My favorite boy!

With Rylee being the oldest and always doing new things, and Gracie being the baby with new "firsts" everyday, I think Cole gets left in that "middle child" spot. So, here is a post all about my favorite boy.

Cole is three years old, and he loves being a boy. Just recently my mom bought him the Kung Fu Panda movie (very funny and cute if you haven't seen it) and he loves it. I have to remind him that "the book store, grocery store, mall, and church are not places where we do Kung fu." He loves it!

He is very, very smart. He loves to learn all about numbers so maybe he's going to be a math whiz! (It will be no thanks to me, my brain doesn't work that way). He is very snugly and often asks me to sit and snuggle with him while he's watching cartoons. He often will give me a hug and a kiss and tell me that he loves me for no reason. He just runs off and leaves me all twitter-paited by my boys devotion to his mommy. I love momma's boys!

Cole looks up to Rylee and loves Gracie and helps me a lot. I always thought he would be a shy boy, but he seems to be slowly coming out of his shell, sometimes by following his sister's lead, but even by himself he will smile and say hi to people. Although, he does stop at strangers. He still needs my approval of people before he decides they deserve a smile or any other type of acknowledgement.

Cole is the sweetest boy I know and I tell him all the time that he's "my favorite boy" (hopefully we don't have any more boys, or I better stop saying that). But he is my favorite boy. He makes me smile all the time and I love hearing his excitement and laughter. Right now we have an advent calendar on our wall and everyday he asks me "mom, is the candy there yet?" The magic of Christmas is amazing! Candy magically appears in those pockets every night and no one knows how they get there! So all day long he's asking me "just feel mom, just feel" to see if the candy has shown up yet. He's so cute!

I just love him!

I know, I know. . .

I'm such a dork. I couldn't help put go ahead and pin up the curls. Besides, she does have her Christmas Concert tonight and she'll be all dressed up, so why not a fancy hair do! So cute! How much do you love it?!

Some more favs. . .

I know this one isn't the best of all of us, but I thought Gracie looked so cute showing her rock to the photographer! She looks so proud of her discovery!

A few more of my favs. . .

I Love Hair!

Here are two more of the latest hair styles I've tried on Rylee. I think the one I did today (the last two pics) is my favorite so far. I found another website, so I think I'm going to add a whole new section on my sidebar dedicated to hair blogs, since this is my newest obesession. Love it!
You can't tell very well, but in the second picture, the two piggies were braids that I wrapped together in the middle and left the curls out for a cute piggy tail look. These hairstyles are mostly meant for girls with long hair and Rylee's is not quite long enough, but we make do!

In the last style the ponytail is meant to be curled and then pinned up to make a crown of curls, but we left it in a pony since she's not going to prom or anything. Maybe for church we'll try the crown of curls.

Family Photo Shoot

Here is a SMALL sample of the family pics we did this weekend. Thanks to my friend Becki for taking them for us. It was a lot of fun (at least for me, the kids got a little bored, nothing that ice-cream cones can't cure)!

Baby Monkey

I forgot. . .

In case you want to check out the hair blog from the previous post, HERE is the link

I don't consider myself to be much of a fashion/hair person, but when I find something cute and fun I get really excited. I've never been really good at figuring out how to style my own hair let alone my daughters, but with the help of fashionable friends and a sister-in-law who is always in the know (thanks, Taryn), I think I've done a pretty good job of staying away from the "frumpy-mom" look. So, when I discovered this blog that's all about hair, including step-by-step instructions, I was excited. These pictures are my first attempt and I think it turned out pretty good! You can kinda see the black ribbon inter-twined with her hair. This hairstyle is suppose to be for those of us who don't know how to french braid. Perfect! What do you think?

Now I'm off to the store for longer ribbons (so I can tie a bow at the top of her ponytail) in many, many, many colors!

Look what I got in the mail this week!

Well, it's totally official! I'm graduated! And I have the papers to prove it! I got an "official transcript" in the mail as well that is no longer official since I HAD to open it. I graduated with a 3.81! Yay for me!

We love Santa! (mostly)

The kids got to see Santa at our Primary activity this year. That's why they're in their favorite pajamas. We had a pajama party with breakfast. Way fun. Anyway, the kids were pretty excited to see Santa and get a little goody bad. As you can tell from the last picture, Gracie feels the same way about Santa as she did last year.

Christmas Trees

I don't know if you've ever tried to make a gingerbread house, but thier hard! So, in our family we make a gingerbread tree. It's much easier. And look how cute it turns out! The kids licked probably half the frosting and ate nearly a third of the candy's, but overall, a cute little gingerbread tree!
This year we were going to buy a fake, pre-lit tree, but then we realized we have nowhere in our tiny little house to store it! So, unless we want to tree to stay up all year, we had to get a real one that we can throw away. But we love it (and all the pine needles all over the floor, grrrrr)!

Christmas Pajamas!

I love new pajamas! Growing up, my parents always gave us pajamas every year on Christmas Eve and we would wear them as we drove around town that night and around the zoo looking at Christmas lights!

We still carry on that tradition in my little family, but this year I had to get them early.

1. Because I really wanted them.

and 2. Because I really wanted them for my Primary Christmas Party!

For our Christmas party this year we all got to wear our pajamas for a Christmas breakfast. The 11-year-old kids worked really hard and put on a short skit of the Christmas story for us to watch and they did such an awesome job! Then, some Christmas tree ornament making, a little Christmas music dance freeze, and of course, Santa Claus took some time out of his VERY busy schedule to bring a little treat to all the kids.

So fun!

Thanks to all the leaders and teachers who came to help with all the chaos! We couldn't do anything without your help and support!