Great Wolf Lodge

We spent two days at the Great Wolf Lodge this week with Braden and Conner's cousins and his Grandma and Grandpa Thomas. We have been there once before so Braden was VERY excited about this trip. Conner, on the other hand, was not as excited. He did not so much enjoy the trip last time at about 2 1/2.

This time Conner loved it just as much. I guess being almost 3 now he was much braver! Conner even ventured away from the baby/toddler area and enjoyed a continuous loop up and down the bigger slides. He still isn't tall enough for the really big slides that Braden very much enjoys but he was very brave on the big ones. He would climb up by himself and even go down himself after mom went first to wait for him at the bottom. It was so fun to watch him sit at the top by himself and wait for the slide worker to tell him to go when I could see him across the park from the line to the big slide with Braden.

Braden loves all things at the Great Wolf Lodge. He goes on all the slides except for the howling tornado (because he isn't 48" tall yet) and the faster the better. He is fearless and loves the water. He loves to go with his older cousins and feels like a big boy! Every time we would go down and splash he would say "that was the best one!" He also really likes the quest wand game that he would play with his cousin Jeffrey.

Both boys stayed up until 10:00 that first night which is a big deal in this household of a strict 7:30 bedtime. They both did well the next day though because I think the pool and slides were enough of a distraction and they did sleep in until almost 8 (yippee). Here they are watching a little Phineus and Ferb before bedtime to unwind. We all had a great time!

Christmas Tree

The boys enjoyed decorating our Christmas tree this weekend. This is the first year Conner was really excited to put up the ornaments. He was very careful and thoughtful about his placement of each one. They ended up all being placed about 4 feet and under so dad and I had to do a little reorganizing afterwards. Braden really enjoyed decorating too. He enjoyed finding all the cool ornaments with cars or sports on them. They want the Christmas tree lights on all day now that the tree is up. Next event, Gingerbread house and gingerbread train decorating!

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Conner replied "Um, I guess just bigger...."

Santa Train

This last Sunday we visited the Santa train in North Bend with a great group of friends. It was a lot of fun and the boys enjoyed playing on all the trains, seeing the other kids, playing with the train set and enjoying cookies and hot cocoa. Conner also loved the music that was playing by the small band while we were waiting in line to see Santa. He is completely obsessed with all things music and he loves singing. I liked watching him stare up at the musicians in awe. This was also the first year that both boys sat on Santa's lap without any tears. Conner even told Santa that he would like "Thomas" for Christmas. However, Braden froze when he was asked what he would like for Christmas. (This is unusual as he normally has a list of toys a mile long for mom). It was great to see our friends that we don't get to see very often and I think the trip was almost more special for mom than for the kids. It was great to see everyone and their adorable kids!Now you would think that with all the pictures that we took on this fun trip that we would have one good picture of all four of us for our Christmas card. Nope. Oh well, I did get some great pictures, just not of all of us! Maybe it is me that ruins the pictures as I got several cute ones of the 3 boys. The one of Jeff and Conner is my favorite of the whole day.Here's a picture of us on the train with our 3 kids (isn't our daughter cute?)

Braden and Conner loved playing on all the machines.
No trip is complete without a game of ring around the rosie.....and of course a little solo dancing by Kyla "bootie shaking" Perry.
Merry Christmas!

Pancakes, Waffles, Biscuits

At a family wedding this summer they held a large rock, paper, scissors tournament where everyone was competing in this action packed game. This was Braden's first experience with rock, paper, scissors and he LOVED it. He still asks to play it with me every now and then. Last weekend he came to me and asked me if I wanted to play pancake, waffle, biscuit. We have family breakfasts every weekend with the four of us and Jeff always makes either pancakes biscuits or waffles because that is their favorites (especially pancakes). I guess this is where he came up with it.

Basically Braden's version of the game is very similar to rock, paper, scissors. The pancake is the paper, the waffle is like the scissors and the biscuit is the rock. The hand motions were the same for pancake/paper or biscuit/rock but the waffle sign was some funky crinkly version of pancake/paper. He really loved it and was very proud of his new game invention.