Christmas Lights, Wheelbarrows & Sutton's 1st Haircut

We've been slowly but surely making our way around to getting up all the holiday decorations this year, and I'm happy to say that I'm finally finished making our new Christmas stockings. I ordered plain felt stockings with our names emboroidered on them from Ebay, and then spent way too much time coming up with the ideas for how I wanted to decorate them. I'm still not thrilled with the fact that the boys' stockings aren't as detailed as Mitch's and mine, so I may add more to them later. Mitch thinks Sawyer's penguin should be on skiis. We'll see how motivated I get...I still have a few other projects I need to finish up before next weekend.


(Mitch's snowman still needs to have his smile painted on)

The boys, Sawyer in particular, are VERY into looking at Christmas lights this year, so on Thursday night we bundled them up for a top-down-in-the-Jeep Christmas light drive around both the Pebble Creek and Dovewood areas (we put the top up for the long drive in between!). The boys were really excited about all the lights and decorations this year, and it was fun for Mitch and I to point out all the Disney characters and have them name them off for us. I think Mitch was particularly pleased when some of the people walking around the street looked up at us in the Jeep and said "Now that's the way to do it!" By the time we were done driving around Dovewood, S&S were both exhausted and half-asleep, and I was starting to think that maybe it hadn't been the best idea for my oncoming cold to have been driving around in the freezing cold with the top down. Oh well, it was definitely worth it to have the boys able to see the lights in all their glory.



The fascination begins...


Getting ready to head out on our adventure


Glazed over at the end of the long drive


One of our most newly acquired hand-me-down toys is an old Fisher Price wheelbarrow from one of the homeowners that we are doing a job for. Their children are all around 25 years old now, so you can imagine how old this wheelbarrow must be. It's amazing how much sturdier toys are that were made 25 years ago. The boys have grown instantly attached to their new play thing, and for some reason it keeps working its way back indoors even though it seems that I am constantly putting it back outside. Their favorite thing to do these days is to give each other rides around the house in the wheelbarrow before it inevitably tips over and spills them to the floor laughing their heads off. Thank you, Mrs. Janicki, for the endless hours of fun you've already given to my kids.

"Mommy push BOTH of us!"

I love those moments where I look up and see them actually playing with something together instead of doing their own thing.

Who would have thought that 5-gallon bottles of water could be so much fun?


Today Mitch took Sutton to get his first haircut, and I was admittedly more emotional about his first haircut than I was Sawyer's. With Sawyer we were forced to shave all of his hair off before his surgery, so I didn't really have an option of when or how much, but I've been putting off cutting Sutton's hair for waaay too long now. It was shaggy, messy and in his eyes, but I just couldn't bear to cut off his little unruly baby curls...so that's why Daddy got elected to take him into the hair salon for kids. It's going to take me awhile to get used to it (he looks like a big boy now!), but in the end I know I'm going to be grateful not to have to spend an extra 10 minutes in the morning trying to calm down his curly mop top :)

The tangled mess of hair this morning...


...and the unveiling of the new look!