December, etc..

Well, we made it through Christmas and into 2013.  The month of December really flew by and included a lot of fun times with the kids.  Each morning leading up to Christmas the kids had a blast searching for Buddy (our elf on the shelf).  Haden is a bit too wise and a few times said that mom and dad are the Elf.  This may be his last year believing in Santa also. Here is a picture of a naughty thing the elf did one night - and the kids are still talking about it.  Buddy drew on our family picture!

Both kids enjoyed helping me wrap Christmas gifts and place them under the tree.  Haden also helped me make some holiday crafts that we gave to teachers, family, and friends.  On our first day of christmas break we got a nice snowstorm and the kids loved helping Kye with snow removal, but I think they enjoyed coming inside for hot cocoa even better!  Speaking of snow, Kye eagerly awaited the snowstorm because he was itching to use his new snowblower.  I'm glad he loves doing that stuff because I prefer to stay warm inside sipping my coffee.

So, for christmas this year, Santa brought Haden roller skates and James got an art easel.  They both really love their gifts and have spent hours painting, and playing "teacher" with the easel. They also each got R/C trucks and Kye got a R/C helicopter so he and Haden can "battle" now that they each have helicopters.  Some of Haden's other favorite gifts included homemade street signs from Grandpa & Grandma Roth, new legos, erector sets, magnetic chess set, and cars.  James loves his new trains, art supplies, and gumball machine.  James has my sweet tooth and just can't get enough candy or sweet treats!

By Christmas morning, we'd already visited both sides of the family and were able to stay home and hang out as a family.  After opening gifts and playing with some new toys we headed to a park to go sledding.  This was the boys' first encounter with sledding down a hill (although it was a fairly small hill).  We all had a blast.  I'd forgotten how much fun sledding can be.  Now we're in search of a bigger hill, North Liberty is so flat that it's hard to find hills!

This was the first year that we ALL stayed up until midnight to ring in 2013.  We started the evening at a friends house for a kid-friendly party.  We were sure the kids would fall asleep on the ride home, but no luck.  We arrived home at around 11:40 and Haden was determined to stay up the extra few minutes to watch the ball drop, which he has never seen before.  I'm not sure what he was expecting, but he was very disappointed with the ball drop.  Not sure if he was expecting an explosion, but I guess the pretty color didn't do it for him!

I'm going to backtrack a little since I haven't blogged in so long...  We got a new family picture taken in December.  It had been 2 yrs since the previous pic and I had put it off for so long because James had been acting terribly shy at photo studios for the past 18 months or so.  The boys did great at the pictures and hammed it up.  We were excited to get some great pics.  Here are a few of my favorites:

Another great thing that happened in December has the arrival of our carpet for the main room in the basement.  I had been anticipating getting that room done for so long and it finally happened.  We are loving our new space and the kids use it for watching videos and playing cars.  After the carpet arrived I was able to have my new treadmill delivered.  I'm loving my treadmill and have put many miles on it already.  I can't wait for warmer weather so I can run outside, but the indoor running will help me reach some goals I have for 2013.  The gym I belong to encouraged members to submit a list of their 2013 fitness goals and total number of hours you plan to exercise in 2013.  I have never really written down my exercise goals previously although I always have small goals in my head that I'm striving for.  So, 2013 will include mostly running goals for me including my first 1/2 marathon and, fingers crossed, I can continue after that to run the full QC marathon in Sept.  I think that would be a great place for my first marathon since I grew up in that area and it's where I first learned to love running.

I don't like to call them "resolutions" but my other goals for 2013 include:
*walk & brush Moose 5x a week
*Be more patient with the kids
*Be more lax about continually picking up after the kids make a mess- goal is to clean up just once at end of the day (and make the kids help!)
*schedule regular date nights/days for both kids individually so they each get special mommy or daddy time without the other brother tagging along
*aiming for 1 date night with kye/month