Collin and his Baby

While organizing photos the other day, I came across a theme in my pictures that made me laugh. Tanner is one loved little brother! (Sorry for the repeats if you're on Instagram)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here!

The boys recently had their annual gingerbread house making day with Grandma. This was the first year Collin was old enough to go and let me tell you, he was one proud little boy to be included! He marched right into "Mamaw's" house and couldn't wait for me, Drew and Tanner to leave for a dentist appointment Drew had so he would have an hour or so with Mamaw alone (not to worry, Drew came right back to the candy and gingerbread as soon as his little choppers were clean....his dentist was thrilled, I'm sure). 

The houses were all decorated at Grandma's house, but made their way to ours later that afternoon when they had dried enough to make the car ride over without losing bits of candy. I wanted to snap a picture of all three finished houses (Grandma made one for Tanner too) but of course, Collin had to jump in with a silly face (his signature photo face right now). The houses from left to right: Drew's, Tanner's, and Collin's.

And because one day of fun wasn't enough this year, the boys headed back to Grandma's a week or so later to make gingerbread trees to go along with their houses. The perk to this extra day was not only two very happy boys, but a chance for me to finish up some last bits of Christmas shopping almost kid free as well (Kathleen, you are so good to me! Thank you again!).

The finished trees. Drew's is on the left, with an abundance of  frosting "snow" and "grass" around the foot of his tree, and Coll-brother's is on the right.

We are also finally finished decorating for Chistmas! We had a late start, but as of this week, our tree (which was the last thing to be done) is all decorated. I let Drew help me out one day while the younger boys were napping. It turned out to be a fun way to spend some one on one time with my big kid. We had fun together and he did a great job hanging ornaments and helping me out!

When Collin woke up, we let him add a few ornaments as well.

And then when Nathan came home later that night, Drew got to add the star to finish it off (shocking he's in just chonies, I know).

So now, our stockings have been hung by the chimney with care...

...and the letters to Santa have been written.

In fact, they've even been mailed off at a special mailbox just for the Big Guy himself :)

I love so much about this season and as we eagerly await the fun and excitement that Christmas day brings, I can't help but imagine the anticipation and excitement the shepherds felt after seeing a star in the East and realizing that the Savior they had long awaited had finally arrived. What an extraordinary gift to reflect upon and rejoice in this season!

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever."

-Isaiah 9:6-7

Three Things

It's been a long while, but Three Things is making a comeback!

So, Three Things about...

Drew:

1. Never, ever wears actual clothing unless he absolutely has to. A pair of chonies, and just a pair of chonies, is his uniform of choice these days.
2. Until just recently, still called the dryer "the warmy washing machiner" which always makes me laugh.
3. Loves to create, color, and build. This sort of encompasses quite a bit, but lately he's been loving all things Lego (surprise, surprise) and any craft that gives him an excuse to use scissors and tape.


Collin:

1. Loves "his" baby. Tanner is the first thing Collin asks for or about when he wakes up in the morning. When Tanner's sleeping or napping he'll ask where he went (and the slightest peep on the baby monitor sends Collin running in to check if he is awake). I've gotten pretty quick at hopping up to beat him to Tanner's door, as many a nap have been ruined by Collin running in to "check" (read: wake up) his little brother. For the most part though, all of his loving on Tanner is really pretty cute.
2. Turns almost anything he can into a superhero cape and then will go running down the hallway, arms straight out in front of him shouting "Suuuuper MEEEeeee!". This happens with towels, belts, pairs of pants, and as of the late- gift wrapping ribbon/yarn (really, pretty much anything).
3. Talks pretty clearly at this point, but still pronounces a few things in his own way. Among my favorites:
-Wuff Voo (I love you)
- "Woo Woo" for fire engines. Actually, these days its been "Fire Woo Woo".
- "Collme". This is in response to being asked what his name is. It came from him always responding that his name was "Me" and us correcting and saying, "No, you're Collin". Somehow the two were morphed into "Collme".
- "Dwoo" for Drew and Tanner, "Tanny"...although lately I've been hearing a lot more "Tan-uh".


Tanner:

1. Smiles at everything and is starting to coo.
2. Weighed 15 pounds at his last checkup (Guess he's out to prove that he is indeed just like his brothers)
3. Still waking up once or twice a night, but seems to be falling into a semi predictable nap routine...semi predictable. We still have a ways to go :)

Thanksgiving Round 2

The best part about having two Thanksgivings is that we get to enjoy two full days of one of my favorite holidays! Christi and Tyler arrived on Friday morning and the festivities began again, only this time at our house! Christi had made us promise to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade with her, so thanks to Tivo, that's exactly what we did! We typically do an early afternoon dinner for Turkey Day, so while we were watching the parade we finished making the rest of the dishes for dinner that we had started prepping the day before. By mid afternoon, the work was done and we were able to enjoy some amazing food and family time. 

Thanksgiving Table decor a la Auntie Jenn Jenn

Auntie Christinie Weenie and Tanner

Poor Tanner's not so sure about all this Auntie Lovin'

Table from one side

Table from the other side

Tanner's first Thanksgiving was spent snoozing

After eating our fill of tryptophan filled turkey, we spent the rest of the afternoon lazily lounging around and relaxing. 

Of course Collin was more about wrestling and playing than he was about relaxing....

For that matter, Drew wasn't much for relaxing either.

The rest of them on the other hand.....

We also came to the shocking realization that Poppi and Tan Tan have matching hairlines!

