Must be Santa, must be santa...

We have had an eventful few days! First was Sunday the boys got see Santa at a family Christmas party. Consistently they are both asking for a play kitchen so they can cook things, but not real food, it's just plastic. (their words)

On Monday was Asa's little school program. He was such a good little boy. He sat patiently waiting for the program to start. He had a small speaking part that was "the stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicolas will soon be there". Out of the 20 ish kids that were there he and only about 4 others had their parts memorized. he did such a good job, and spoke perfectly into the little microphone.
They sang fun songs like, Must be Santa, Feliz Navidad, Christmas chopsticks, and a few others I can't think of right off hand. The sun was shining into his little eyes the whole time, so he would mostly look this other way.
After the program he got to sit on santa's lap again and ask for a toy kitchen again :)
Here he is with his cute teacher. He absolutely and completely adores this woman.

O Christmas tree O christmas tree....

We've always had an artificial tree, so I thought it would be fun to change it up this year and get a real tree. I knew heading to the mountains to chop our own would be out of the question, but I really wanted that experience. So I found a happy medium in Alpine. There is a tree farm up there, and it was a great deal. We walked all around looking at a ton of trees till we finally just said...okay that one's good.

We got the guy who cuts it down and hauls it to our ride with a 4-wheeler.
Daddy straps it in while the boys get excited :)
We bring it home, set it up and....Uh...oh.....It's WAY to tall.
So Daddy cuts of about 2.5 feet

After the trimming, it was still rubbing the ceiling. WHich is why we have no star on top.

Getting a real tree was a lot of fun this year. There were multiple trips to walmart because we didn't have a stand, then not enough lights, then not enough ornaments. But it was fun and I'm glad we did it.

Big 5 years

I can't believe Asa turned 5 this year. He decided he wanted a Spiderman Birthday. I found a bunch of Spiderman paraphanelia at Partyland and the house was decked out!

I even attempted a spider web cake! It turned out pretty cute I thought. And it was delicious. The best cake I think I've EVER made!

I figured 5 was a good age to have a friends party. So we invited several friends over. We played pin the spider on the web, and spider spider who has the spider (button button who has the button)
He had a great time with his friends. It was a great birthday

Halloween

We had the luxury of spending Halloween in St. George this year. The weather was PERFECT! We spent the day Saturday at a fun Halloween party and then the evening trick or treating. Coen decided he wanted to be a "bampire bat" and Asa Spiderman. Luckily my Mom had already made the bat costume, so I didn't have to :) We had a great time!

Itty Bitty Football

i decided to put the boys in the itty bitty football program for something to do. It's only for 3-4 year olds...and for this month only, I have one of each :) They are on the same team and they love it. This is Asa's second time doing it.

Preschool

Asa started Preschool on the 7th. He was so excited! He loves to go and asks me when he gets to go back! I hope he keeps that up so school isn't a fight as he gets older!

He was striking a pose for me when I was trying to get a cute one at the door. Such a funny kid.
Here he is with his teacher Miss Suzee. He tells everyone she has a big huge dog. Since we have a big dog. THat only means that a big huge dog would be a great dane!
He gets to go to school with two of the neighbor kids. One of which is another red headed boy. Asa told me that red headed boys have to stick together! so funny.

Big Birthday Boy

It is so amazing how time flies. 3 years ago I was laying in the hospital recovering from a c-section admiring my sweet newborn baby, deciding on a middle name. Now I have another mouth that tells me he loves me (amongst other things) gives me hugs and kisses and makes me laugh.

We celebrated his birthday on Sunday. We had a Lego themed party (after we fell in love with legos in Legoland) I dug my cricut out of the corner, blew the dust off of it, and made this stinking cute banner for Coen.

Here is a close up of it. Luckily I had purchased a super sweet software program when I was big into the cricut. I can use any font I want to. I had a font already on there that was a Lego font. So away I went. Here is a close up...
Here is Coen with his presents. I don't know why, but when I asked him to smile, he wouldn't. So this is the best I could get.
This is the first year for him that Asa hasn't opened all his presents. You can see that Asa is admiring his gifts though as he opens them. In fact, Asa has been telling me they are all his.
Playing with the goods.
Here is the cake. If you can't tell, it's an orange Lego block! Coen said he wanted Red frosting...but I vetoed that and compromised with Orange.
There's a smile. He gave me another flat face when I asked for a smile...so this is what I got. I'll take it.
Meema had to help him blow out the candles.
He ended up with 5 sets of Legos, Pj's, transformers, carhauler truck, books, little dump truck thing, monster trucks, race car.

A few things about Coen at this age:

He loves to quietly pester his brother so he cries

He still has a special blanket

He can count to ten

He can spell his name( but doesn't recognize his letters)

knows all the colors

knows lots of shapes

loves anything Asa loves

he loves to sing

He loves to brush his teeth and smear tooth paste all over the sink when I'm not looking

gets mad at legos and breaks whatever i've built for him

he is a very sweet boy, and tons of loyalty for Asa. If Asa is crying about something Coen often times will too.

Happy Birthday Coen Meister

Our last hoorah of the summer

I can't believe we've gone to California twice this year! Normally we never go anywhere! I'm grateful for the opportunities we've had to spend time with family outings this year!

Here we are starting our journey southward

Coen was so intently watching a movie on the little tiny screen of the old ipod
Asa gets to play on the ipad
Us on the tram to DISNEYLAND! I was a nervous wreck while driving through the parking garage there...only a matter of inches between the top of the truck and the concrete beams!
The kids on one of the cars in DL. Coen is pouting because Kasen didn't want him to sit up there, and Kasen is crying because he is. Classic :)
Asa packed around this map all over the place. He wanted to know where to go I guess :)
Us on the Mark Twain steam boat
Coen was holding Bentley's hand. So precious. My boys were very sweet with her.
Cody and I entering California Adventure
The kids as toys
We drove from St. George to DL, then from DL to san diego where our hotel rooms were booked. The kids were pooped.
LEGOLAND
This was our first trip here. It was so fun. Cody said it was his favorite park, and thinks it's funner than Disneyland.




I think MiniLand was my favorite part of the park. I LOVE miniature anythings! It was so fascinating to see what people came up with.

Asa and Coen got to ride this cute little cars.
Coen was devastated when he wasn't watching and hit the wall. LOL
SEAWORLD
This humongous walrus! Luckily, the kids are covering the fact that he would suck up his food and then spit it out on the glass. Gross. I wanted to puke. But, boys are boys, and they thought it was funny.
The dolphin show was really cool.
the sealions...
Touch and feel starfish. They showed us how if you flip them over in the water they will slowly, one suction cup at a time, turn themselves back over. Really cool.

I humongous "grouper" fish
Kasen and Asa were good buddies. Here we are waiting for Shamu to start

BEACH

So much fun! The boys actually got in the water this time and let the waves splash on them. It was so much fun. Coen still says his favorite part of the trip was "digging for treasures". As we walked from the beach to the truck he says in his cute little voice "that was so much fun at the beach". So cute.

Cody being the good Samaritan that he is, and helped this guy change his tire.