4 am

My sister-in-law stayed at our house Thursday night in preparation for a 4 am shopping start time on Friday. We woke up at 4, but didn't get on the road until 4:50. It turns out that is early enough. We got some great deals and didn't really hit the crazy crowds until we got to Target...

...where we stood in line for an hour! We shopped for a bit and then I asked Melissa if she wanted to hold our spot. It worked out great - I grabbed a couple more things and she was able to grab some items while she was in line since the line literally wrapped around the store!

I plan to do this every year from now on. It was awesome! I'm hoping to be able to convince Melissa that she needs to go every year as well - it was fun to have a shopping buddy, especially one who kept me on track and kept pointing out cool stuff that I needed to buy!

happy Thanksgiving/birthday

We made it to my parents house on Friday to celebrate Thanksgiving. Since nobody could get to their house, it was a full-on normal Thanksgiving feast full of family and delicious food! In fact, it felt so real that my uncle David asked what channel the game was on. That is success! :)

Even though it was a great Thanksgiving, I failed to take any pictures. I did however, take plenty of pictures of Andrew's birthday.

My aunt gave the boys some cash for their birthday (we never made it to Bham for Mason's birthday like we had planned). I tucked it in Mason's back pocket and it was cracking us up to see him walk around with it sticking out while he went about playing. (It's not as funny as I write it here, but trust me, it was hilarious!).

My mom's back went out while she was trying to pull up the blinds, so she had to take a break on the couch. It's my job to make fun of her, so I couldn't resist a quick picture. :) She was okay - just needed to take a rest before she could get off the couch.

Thanks for a fun belated Thanksgiving/birthday!

our little turkeys

For some reason my boys don't really like turkey, so we packed or own pb&j before heading off for Thanksgiving dinner. They don't know what they're missing!!

It wasn't worth the risk to drive to my parents house today in the snow, so we postponed it until tomorrow. Luckily for us Melissa was hosting, lives close, and had enough wonderful turkey dinner for us to join in on their fun! And even luckier - now we get two fresh Thanksgiving dinners! :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

white Thanksgiving

evidence of growth

I'm not sure if he's growing on track, but at least there is evidence of growth! He couldn't reach this little light a couple weeks ago!

And now a little evidence that he's cute... For some reason he really fell in love with his reflection today!

And yes, those are belts around his neck. Don't worry, I only let him play with four at a time. :)

Mason says happy birthday

In an effort to keep Andrew's birthday post a reasonable size, I thought I'd make a separate post on how Mason celebrated...

He loves this hat. It always gets turned around or gets pulled over his eyes, but if I try to take it off he asks to have it back.

This is brotherly love right here. Andrew was playing with this animal train he has (the train cars are pockets and you have to match up the animal with the matching letter on the train) and Mason started taking the animals and hiding them between his legs!! He sure is sneaky.

During lunch today I was acting like the oven mitt was a puppet - the boys were loving it! A few minutes after they were down from the table, Mason found the mitt and would just hold it up and laugh. His puppet show was way cooler than mine. :)

Grandma and grandpa gave the boys their Thanksgiving goodies and they both scored this festive headpiece. Does he look tough or what?!

he really is four...

I have always loved birthdays and I hope my boys grow up loving their birthdays too. Here's what we did today to celebrate our cutie turning four!

Our birthday tradition.

During breakfast, he got his first birthday phone call from Kai and Mayli - they sang him happy birthday! Andrew thought it was pretty cool but I think he was more excited to tell Ryean that he got the same Batmobile as Kai! :)

The puppet show, continued.

Dancing.

More presents from grandma & grandpa Dyk!

Dinner at Red Robin (and more presents from Aunt Melissa!)

When they came to sing to him he wouldn't look at anyone but me. I'm not sure if he was surprised or embarrassed or a little of both. Whatever the reason, it was adorable!

Andrew ended the night with a little upset stomach. He said it was from the ice cream and told me that for his 'five birthday' that I should tell them to serve the ice cream in a smaller cup for him.

I love Red Robin for birthdays and they just got even cooler - they gave Mason his own little scoop of ice cream! It's perfect! And I guess that's what I'll get for Andrew's birthday next year. :)

Happy birthday to the coolest big kid I know!

four

Happy birthday, Andrew!

hot cocoa

Not sure who had more fun, me or them... :0)

all bundled up

I was only willing to take pictures outside for about two minutes and then I headed back inside. As I was going through my pictures it made me laugh because I couldn't find one picture showing Mason's face.

Maybe he was a little too bundled up, but it was cold out there!!

Luckily for Andrew, Matt loves the snow! They had a lot of fun playing outside for a while tonight. And I had fun watching from inside. We've decided that Mason likes it when it's snowing, but doesn't really like the snow. It's pretty hard for him to walk in his snow boots. And he probably couldn't move very well with all the layers... Next year will be his year. :)