Jon and the Chimpanzee

The first picture is the boys on the fake turtle at the zoo. It was 70 degrees on Monday, so Daddy decided to join us at the zoo.

Jon fashions himself as a bit of a showman. So, he decided to try to communicate with this chimp at the zoo...we were in the observation deck without the glass. Jon decided to make chimp-like sounds to be funny. I am not sure if the chimp found it funny or annoying...I guess annoying...so the chimp walks down the ravine and picks up a piece of something and throws it at Jon. Then he stands up tall and watches us, picks up either poop or dirt and throws it at Jon.

The kids thought it was hilarious and we had a very nice time! The weather was amazing, it wasn't crowded at all and all the animals were out.

Santa Pic 2010

I think it's priceless. Notice how large Evan looks compared to tiny, weeping Luke;). Within 2 minutes of getting off Santa's lap, Luke was no longer crying and concerned Santa had not heard his request for an At-At Walker through his sobbing. If he has to talk to a therapist about how we forced him to sit on Santa's lap one day, at least he will have the At-At Walker to ease his sorrows.

Holiday Adventures

After Luke's holiday show, we picked up Evan from school and headed to lunch....the boys chose Einstein's Bagels. After lunch we headed to the Galleria to see Santa. I will upload a picture, but let's just say Luke was less than enthused. The good news is that last year he was crying and picking his nose, this year just crying...surely that's progress.

The boys picked out a Christmas cookie and we tried to enjoy the very busy mall;).

The boys voted to go see Yogi Bear. Honestly, it was less than entertaining. Okay, I could have taken a nap if I were not responsible for rationing out gummi bears and popcorn.

We had a really fun afternoon and let the boys talk us into looking at Christmas lights after dinner and baths!

An old friend returns home

This is enough for a CSI episode. Right around Thanksgiving Luke's special brown dog disappeared. We looked everywhere, called everywhere we had been, asked at school and promised to get him a new one. There were lots and lots of tears. Brown dog had been bought by Jon at the hospital gift shop for Evan after he was born. Evan never really attached himself to him, but he was adopted by Luke.

When we went to congratulate Luke after his holiday show, he casually told us that brown dog was safely in his backpack and had simply gone to visit Lila(his classmate and friend) at her house for awhile. We thought he was kidding, but Brown was in his backpack and had been found in Lila's backpack. Lila's mom had no idea and Luke was sure, he just wanted to have a sleepover at Lila's for awhile.

We are very happy to have our Brown Dog back home with us....his brother "Tan Dog" will be appearing in Luke's stocking(as close to a replacement as I could find):).

Luke's Holiday Program

Post performance euphoria

He's in there somewhere...

There he is in the reindeer sweater!

Warm-up!

Luke did a great job at his holiday show....he sang every song and danced with lots of enthusiasm!

Evan was a school, so Jon and I got to show up extra early to get front row seats. He was absolutely adorable. Well, he was adorable for a 3 year old...my most favorite age ever (can you sense the sarcasm):).

Jon did lots of video and he will upload it in the next couple days.

Luke and Mommy have a sick day...

I felt under the weather all day on Wednesday...well all week really. Last night it hit me with a sore throat, fever and just general yuck.

Evan went to school, but Luke and I were together all day. When Evan was this age and I was sick with him(or both of them), it was a disaster. I would count down the moments until Jon came home or he went to bed. Luke is my cuddle bug and movie lover. So, we laid on the couch for most of the day watching movies and snoozing. Of course it included the 50th go-round of Empire Strikes Back, but we also did Beauty and the Beast, The Jungle Book and Toy Story2.

I am still feeling run down, but much better after napping most of the day. Being sick AND taking care of kids is not one of the best parts of being a Mommy.

Evan's Christmas Show

Evan's Christmas Program was Wednesday at church. It is quite an improvement...my parents would agree...on the old Catholic school Christmas Shows. They have it split so Kinder-2nd goes on one day and 3rd-6th on another day. Our show was at 1:15 PM so there were no overtired, cranky 5,6,and 7 year olds. It was hard to get pics or video because the whole church was filled with parents and family.

They show was a fabulous. Evan did a great job. As you can see, he is in the back row...a status I believe he is going to keep for the duration. It is such a nice school and church community and it is at moments like the Christmas show that I feel so blessed and thankful we found such a great fit for our family!

Our Elf Buddy

...is clearly in his 2nd career after his career as a pole dancer.....disturbing!

More cookies...

My food pictures never turn out great or do my food justice....it may because my camera isn't so great.

The top ones are iced molasses cookies....they are one of my favorites and the bottom ones are chocolate crinkles. At this moment, the crinkles are already gone. I guess they are everyone's favorite.

I made another batch of Chocolate Chunkers from my new Baking bible:). They are so good, that I may freeze half of them or at least hide them. The have baking chocolate, semi sweet and white chocolate along with raisins. Really amazing!

Christmas Cookies

The 3 boys worked on icing sugar cookies and a Gingerbread house on Sunday. There was lots of crying and fussing...all from Jon...regarding the house so it fell down and I have been told we will never make one again.

The boys had a great time with the cooking. I am pretty sure they licked every single utensil used to out the icing on the cookies, so I will "save" these particular cookies just for them.:)

Beef Barely Soup

I made this soup last week. It is from the new Barefoot Contessa book. I know it seems that I am obsessed with her, but I love her cooking and I love that there usually are not 85 techniques involved to get a super yummy dinner on the table. This one used oxtails for the beef flavoring. I think Jon was a little disappointed there was not more actual meat, but such is life.

I also made the Italian Wedding Soup this week. I loved it, but I am not sure if anyone else did. The meatballs were a little extensive to make since they are so small, but it was delicious. I forgot to take a pic because it was a post soccer rushed dinner. The natives were restless:).

Luke and Mommy's Excellent Adventure

Jon and Evan are off on their first Adventure Guides campout this weekend....hopefull Jon will get some pics I can share. They seem to be having a great time...they left Friday and get back tomorrow.

Lukey and I are having "girls" weekend...teehee.

We got pizza and watched Shrek the Halls last night. Today we went for a run, went to lunch and saw Tangled. We are going to go to dinner with friends this evening.

I got all my Christmas cards done last night and watched one of my favorite movies, Love Actually.

Jon was out of town for part of the week, so Luke misses him. I am used to solo duty, so one less kiddo=a lot easier. I am not going to lie, all male peoples are hard to clean up after, take care of, etc. They are generally messy, not extremely grateful, smelly and they loathe cleaning up after themselves. So, though I miss them, being down to 1 boy has made keeping the house intact, MUCH EASIER!

It's been a month...

Evan doing his perfromance at Granparents Day

Grnadma and Evan weaving a vest

Cutie Evan

Papa and Evan

since I have posted. Lots of interesting happenings here, but mostly we had a fire at the house on Friday, November 5th. Everyone who reads this already knows the details, but it took us a few weeks to get everything taken care of, cleaned up and mostly back to normal. All of a sudden it was Thanksgiving, so that's my excuse.

Grandma and Papa came for Thanksgiving and were here for about a week. The boys love having them around and for the most part, I think they enjoyed themselves.

The pics above are Evan at Grandparents Day with Grandma and Papa. I think they all had a FABULOUS time!

I have absolutely zero pictures of my food...not sure why. The Barefoot Contessa Truffle Butter Turkey was a huge hit.

Jon, Papa and I headed out to do the turkey Trot in the morning. It was cold, but we were all happy that we did the race.

We have so many thing to be thankful for and we were very blessed to have Grandma and Papa join us for Thanksgiving!:)