Have you ever been so hungry... part 2

Have you ever been so hungry that you kept eating while you were asleep?

Connor has.

Have you ever been so hungry that you ate peanut butter by the spoonfuls?

Dallin has.

Ok, I'm pretty sure I have too.

Christmas-ing

Dallin is enjoying all the cartoon Christmas specials on TV right now. His favorite is the Charlie Brown Christmas. We borrowed that one from the library and watched it several times already. Dallin likes to sit on the warm laundry fresh from the dryer. One night he was watching the Charlie Brown Christmas when I pulled some laundry out. He was conflicted: sit on the warm laundry in the laundry room, or watch Charlie Brown? Solution: he dragged the basket by himself in front of the TV.

The day after Thanksgiving, we got out our Christmas decorations.

Dallin is really excited about Christmas. Specifically, he's excited about the presents under the tree. He's been to several birthday parties over the last few months, so he knows what presents are and he's finally excited for them to be for him. Every morning, he wakes up and asks if it's present day. Don't worry, we'll spend the next month teaching him that Christmas is about more than presents.

We put the tree in a corner and a baby gate in front of it. Connor is at the perfect age where he can get into all kinds of trouble, but doesn't quite understand being disciplined yet. Dallin has figured out a way around the  baby gate. He climbs up on the couch and goes over the arm. 

 

Then he turns the lights on and stacks all the presents from biggest to smallest.

The nativity sets are displayed op top of the bookshelf. Dallin discovered he can reach them by using a laundry basket, step stool, or overturned shoe basket to stand on.

I've found a few sheep and a manger lying around, but nothing is missing so far.

Thanksgiving

We hosted a Thanksgiving dinner at our house and invited some friends to join us.The menu was divided between everyone, so no one family had to provide the whole dinner. 

I made a pecan pie. Dallin ate all my pie dough scraps.

I also made the turkey, using the same brine and roasting recipe for the third year in a row. It's a keeper. 

Mckay helped Connor take a nap while I cooked.

Here is a picture of the whole spread.

We were all starving, so we dug in right after I took this picture. And then we were all too stuffed to think about taking any more pictures. 

Have you ever been so hungry...?

Have you ever been so hungry that you ate right through the wrapper of a granola bar?

Connor has.

Halloween 2012

The weekend before Halloween we had a ward Trunk or Treat at someone's house. There was a bonfire, a big open field where the cars were parked for trunk or treating, and a trail through the woods that the teenage boys turned into a spooky Haunted Trail for the night.

Dallin was a dinosaur this year, a repeat of last year's costume.

 Connor was a monkey, reprising Dallin's role from 2009 and 2010.

Connor was the perfect age for this costume. It fit well, and he is at the perfect "monkey stage," walking unsteadily through the grass, crawling around and getting into everything. 

He loved the dogs locked up behind a fence.

 You can't see in the picture, but they were big dogs with rough barks. They were very nice, good dogs, but I was surprised Connor was not afraid at all.

That's the end of the pictures from the trunk or treat. We were watching a friends child that night so we had 3 kids instead of the usual two. Mckay (being assistant scout master) was helping with the haunted trail, so I had all 3 kids on my own for a while. And Dallin was incredibly terrified of anyone wearing a mask that covered their eyes, so I was holding him, trying to calm him down most of the night. Taking pictures was the last thing on my mind.

Dallin has a buddy at church that often sits next to us. He's 11 and he helps Mckay keep Dallin and Connor sitting quietly while I play the organ. So, Dallin's friend showed up to the party wearing a morphsuit, one of those skin tight spandex suits that covers your entire body and face, like this:

Dallin was absolutely terrified of him!!!! Even when his friend took the face part off so Dallin could see who it was, he would scream again as soon as the mask went back. I'd try to take Dallin far away from him, but Dallin would search though the crowd to find him (trying to make sure he could see the evil monster so it wouldn't sneak up on him, I guess) and then scream and cry again. It was a rough night on the poor kid.

On Halloween, Dallin had a party in his preschool classroom, so he got to take his costume with him to school. He looked like a pack mule on his way out the door that morning.

Then we went trick or treating with some friends in their neighborhood. There was only one run in with a person wearing a scary mask, so Dallin handled the night well. He said "Thank you" and "bye-bye" at every door. Mckay dressed up to fit the theme of the boys' costumes. (And I did a little bit too.) Can you guess who he is?

Any ideas?

We start with a dinosaur, then we progress to a monkey.... he was Charles Darwin. He even brought a copy of the Origin of Species. And I was Darwin's wife. I know throwing on an apron doesn't really make you Darwin's wife, but it was the best "housewife" costume I could come up with in 2 minutes.

 We had a donut eating competition.

 I started out strong, but it is a lot harder than I expected to swallow while laying down.

When we got home from trick or treating, Connor was wiped out.

I love that he was holding a fork the whole time.

Dallin stayed up for another hour or so trying to eat every sucker in his bucket. This is the first year he's actually been interested in eating his candy, so we let him.