They grew!

Well the magic Christmas seeds grew into watermelon flavored candy canes. Awesome right? The weirdest part is they grew with wrappers on them too, strange….

We have loved all the treats and fun stuff that our little Ralphy does for us, so Lincoln and I made him some elf-size donuts. They’re just so darn cute! I really hope he likes them!

(Made from Cheerios)

Elf on the Shelf: Magic Christmas Seeds

It seems like every family these days has an elf on the shelf. Some families even have one for each of their kids! Everyone had one, BUT ME! I must admit, I began to feel a little left out and possibly a smidge jealous, “Where the crap is our freakin’ elf?!” I thought.

I immediately wrote Santa and requested our own. We got something even better! Instead of the slightly-creepy elf everyone else has, we got a soft one that Lincoln is allowed to hold. His name is Ralphy.  Lincoln gets to sleep with him and in the night he flies back to tell Santa about all the good choices Lincoln made that day. When he gets back home, he leaves a treat in Lincoln’s shoe(left at the bottom of his bed) to let him know how good he was that day. This special elf focuses on good behavior and did not come with a book, which allows him to use a little more imagination! You can find your own elf on the shelf here.

Last night he left Lincoln a bucket of sugar, a bag of marshmallows and a bag of “Magic Christmas Seeds”!

These were the instructions on how to plant the seeds:

These seeds may seem silly and so very small, but covered with sugar they will begin to grow tall. Press and wiggle the seeds down to the bottom firmly, until in the sugar the red is buried. Then pour on top the bag of marshmallow fun. Dump them all out, every single one. In dark they grow and in the morning you rise to find no more seeds but a delicious surprise.

  I don’t even know what “magic Christmas seeds” are, but I am so, so excited about what they will grow into! Hopefully something tasty!

Happy Thanksgiving

This isn’t from Thanksgiving, but we got to see Scott’s sister Nicole the week before Thanksgiving and got to spend a few days together.  It was my first time meeting Tessa! She is two and SO stinking cute! These are some pictures I took of her!   

Does Santa Claus Wrap your Presents?

I LOVE Christmas (why I am posting this before my Thanksgiving post) it is basically my favorite month of the year! I am big on traditions and one of those traditions is different than what Scott grew up with.
Santa did NOT wrap our Christmas presents. Not a single one.

Every year Santa Clause would leave us each a very special present right by our stocking.  We loved it! We would wake up at 4:00 in the morning, sometimes earlier, and tip-toe out to see what Santa brought us. The Christmas tree lights would be the only lights we would have to investigate our toy and stocking. We would play with it and eventually get our parents to wake up around 6:30. It wasn’t just another wrapped gift under the tree but a whole other surprise of its own.
When Scott grew up, Santa Clause wrapped his presents and he also loved it! He loved waking up to see that the presents under the tree had doubled and the excitement of opening up the surprise.
I have debated whether or not to ask Santa to wrap the presents because it was Scott’s family tradition.
But, here are my reasons for wanting unwrapped Santa gifts:
1. This was my favorite part about Christmas and I plan on living vicariously though my children.
2. I don’t want Santa to stress out about making sure his wrapping paper is different than ours.
3. I would like to take some stress off of Santa and not make him wrap too many presents, plus it’s good for the environment.
4. I think Lincoln will understand better if he comes out to a pile of toys and we say, “look what Santa brought,” rather than opening tons of presents and saying, “this one is from Santa….this one is from mom….this one is from dad….this one is from Santa…." and him be too busy to notice who it is from.
5. Scott really isn’t into holidays, so he doesn’t even care that much.
6.It makes it different than birthdays and special in its own way.
(I always get my way so this post is slightly pointless)
What does Santa Clause do at your families house? Does he wrap or unwrap and why do you love it?

Wordless Wednesday: Just Putting on Some Deodorant

Maverick is Four Months

  Likes

• Laughing
• When people dance and make silly faces at him
• Getting out of the house and going for walks. He gets bored in the house now.
• Bike Rides
• Being played and talked to. He definitely needs lots of attention.
• Holding things in his hands
• Complaining. Man does he love to sit there and talk and complain about his life. It is my favorite thing he does.
• Eating his hands
• His Binky
• Shoving blankets in his mouth. He loves his blankets and every time I throw one on him, he smiles and starts kicking like crazy.
• Playing and splashing in the tub
• Watching Lincoln. He has always ignored Lincoln, but now he is always smiling and trying to get his attention.
• Swimming on the floor. He kicks and swings his arms as fast as he can.
• Turning in a circle from kicking so much.

Dislikes

• His swing. He rather lay on the ground than get stuck in his swing. Sad day in the Roberts’ house.
• The Bumbo. I thought he would love it because he likes to sit up and see the world, but he gets frustrated after two minutes.
• Being left alone! My chill-anywhere-baby has long disappeared. He wants to play, not sit!

Milestones:

Reaching and grabbing stuff. At 3 months he would grasp stuff when we put it in his hands and by 3 1/2 he started reaching. It was a very-slow awkward reach and he rarely got what he wanted. The first time he really started reaching was in church(where he tends to learn to do stuff) and he kept trying to get Lincoln’s crackers. Now he has mastered it and can grab whatever he wants, although his depth-perception is still a little off.

Wears:

• Size 0-3 month clothes, but they are getting small on him
• Size 3-6 month fits perfectly
• Size 2 diapers

Sleeps:

I should just skip over this entire section. After our trip to Idaho, he has no schedule AT ALL. He will sleep 14 hours one night and the next only ten. He will do 12 hours straight and the next night 7 hours. He will take one, four hour nap and the next day take four naps, each only 45 minutes. It is killing me and him! We are figuring it out though.

