Wednesday, December 31, 2014

#thelinkhomeeveryday {week 52}

{Day 358}
Merry Christmas Eve!

{Day 359}
Such a fun morning with these two crazy boys!
{Day 360}
A good ole family movie night after two fun filled days of Christmas celebrations.

{Day 361}
Love these ladies so much! Such a fun day celebrating with Matt's family!

{Day 362}
New Christmas toys equal happy boys!!

{Day 363}
Love that Matt loves to play with the boys.  He's such a good Daddy!!

{Day 364}
Silly text between me and the hubs!

{Day 365}
Crazy NYE grocery shopping trip at Wal-Mart!

Ethan's 5th Birthday

Way back in October…….Ethan had his 5th birthday party at this precious little farm.  

Nash hung out with the donkey's while big brother participated in all the party activities!
Pearson got to ride on a carriage pulled by a miniature pony.  
Nash even got to go on a ride with Grandaddy!!
I didn't know if Pearson would want to ride a horse or not.  He was a little hesitant climbing on, but he was smiles once he got going. 
Pearson got to enjoy a delicious kid-friendly lunch!

And of course the best part of the party according to Pearson was the cupcakes.  I have to agree.  I might of had two cupcakes myself!!
Grammy & Granddady were also there, so we got to enjoy some time with them!!
We are entering the world of having birthday parties all the time and this little one couldn't be happier about it!!

Pearson Performs at School

Pearson's school has a performance in the Fall & Spring.  I love that they do this instead of doing a Christmas program and End of the Year Program.  Both of those times of the year get so busy, so it's nice they choose the "off-seasons" to do their performances.  Earlier in the school year Pearson was having a tough time behaving at school.  It was no surprise that the teacher came walking out holding his hand.  I told Matt, that as a former teacher, I knew exactly what that meant!  
**Thankfully since then he turned a big corner and is behaving much better at school!!
For some reason when Pearson is on stage he can't keep his hands off of his face.  I guess he doesn't know what to do with them.
At one point, he and his little friend Brynn were both digging for gold in their nose.  We were all laughing so hard!!
Pearson loves to sing so he did a great job singing all of his song that he had learned in music class.

**Videos will come at a later date!!

Grammy & Grandaddy drove in to hear Pearson sing.
Pops was out of town, but Lolly & Nonnie joined us as well.  

The Thank-You Meal

This year, starting in September, Pearson started Preschool Praisers.  It's the preschool choir program at our church on Wednesday nights.  We already go to Small group on Wednesdays nights so it works out perfectly.  He goes to choir for the first hour then moves to a different classroom for after care.  The first week of choir we received a CD with all of the songs he would be singing at his program. The theme of his program was called "The Thank-You Meal".   I'm pretty sure he had all the songs memorized within the first week.  We still sing them all the time.  The week before Thanksgiving he had his little performance.  He did a great job!!
I still need to download the video to my camera, so that will come at a later date. 

Thanksgiving Craft Day

The week before Thanksgiving, my friend Jenica had a doctor's appointment so I kept her little girl, Brynn (also a friend from school).  We did Thanksgiving Crafts all morning long while Nash took an awesome morning nap.  I'm not very good at doing crafty stuff with Pearson because it seems like a lot of work for just one kid.  It seemed easier to do when I was prepping for two kids.  I'm excited for Nash to be an age where he can join in on some of the fun!!

First up, we made some Pumpkin Pie Playdough.  
I printed lots of different dot arts for them to color.  
Dot Art is always a big hit at our house!
Pearson was assigned cookies for his Thanksgiving Feast at school the next day, so we made  cookies and then had a little taste test to make sure they were good!!
I found a cute website with lots of Thanksgiving printables.  They did color sheets, matching sheets, color by number and color words.  
Last up we playing with our pumpkin pie play dough.  
What a fun morning with Miss Brynn.  We are so thankful for our good friends that live in our neighborhood!!

Deck the Halls

I've made it tradition to put our Christmas tree up the weekend before Thanksgiving.  It makes it nice to not have to think about it after Thanksgiving Day.  We can just move right along to Christmas.  Plus, I work so hard putting it up, I want to enjoy it as long as possible.  In the past we have put the tree up while Pearson was napping, but this year, we put it up during Nash's morning nap so Pearson got to help. 
I love that we have a "Christmas Toy Box".  Since the toys only come out once a year for about a month, they get played with a lot during the month of December!!
We added one new toy this year.  I made a felt Nativity scene with some girlfriends.  I love the way it turned out!!  
The day after we got our Christmas decoration up Nash started to crawl!! What a crazy time to have a crawling baby!!

Turkey Day 2014

We switch off who we spend Thanksgiving with each year.  This year we spent it with Matt's side of the family in Sherman.  
One thing I am so thankful for is the sweet relationship these boys have.  They absolutely adore each other and have the best time playing together.  
 I'm also thankful for the way Matt loves our boys.  He is an incredible Daddy.  
All the ladies chipped in a brought food for Thanksgiving so it really wasn't too much on one person.  
Nash was just starting table food so he got to try a lot of new things for his first Thanksgiving.  
Pearson & Ethan got to join us at the adult table since there was only enough room for the 4 big cousins at the kid table.  
After our late lunch, we put Nash down for a nap and all the sports lovin' dudes (Matt, Stan, David & Peyton) stayed back and watched the Cowboys play while the rest of us went on a walk to burn off our lunch!!
Pearson rode on his scooter and Ethan rode on his balance bike.  
Pearson was so interested in Ethan's bike, which was exciting because we had already bought one for him as his Santa gift!
Uncle Bryan and the girls taught Preston how to Geocache and we found a little treasure while we were out.  
These two were all boy climbing on everything they could find.  
On the way back home they were both more interested in walking through the leaves than riding their scooter or bike.  We ended up carrying their rides home.  
But it was totally worth it to get this sweet picture!! 
What a wonderful day spent with our family.  So thankful for all the blessing we have this year.