged in!  Bryan got the bright idea to turn on his camp chef  flame in there so it was like having a fire pit to warm it up.  It worked! So we keep the kids away from it while they hit the dragon.

 The kids hit the feet off the little guy which they thought was really funny.  Then one of the boys hit the tail RIGHT INTO THE FIRE! They laughed and laughed about it.  I'm pretty sure it was the highlight of the party.  We turned off the burner and it posed no harm or anything.

 I'm grateful to live in a area where Ty can have so many cute little friends that live close by.  I hope he had a great birthday. I love you Tyson!

2012 Christmas

I'm not totally sure why but I had a lot of anxiety about this years Christmas!  I was worried Ty would be upset with his present because he kept asking for something else the couple of weeks before and I didn't know if I got Blake the right stuff.  After all the work I put into buying all of their stuff I just really wanted it to be perfect. 

I was all ready with my phone to take a video in one hand and my camera in the other to take pictures of them coming around the corner and my hand bumped my phone and I missed the reaction of Tyson's on video.  I was so sad! You can kind of see in the next picture him being excited about the huge pile a presents there.

Santa left them angry birds in their stockings.  Stockton thinks he needs all of them.

Notice how Stockton is holding onto candy and not caring about his present?  That's how the morning started.  He wanted to eat the treats instead of open his stuff.  Later he got really into it and started opening whatever present was under the tree. 

 Tyson got a 3 DS from Santa.  He has been asking for a WII U for the last few weeks so when he opened it he said "this isn't what I asked for.  Maybe this is Blake's. " But once he saw it has a new mario game on it he was ok with it.  He has already beat his mario game too.

 Stock's Birdy shirt

 Stocktons wiggle car from my parents.  That will be more fun next summer.

This is my gift from my parents.  It really warms my basement up and I love it!

This was Bretty's first Christmas! He actually loved sitting there eating the wrapping paper and playing with the boxes.  He was on content little guy all morning.

I finished his stocking on the 23rd at like 11 pm.  

hulk punchers!! Blake also got a dream lite, something he has asked for forever!

When we were almost done unwrapping presents Bryan pulled two boxes from behind the tree for the boys.  I had no idea what they were.  They opened them at the same time and they were BB guns.  I think my boys are too young for them but Bryan promised to have them locked up unless he is helping them. They love them!

The aftermath!

Jedi Blake.

Christmas Eve 2012

I actually love Christmas eve more then Christmas- I love the anticipation leading up to Christmas morning! We met my in laws at village inn for breakfast.  It was a really fun way to start the day.  It was a VERY snowy day!  We got about 5-6 inches down.  Bryan was snow blowing our drive way every couple of hours.  (more because he loves to do it)..

 Stockton loved being out with the boys in the snow.  It's too bad it was too cold for it to be good packing snow.

 Ready for Christmas eve at Grandma Palmers!

 We do a nativity every year.  Brett was the "saddest baby Jesus I've ever seen" according to Tyson.

 We did our tradition of reading a book they would read to Bryan and his bothers and sisters when they were kids "I wonder when he comes again". I was surprised how well the kids sat.  It's kind of a long book!

 We sang christmas songs

 ate some yummy cookies

Getting santa's cookies ready.  I asked the boys if they wanted to make the cookies or buy them and they said buy.  I was like right on. One less thing to do! They got their PJ's that I always get them.  Brett has some just like Stockton.  Blake did his annual throwing a fit over getting PJ's instead of a toy bit.  I hope he catches on that I do this every year by next year.  Stockton of course had to taste test santa's cookie.

Then went home and got ready for bed!  I promised the boys they could have a sleep over in Stockton's room which they were excited about.  (I honestly wanted to be able to hear them open the door and sneak out if they tried.) It bothered Stockton to have them in there and he cried about it a little bit. It was like 10:30 though so I think he was just way tired.

I just love Christmas eve.

My Piano guy

Stockton is ALWAYS keeping me on my toes! I went into his room one morning and found him like this:

 He was very proud of himself that he had undressed himself.  Lucky for me THIS TIME he didn't pee but don't worry, he has done it before.  Then he points to where he went and says "I pee Mommy".  If only he cared to go in the toilet...

 Every time Tyson does good on one of his spelling tests Bryan goes and gets the boys jr. Frosty's .  We are a frosty family for sure!

 I had on the Grinch that stole Christmas and I noticed Stockton's face looked like this.  It's so cute and so hard to watch him grow up.  I feel like I have forced him to grow up too fast when I had Brett.

Blake is in what I call the "piano guys faze" .  They are a group of guys that video a pianist and a cellist all over playing cool songs and Blake LOVES them!  He carries a violin I have all around the house with him and "plays" it.  He won't let me actually teach him (I teach violin lessons) so he just plays the open strings.  We were watching them on TV when he made his own cello light saber.  I caught him out in the snow playing the violin just like Steve from the piano guys who plays his cello in the snow in one of the videos.  When I say he likes them it's a understatement.  He is close to obsessed. At least it's somewhat classical stuff and I like it too.  I hope he will let me teach him the violin now! 

 Brett is loving our tree.  We just went to a tree lot and picked one out.  We didn't get to go up in the mountains and get one this year.

 We are so excited for Christmas around here!

And last but not least Bryan pretending to play Blake's violin.