Happy Birthday Dad!

Yesterday Gavin wrote out his letter to Santa Claus and put it in the mail.  Then he decorated his Christmas tree in his room with a little help from Austin.

Gavin is very proud of his Christmas tree.  Austin is slowly learning to stay away from the tree and not touch the ornaments, although he did knock down Gavin's tree today and put two of the ornaments in the trash can which I found later.  At least I found them.  I think Austin threw away the beaters to my standing mixer.

Anyway, the kids played with the duploes this morning.  I didn't get many pictures because I was making Dad's birthday cake (without my mixer but luckily I have a little hand mixer for back up), chocolate cake with choclate frosting.  I even made the frosting from scratch and I think it turned out rather well.  Half of it was gone by the end of the meal so it must have been okay at least.

Austin decided to take a bath a little early today.

 

It's Christmas!

First of all, I haven't been posting regularly and I am going to do better this month!  I have a few pictures of Gavin making a pumpkin pie last week.  He did it all himself, even cracking open the eggs.  Unfortunately, I ruined it in the cooking process and we couldn't eat it.  I was going to post these last week but I was too heartbroken.

Today Dad put up the Christmas lights outside.  They look awesome!  Gavin and Austin helped supervise...actually, Austin helped supervise and Gavin played football.

Momentary distraction...

Then we came inside for some hot cocoa which made the boys very happy!

 

Then we decorated the tree, which we picked out after church.

Dad even let Gavin have the very important job of putting the star on the top of the tree!

I think we did a good job!

All About Austin

This morning Austin went to Little Gym to play.  He had a great time, as always!  Gavin had to go with us this morning and hang out in the front lobby the whole time.  He was very patient and only got my attention when the draw string on his pants came untied and his pants were falling off.  I guess that was a legitimite excuse!

Austin went right over to get his cha chas for the opening song and shook them enthusiastically.

Then he tried the balance beam all by himself!

Next he found a tunnel to crawl through.

He thought about climbing the top of the tunnel but that proved difficult.

Then on to some climbing equipment.

A little rest at the top.

Then back to the balance beam.

And on to random running in circles.

After he got home, Austin took a nap and then spent most of the afternoon playing with his little people.

He was reading this brochure while eating his snack and as soon as I got out the camera he closed it and smiled at me!  Sneaky little thing...

After discovering the magnets don't work on the cabinets, Austin got out a pot and starting putting them inside one at a time and banging the lid on after each magnet went in making a very nice, satisfyingly loud noise.



Field Trip

This morning Dad went hunting.  Gavin said he was glad Dad had on his long Papa John's to keep him warm!  Gavin went on a field trip with his school to see the basketball arena at the college.   Gavin had really been looking forward to it all week!

When he got home he wanted to play basketball of course so we all went outside.

We haven't been up to much this week!  Maybe next week will be more exciting...