Countdown to Christmas - Cutting Down the Tree

So I bought this cool countdown thing from Land of Nod (not on the site anymore) I could have totally made myself, but I know I'd never get around to it, so....

Lots of the days were things like read Christmas books, watch Christmas movies and the like. Our begin the countdown event was cutting the grandparents Christmas trees. So we are sort of fake Pacific Northwesterners. We have a spider-less, needle falling-less, perpetually hydrated FAKE tree. yes, that's how we roll in the Benza house. But our parents have real trees and we go with them and another family to Bacon's to cut down their trees. Then we go to The Big Apple Diner for breakfast/lunch..I guess brunch.

We spent a lot of time searching for the right trees. It was SUPER windy that day and cold and Gus was sick and we woke him up about 90 minutes earlier than his normal time, so Gus spent a lot of time up on Daddy's shoulders.

Reese had a great time running around checking out everyone's options.

There was lots of picture taking....

....and finally the Gutierrez tree was chosen. Uncle Dylan cut it down.

The Benza grandparents' tree.

Reese really got into helping to cut down Gigi and Granddad's tree.

The Nix family tree.

The boys had to get measured just like the trees.

Reese and Gus got to enjoy the process of perusing the tree farm and cutting down three families' Christmas trees. Kyle and I did not have to water a single one or vacuum a single pine needle or fight off one single grody spider. The best of both worlds!!

Thanksgiving

Did we have Thanksgiving this year you may be wondering? Why yes, yes we did. However we didn't really manage to adequately document it from a photographic standpoint. In fact we did not take one stinking photo of my beautiful bird or any other food for that matter.

I was on the ball at first. Here is Gus helping to make pumpkin pie. We also had apple pie using my self canned apple pie filling which, now that I'm looking for a link I see neither myself or my canning cohort mentioned in our canning posts. All the usual suspects were present. Great Grandma Joyce, Granddad (Kyle's dad), Great Grandpa Bob (you know the greats are for Reese and Gus...they are regular grandparents to Kyle).Kyle and Reese.
Mimi (my mom), Gigi (Kyle's mom), Gus and Reese.and yes I was there and Grandpop (my dad), Poppop (my step-dad), Uncle Travis and Uncle Dylan (my brothers).

We had the traditional turkey. I follow the Alton Brown Roasted Turkey recipe for brining and cooking. This is the 4th year I brined the turkey. I will never prepare a turkey without brine again. It is the best way! You must use a William Sonoma brine bag for the best experience.
Of course we also had mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing (I think I'm sticking with this recipe), brussels sprouts gratin, green bean casserole with homemade cream of mushroom soup, roasted butternut squash, homemade cranberry sauce, hawaiian rolls and for the first time ever I made that sweet potato with marshmallow recipe...it will be coming back every year!

Even though we failed to document it I think a good time was had by all. It's so nice that our boys get to enjoy Thanksgiving with 4 generations of their family!

Cookie Party

I really hope this becomes known as Our First Annual Christmas C ookie Decorating Playdate!

My friend Anya and I had a playdate planned already when we discovered our dear friend Amy was coming into town with her kids for the first time in almost a year. It quickly morphe dinto a gathering of 4 mom friends, a nana, and 19 children aged 10 months to 11 years!!
You would think it would be insane, but it was actually a really fun visit. A relaxed get together even!
Anya made up a zillion sugar cookies in advance so the kids set to work decorating them with frosting and sprinkles and such. We had a delicious lunch and mochas.
It was a great visit made extra special since our friend has been missing from our activities for so long and all of our kids were able to play together so well. The moms were able to fall back into our conversations just as easily as if we'd visited every week over the last year. I sure hope that this can be repeated year after year...even when Amy lives back in town!

Potty Training???

Ha ha no not yet. But Gus decided he wanted to wear underwear one day.

During one of the daily strip downs he also decided to try out the potty.He REALLY enjoyed the wiping portion. He shoved about 6 wipes into the potty. This was the last day of potty interest though. When I ask if he wants to wear underwear and pee in the potty he says no.

Lots of Sleep?

