Legos

We’ve entered the “real” Lego stage. Before, Corbin had the big ones…duplex blocks, but not anymore. He has officially moved on up and is now working with the real deal.

For Christmas Corbin got a big box of variety Legos and then one Lego set to build a truck.  Today, Corbin and Daddy tackled the Lego truck set and had a blast putting it together.

Finished product! 

SIDENOTE:  Let’s take one moment to notice the gray cabinet/organizer against the wall. I bought it AND assembled it myself….thank you. It was difficult and did take some time (exactly how long shall not be discussed), but I successful completed it all by myself! I’m SO thankful that Chris takes on those projects because I think this is the first and last one I want to do.

Christmas Continued

The weekend before Christmas we spent time with my side of the family. We hung out for the day, opened presents and let the cousins play. They were super cute.

One of his gifts was a grill.  So now we have a grill master at our home. Feel free to drop by and put in your order.

On Christmas Eve we went to my parent’s house in the afternoon. Dad had a project for Corbin. They built a coin holder.  He loved it!

That evening we attended church with my parents and did our traditional soup afterwards. It’s my favorite part of Christmas!

In the morning Corbin woke up and found some gifts from Santa.

Then we drove over to Papa Lee and Grandma Gleason’s house for Christmas Day.

We opened gifts and ate and ate and ate! 

We stayed that night and spent the next day hanging out.  The cousins played really well and it was a nice relaxing day.

(Sorry Uncle Brent, every family picture we took you were cut off.  Oops, guess someone should have checked that we all fit before taking pictures!)

Round One of Christmas Festivities

Last week I had an unfortunate case of congestion and laryngitis but that did not stop me from my week of Christmas fun. 

I had two great girl get togethers: one involved homemade hot chocolate and snacks and the other involved soups and wines, and of course they both had a ton of talking time! Even with my laryngitis I gabbed my little quiet voice down to nothing. But apparently when children are not present neither are our cameras!

So, after a few late nights and not feeling 100% we ended by going over to our sweet neighbor’s house and having pizza and creating some gingerbread houses. It was a good way to unwind.

Building and decorating the houses happened in between eating mouthfuls of the candy decorations…is there any other way to do it?

We feel blessed that God placed these people as our neighbors.  Both Corbin and the girl are only children and they get along fabulously…or not, just like siblings.  It’s like having a sibling for a very short time and that is perfect for both families!

 

After a full week we jetted right into a full weekend.  We celebrated Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa Williams. On Saturday we have a huge dinner with extended family and a day full of hanging out. 

Here’s my sweet niece Clara.  She has such a loving spirit.

Here are the boys.  They were coloring away the morning.

My cute boy!

Just a taste of crazy Mom/Aunt Jenn…they were thrilled.

That night the cousins all stayed at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. They all slept in the same room and had a grand time…or so I heard.  Not going to lie, Chris and I tucked Corbs into bed and then made a dash for the door. We got to go home to our own bed and the sweet sound of silence…thanks Uncle Brent and Aunt April for taking charge of the kiddos!

The normal…

the silly…

and the sweet….

Cuddle time with Grandpa.

Then on Sunday we had presents and relaxation time playing with everything for the rest of the day.

It was a wonderful weekend to kick off our Christmas celebrations!

We headed into this week feeling strong, but unfortunately Corbin came down with what I had. We received our first call from school to come pick up our kiddo. I felt horrible because earlier that morning we took his temperature, talked to Corbin, assessed him and felt he would be ok at school for the day. But by early afternoon they took his temp and it was 101.  Needless to say he was home the next day as well.

But, that just means we started our Christmas break a little early! Corbin and I are now officially off school until January 6th, yahoo!

Hats off to us…

and Merry Christmas!

This and That

Last week Corbin had the stomach bug.  Yuck!  It’s really no fun for him or us, the parents, who have to clean up his mess.  But, we all survived.

When sweet boy naps during the day you know he is sick.  This was an afternoon that Daddy had sick duty and stayed home from work.

(Oh, are you wondering why the mismatched PJs?  Think multiple messes and running out of PJ options…yikes!)

Corbin helped me do some cooking for upcoming parties we have.  Well, bless his heart he tried to be helpful, but things got a lot messy and although I thought I gave clear directions, I apparently did not and some ingredients might have been dumped at the wrong time.  But, we had fun!  He said, “mommy, I’m sorry I just don’t know these recipes.  This is the first time I’ve cooked them.”  So, true!