Nicknames:

• Mavo: Friends, family and anyone that knows Maverick calls him Mavo. It is getting to the point where calling him Maverick sounds weird.
• Smavo

Firsts

Started playing in the bath tub! He LOVES the water just like Lincoln did. He starts kicking and splashing like crazy and smiling really big.

First bike ride: This baby is definitely my mini Scott. He already wants to go go go! He loves going on  bike rides and never made a single peep, just like Lincoln.

First time going to Idaho: He was a good sport almost the entire drive and enjoyed being held and snuggled by grandma Jones.

First time being sick: He got his first cold in Idaho, and surprisingly handled it really well. He slept in my arms because he couldn’t breathe laying flat on his belly and needed to lay at an angle.

First Holiday/ Halloween: Of course he didn’t know what was going on, but it was to dress him all up and take pictures.

First time for the toys to come out: It is weird having baby toys all over the house again. He is no longer my newborn but my little baby. Got this thing out and I think Lincoln and I play with it more than Mavo.

Pictures: Fat-kid smile  Sometimes I wonder how his eyes fit on his tiny, little head!

Maverick is my chatter-box already and always has something to say about everything. He loves talking to strangers and smiling at them.  He is my high-maintenance baby but is so full of smiles, giggles and chatter that we love him anyways.

The Cleanest Room in the House

Sometimes when I feel like toys and little boys are taking over my house…………………   (Note: The bed was made 14 minutes earlier)

I go to the cleanest room in the house………

Idaho

I drove 14 hours with both my boys to Idaho all by MYSELF! I was so nervous I would fall asleep, or Maverick would scream the entire way, that I mapped out every minute of hour trip and we ended up leaving at 3:00 in the morning. My boys did beyond good. Lincoln was an angel and slept or had me tell him stories. Maverick hardly made a peep until the last 15 minutes, in which he screamed.

We stayed two whole weeks!

First time meeting Uncle Kay

Lincoln’s best friend Cohen. They truly have a special bond that I think will last a lifetime. Crazy baby! My mom was swinging him in this swing and making him laugh. She was laughing so hard at him that it was hard not to watch her over him! Isn’t my mom’s hair growing back so lovely? The day she took off her wig, she says was the day “she came out”. Haha, gotta love her positive attitude.

Carson and Maverick, future best friends. They are four months apart.

While I was visiting, I got to meet up with my best friend Amanda and meet her newest little girl Alice. She was such a stinking doll. Her kids made themselves at home and were playing inside with my family while we were outside.

The kids played some xbox Future Rock Band

Oh man, I just love this baby. He is still so cute and tiny.

On one Saturday, we went up to Island Park where my dad bought some land. My brother and him built a small little cabin and it was fun to see. Still a long ways to go, but definitely better to sleep in than a tent!

Lincoln is obsessed with fires. While all the other kids were running around and playing, he was busy throwing sticks in it.

My mom held Maverick the entire time! She was awesome the whole trip to help out with Mav and give me a break so I could enjoy Lincoln and my other nieces and nephews. At night, he would sleep in her arms and be so sweet for her. He was kind of a pill from about 5-8 most nights and it was stressful and exhausting!

anyways……back to Island Park!

Here is some animal in this tree. I forgot what he was called, but everyone made me chase him around with my camera to get a picture, so it is very important I put it on here.

Lincoln still loves fourwheelers, but what kid doesn’t. My dad hauled the kids around for hours and Lincoln enjoyed every minute of it.

The cabin. Isn’t pretty neat? My parents want to retire up here one day (not in this cabin). 

First time in the razor! Another thing I can mark off my bucket list! My sister drove all the boys around and Lincoln liked it until she went a little crazy, then he got freaked out! My brother Ryan and brother-in-law Shawn took me for a really crazy ride and I screamed the entire time! It was lots of fun and I enjoyed bragging to Scott since he has never been in one.

Being up there is what made me the most home sick. When Scott and I talked about our future together, it always involved lots of dirt bikes, four wheelers, razors, sand dunes, cabins and redneck fun stuff. Now that we live in tree-hugger town, that stuff is probably not going to be apart of our life (until we visit Idaho). Of course we will have other fun things, like the ocean, but it will be different and it does make me sad. Actually it makes Scott the most sad, he really misses Idaho a lot.

We got to hang out with my super-awesome sister-in-law Lindsey while we were there. She is going to college now and enjoying her first semester!

Maverick LOVED this thing and so did I. When he would get fussy, I would just rock him in it and then he would be out! Getting their T.V on. Towards the end, they started fighting so we had some quiet time (for me) and they were much happier.

The day we were suppose to drive home it snowed! I had the entire car packed up with everything, so we slept in our clothes and went home the next day. Lincoln loves snow, and so I taped plastic bags around his feet and sent him out. He did not want to come in. Cohen came inside and was done, but Lincoln begged to go outside. This also made me homesick. I NEVER thought that I would wish for snow, but watching Lincoln get excited over it, made me sad that we don’t get snow. It is apart of all my memories, and I am sad that it won’t be apart of Lincoln’s.

It was fun to be with my family and watch Lincoln play with his cousins. Every day he asked, “can we live here forever”, and whenever I would mention going home he would start crying and freaking out. It still feels like home to him and he did not want to go back to “our apartment” at all (even though I wanted to after a week!). At night he would cuddle up to my parents and they would tell him a bedtime story, which then turned into him telling them the bedtime story. He stayed by my mom’s side most of the time and was a little grandma’s boy. He kept telling her, “you have skinny legs grandma. You are so cute grandma”. Haha! He is such a little suck-up! My mom sure misses him!

I am so thankful that I am a stay-at-home mom and can drive to Idaho any time I feel like it. What a blessing! I miss my family like crazy, but now I appreciate them much more when I do get to see them! This is probably a trip I will only do once a year by myself!