I do not know why I have all these sleeping photos. I am quite sure there wasn't excessive sleeping going on.
Gus has taken to stripping down randomly to put his jammies on. Here he somehow fell asleep sitting on the kitchen table somewhere between the strip down and the donning of the jammies.
This is another freaky one...how did this boy fall asleep in this weird position with that weird facial expression? I have no answer. I think he was supposed to be Captain America frozen in ice.

This was during the sick period so it's not really a weird sleep, just a cute one!

This was so funny. Reese fell asleep and Gus came up out of no where to blow raspberries on Reese's tummy. He never woke up though Gus must have done it for 5 full minutes and laughed hysterically between each raspberry.

Sick boy

Gus had his first stomach bug. Luckily we were watching tv when I heard a not quite right cough from Gus' bedroom. I went running in to find him sitting up in a pile of vomit totally confused. Luckily I got him to the bathroom and the rest managed to go in the toilet.

The next day was spent mostly on the couch holding him. Occasionally I had to get up to do something and he sat so pathetically in his bean bag.

Every single vomit episode caught me off guard. I was in the middle of saying "Do you need to throw up?" while reaching for the bucket when the projectile shot everywhere...only once all over me. blech...

Goofy Brothers

When Grandpop was visiting the boys had to sit next to each other at our little square kitchen table to make room for another adult at the table. These boys are real characters...a comment Reese has been saying a lot lately. I guess someone said this more than a few times in Reese's ear shot.

On a side note Reese has been a ridiculously good eater at every meal for the first time in ages. I figured he must be having a growth spurt so I measured. He's grown almost 2 inches since October 15! That's less than 2 months!

Grandpop's Visit

Grandpop visited from VA for the week of Thanksgiving. This is how Reese and Grandpop spent the mornings while mommy and Gus slept in!The first two mornings Reese woke up way too early and said "I'm ready to see Grandpop!" I convinced him to sleep a bit more and when it seemed a reasonable hour I said he could run down to see if Grandpop was awake. After those first 2 days he just went down without telling me and I blissfully slept on. They sat on Grandpop's bed and ate their cereal and watched movies. This morning we were up in the dark and the freezing cold to take Grandpop to the airporter bus. Of course no one but mom had any interest in going back to bed, so we had some cinnamon buns for breakfast and we're starting our day way earlier than normal. Maybe we can keep up this early morning routine.

Even though I haven't posted I promise I always have a menu plan on my dry erase calendar. Except when we decide to eat out we follow it pretty well. Since we are currently eating Halloween candy and gearing up for Thanksgiving, then Christmas we've got to get a handle on portion control! ha ha!

Monday: Pork Roast, roasted potatoes from our garden, broccoli
Tuesday: Spicy cabbage soba pork (Food Matters Cookbook, soba noodles, napa cabbage and left over pork)
Wednesday: Veggie Stir Fry over Brown Rice
Thursday: Homemade Chicken Soup - use up homemade stock
Friday: Jambalaya
Saturday: AmyLu Sausages/rice/peas casserole
Sunday: Fajitas

Get more menu ideas at Organizing Junkie!

Happy Halloween

Da na na na na Batman! and Robin! I love the idea of coordinated costumes. This is the first year we've done it though because in the past Gus has been whatever Reese was at that size and when we bought the costume to begin with there was no need for coordinated suits. I'm wondering if this is the last year Gus will be willing to do whatever Reese wants.

We started at Mimi's house about 3:30pm. We visited a little and got big gift bags of candy. Really we needn't have gone farther than this one stop with all the candy Mimi piled on, especially since it was the good stuff. No single stick of gum or pixie stick at this house. (Though as a mom I'm thinking one pixie stick per kid is plenty. It's just not enough for the parents.)

Then we had a quick dinner and headed over to my friend's house to trick or treat with them...and their whole cul de sac. UGH. While Reese thought it was great Kyle and I were on sensory overload from too many crazy kids and varying ages. It was a seemingly never ending night of hurry up and wait for everyone to get together. Then a huge jumble at the door and every. single. house had skinny windy stairs. BUT the pay off was good loot. This neighborhood had a high rate of participation and a handful of really good decorators. We saw tons of skillfully carved pumpkins and some pretty intricate yard displays. One even had coordinated music. (Like those crazy shows you see on HGTV at Christmas, but on a smaller scale.)