Uncle Ty Ty and Tanner

Since we were all in one place at one time, we took a family picture for my parents' Christmas card as well. Of course got a few other cute pictures along the way:

Sisters

The boys

Tanner was a trooper through all of the photos, but the second they were done and I handed him over to Jenn, he was out!

This and every year really, we have had so much to be thankful for; it was fun spending two days celebrating that!

Thanksgiving

Well, Blogger and I had our first fight. It was bound to happen eventually (I'm a bit technologically challenged), but man was it a doozy. For nearly three weeks now we've been arguing back and forth over this little blog and what blogger would allow me to do with it. We're back on speaking terms now obviously, but at my own expense. You see, apparently if I'd like to continue sharing all of my photos of the fabulously fun madness that is our life, I am going to have to pay $2.50 a month. I know, it's a measly two and a half dollars....but, it's two and a half dollars! Why on earth does Google need my money?? So the stubborn side of me said that I would not be paying the small sum on point of the matter. I held out for almost three weeks, a time period during which I tried to upload photos every which way I could think of, you know, maybe somehow trick blogger into not knowing I was actually adding forbidden photos. It didn't work. Not even a little. In the end, I came to the realization that I was just going to have to pay for a "free" blog. Well done Google, well done. You win.

But enough with all this arguing business, there are better things to talk about!

We have officially made it through our first month (actually, almost two now) of having a new baby, packing a house, moving, and unpacking, Thanksgiving and the influx of family that came with it (ok, that wasn't actually surviving. I thrive on the craziness of family time spent) and now here we are...with an awful lot of catching up to do.

I'm pretty sure I mentioned this in a previous post, but my mom came to stay with us shortly after Tanner was born and was able to stay through Thanksgiving. I'd like to say that we survived the first month and moving and Thanksgiving because we are just that amazing, but the reality is my mom deserves a lot of the credit. It was heaven having her here! Seriously. I truly believe after this last month that I am a direct descendent of Superwoman herself. My mom came in like a small hurricane, planted me on the couch, and took charge. And I do mean took charge. She took care of sick kiddos (greeeeaaat timing with that bug since we had nothing else going on in our world at that time), entertained them when they got better, took care of me and made sure that my hiney was firmly planted in the closest chair at all times. I learned really quickly that my mom is a post C-section rule follower to an annoying "T". I wasn't allowed to lift, move, work, cook, pick up kids, pack....hey wait, that isn't really sounding all that bad. Hmmmm, Mom, you up for a trip back?? Anyway, the point is, she was amazing and a huge, huge help. Between her and Auntie Jenn I have a rather large debt to pay in terms of returning favors.

A few weeks later, the rest of my family arrived. I always love when my family is in town. It's madness, but the best kind of madness. And this year, though I loved much about the time we had together, easily my favorite part of the entire Thanksgiving weekend was this:

Auntie Kell meeting Tanner for the first time! So sweet and long overdue. She wasn't able to come down when we had him since she is still in school and couldn't take the time off. There was a perk to this though, because since she hadn't had any time with Tanner yet, she automatically had "dibs" on Baby T the entire weekend. Baby hog Christi and Baby Hog Jenn couldn't help but hand him over...

For Thanksgiving day itself, my sisters and I traditionally spend the day with our hubby's family. This year, since my parents and Kell were in town and since Burkie's mom happened to be out of town and Jenn and Burke were on their own, they all joined in on our Thanksgiving with Nathan's family. Doug and Kathleen made an amazing feast and it was fun to be able to spend time with everyone at once (Kim and Dana, you were definitely missed in that crowd!).

Before all of the Thanksgiving festivities begin with my in-laws though, we usually spend the morning together each baking something to bring to our respective Thanksgiving dinners that night. This year, Jenn really wanted to run the Turkey Trot before we started baking (its a little 5K on Thanksgiving morning here in town). My mom, after calculating it all out, decided that it was going to cost way too much for all of us to run it and decided to host a trot of her own. She brought home participant numbers for the boys to make and decorate and Turkey Trot necklaces. So, before anyone touched the kitchen this year, we spent the morning decorating and coloring, and then headed out for what has been declared a new annual tradition: Lala's Turkey Trot.

The Turkey Trot not-so-necklace. It seems that the boys wanted to wear the necklaces in any fashion other than actually wearing them around their necks.

Pre-walk festivities were obviously very exciting for Tan Tan

Participant numbers (the date of Thanksgiving this year)

Where there are stickers, there is fun to be had!

...especially when Poppi is involved!

Who's going to win the run Drewski?

Heading out for Lala's first annual Turkey Trot

It was foggy and cold that morning...the first real morning its felt like fall. Such a welcome change!

All of the 5K participants

Team Sloan

When the Turkey Trot was all said and done it was time to head back home to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade, brine our turkey for Thanksgiving round 2 (we celebrate with my family on Friday and prep Thursday morning), and prepare our tasty portion for our hubbys' family Thanksgiving that night.

Learning how to brine a turkey

Love my boys!

The Thanksgiving table at Doug and Kathleen's house

Daddy finally managed to snag Baby T from my baby-hogging-sisters! It was a fight to get just a few minutes with the little guy while they were here!

The Mommas

GGma (Nathan's grandma), Nathan and Great Aunt Karen with Tanner

Sisters!

Me and my favorite mother-in-law! I realized recently I have very few pictures with me actually in them, an unfortunate side effect to always being picture taker. So this year, I made sure to jump in a few!

Thanksgiving was fantastic. It always is. It's one of my favorite holidays for that very reason....good food, great company, and plenty of fun to be found! I'll post Thanksgiving round 2 sometime later this week.....