We also attempted self taken family photos for our Christmas cards.  I’ll admit it, I didn’t want to do them this year.  I really didn’t even want to put up decorations.  I know, “bah humbug” to me.  But, I was content with just listening to my Christmas music.

As usual, Chris rallied the troops and we have decorations up and now we have some family pictures that are on a card.  This is how much time we took…about 10 minutes. 

It was after church, on a rainy day (got rained on), and since the pictures are waist and above there were comfy pants on below my sweater.  Corbin had played with his sweater sleeves during sunday school because they looked big and stretched out, however I wasn’t going to change his clothes.  Finally, I had ice cream waiting for after we successful got some decent pictures. No one is above bribing when it comes to getting a good picture fast.  (And let’s be honest that ice cream was just as much for Chris and I as for Corbin.  Who likes to take pictures?)

These are a few of the attempts:

So, you can see there were no creative things happening, no cute coordinated outfits, and a simple background of a tree you can’t really see.  BUT, we have Christmas cards…so know if you get one (and I’m sure all of my two faithful readers will…hi Mom and GG). These cards were made for you and although we maybe not have made them with a ton of enthusiasm we do send them with lots of love!

Ok, off to start a week of Christmas parties and get togethers!  This week is packed with holiday fun.

Picture Fail

So events have been taking place, but I have not taken pictures!  Seriously, we get done with something and then I remember that I have not taken one photograph. 

But nevertheless, even though there a few pictures to accompany this post, for posterity I’ll recount some events that are noteworthy for me to remember.

1) We hosted Thanksgiving dinner out at our house.  Chris made the most gorgeous turkey and gravy.  It was magazine worthy, but I have no photographic evidence of this….sadness.

2) Corbin had many “melt downs”, “episodes”, “learning moments” on Thanksgiving day. But we persevered and despite cries and hollers from his room during our meal time prayer and regardless of the fact he was carted away numerous times, there is and was much to be thankful for.

3) Grandparents Williams took us to see luminaries at a local garden.  It was beautiful and Corbin really enjoyed the lights…so did we!  The weather was also a balmy 60 degrees.

4) We decorated for Christmas.  I bought some ribbon type material, but regrettable that it had glitter on it.  I spent most of my day cleaning glitter or hearing from my boys that they had glitter on their feet….oh no

5)  I made a trip to the grocery store.  I turned down an aisle and apparently grossly misjudged my turn because my cart hit a Swiss Miss Cocoa display…..and it all fell down.  Embarrassing to say the least, however I was tempted to take a picture just for the blog.  But, I thought that might look suspicious, as if I wanted to run over the display, so I refrained.  I spent many minutes helping a nice employee to pick up all the boxes (around 50 or more?) and redisplay them. 

Ok, I know I’m missing things.  That’s why pictures are so valuable, they jog my memory.  But, those are some highlights from our holiday weekend. 

Hopefully, I’ll have some more pictures to share next time!

Snow and Singing

After battling a massive cold for the past week, I feel like I can now say it’s almost gone.  Whew, it took me out.  But life still moves on and continues.  So, while I was sniffling and coughing we had some early snow and Corbin had his preschool concert.

First, the snow.  Last year I never had any snow gear for Corbin because it never really snows THAT much.  But, of course, last year it snowed a ton.  And each snow we had I thought that would be the last one, why buy things now.  Well, we had many big snows last year and Corbin had NO snow appropriate clothing #momfail.

So, this year I went early and was prepared…almost.  He has a snow bib, snow coat, snow boots, hat.  The only thing I need to get are water proof gloves.  He just has mittens from last year, but this kid is a serious snow player.

Corbin was beyond excited to go out and play in that snow.  His face was nothing but pure joy running around in that snow.  We also have a small hill by our yard.  Since we do not have a sled he improvised.  He would climb up and then slide down on his feet like a snowboard.  Who needs a sled?

 

After playing for hours that day when evening rolled around he was ready to go back out.  But it was dark.  So, Daddy brought the snow into him.  He sat in his bathroom playing with a chunk of ice.  I don’t know what he did or how this entertained him, but apparently it did.  I was sleeping and half alive on the couch with my cold…don’t forget I had a cold.  I know it was horrible

Fortunately, after cancelling all my other plans, taking a day off of work, and resting I was feeling SO much better for Corbin’s preschool concert later in the week.

He did a great job singing and watching his teacher for the actions.  Corbin had a blast performing for his cheering section.  He’s a blessed boy with grandparents and even a great grandma who live close and came out to watch him.