Batman and Robin with Daddy just when we were getting started. I prefer to start out in the light, but coordinating so many kids (and their pack of adults) took us over the threshold of dusk into actual night. It was super dark and in the cluster I got few decent photos.

The boys were super happy with the whole scene. Reese only once forgot to say Trick or Treat and Thank You at the house of a hanging lady that I think slightly unnerved him. Gus never said Trick or Treat once, though he did it perfectly when we practiced at home. He did however say "tank yooooooo, Next House!" in his southern drawl. It was pretty cute. It also scored him an extra piece of candy at a several houses.

By the end of the night Gus decided he was all done. His pumpkin became too heavy to carry. So he rode in my friend's stroller for the remainder of the houses while Reese continued to Trick or Treat. Then we headed to Gigi's house to visit a little and get some more candy and sort of watch Scared Shrekless. Finally we headed home and got into bed.....at 10:20PM!!!

Pumpkin Patch

We went to an awesome pumpkin patch with some friends way out in Timbuktu. They had a mini maze made out of hay bales that worked really great for the preschool/toddler set.

There was a tricycle track with enough bikes for everyone to have a go round.

The barn had a jump in the hay area. This was a big hit though I found it a little stinky. Outside of this area were some llama, sheep and goats. I didn't get any photos of the animals because just as Gus threw down his hay after changing his mind about feeding the llama he got his very first bee sting. :(

Luckily I had a bee sting wipe in my trusty purse first aid kit that numbed it up a little. It worked well enough for him to carry on with the day though there was a good 15 minutes of crying about that boo boo. We checked out the pumpkins after we got calmed down.

Gus chose this green one beside Reese's foot. Reese chose a little sugar pumpkin to be Daddy's pumpkin and he got some kind of small seafoam green squash for himself. They would have liked the gigantic pumpkins but for some reason the wagons were all gone and I was not about to lug a 30 pound pumpkin to the pay counter a mile away (ok, maybe not a mile, but a long way.)

Then we climbed the hay tower for a photo shoot. Gus declined to climb it. I think the bee sting was making him less adventurous than normal.

It was quite an uncoordinated photo shoot.

I think this was the best group shot.

But this was the best display of Reese's spidey moves. I cropped it to make sure you could really get a good look.

It was really sunny and only a little chilly when the wind picked up. Overall, it was a perfect pumpkin patch day. I was quite happy to find it totally dry as well, so I didn't have to haul muddy pumpkins or clean muddy boots.

"That's all folks!"

Halloween Party

Our local library had a Halloween party. There were some stories and snacks. We didn't want to ruin the surprise of our real Halloween costumes, so Gus was a tiger and Reese was Captain America. They were supposed to be a tiger and a turtle, both costumes handed down from Uncles Travis and Dylan. But Reese was on a Captain America kick.We did some pumpkin coloring.
We also did some coloring pages.We also had a parade!

Children's Museum

We headed down to Olympia with Mimi on Monday to visit the Hands On Children's Museum and visit Uncle Dylan at college.Reese drove the ship.

Gus manned the life preserver.

They both spent a good bit of time rock loading.

We fiddled with the water table for awhile, but honestly I don't like getting wet or smelling like chlorine.

In the theater area the costumes were a hit for the first time ever. Normally we just play with the stage sound buttons. Both boys gave these wooden shoes a whirl.

Gus drove the delivery truck while Reese worked on "washing" it. I didn't get a picture of him but he was very thorough with his scrub and rinse.

It always cracks me up that they insist on putting their seat belt on. Reese also really likes talking into the cb radio while driving. hmmm....we'll have to make sure to nip that in the bud before he gets his driver's license.

We spent some time in the kitchen. Gus especially loves to cook. He's so funny toddling around with his pans.Reese did a great job wearing his glasses. Finally he's wearing them for the large chunks of time. He traded them in for work goggles here.
I completely forgot to take any photos when we took Uncle Dylan out to dinner. We dropped off some food supplies and a microwave for his dorm and then headed off to Red Robin for some dinner.