Lego City Advent Calendar 2014 Days 13-18

Week 3 of Tyler's Lego Calendar:

 

Day 13: A robber with a flashlight and a bag of loot.

Day 14: A one person sled which the robber is using as a getaway vehicle.

Day 15: A dog and a plate of bones.

Day 16: A police snowmobile.

Day 17: A sled that hitches to the back of the police snowmobile.



Day 18: Another policeman. This one with a mug and handcuffs.

Holiday Traditions

Going out of town for Thanksgiving put us about a week behind on some of our usual Christmas traditions such as getting our tree, which we normally do the weekend after Thanksgiving. This year we went the first weekend of December to pick out our tree in the Wenatchee forest area. 

 

 

There was a little bit of snow on the ground this year, but nothing too bad. The temperature was in the high 30's, so we were all bundled up pretty good. It took us nearly an hour of looking around to find a good tree, but thankfully at least we found something before it got dark. And after 2 years of failed attempts to get the tree home in perfect condition, I'm happy to say it was a success this year. We finally figured out how to tie the tree up properly so that it didn't slap itself silly all the way home.

Now the tree is all decorated with presents and kitties underneath.

And outside the boys worked together to put lights on the house.

Pretty!

Alexander make his appearance and has been keeping an eye on the boys.

We also decorated a gingerbread house from Costco, which I love! It came already assembled so we could get straight to the fun part....decorating!!

And we pulled out our collection of Christmas books and have been reading them before bedtime. This year I bought 2 new books to add to the collection: Little Blue Truck's Christmas and How the Grinch stole Christmas.

Tyler has his Lego advent calendar of course, but Kyle has a chocolate advent calendar from Boehm's.

Lego City Advent Calendar 2014 Days 7-12

Continuing on with week 2 of Tyler's Lego advent calendar:

 

 Day 7: A shop window.

 

On the inside are some festive decorations.

Day 8: A girl with ice skates.

Day 9: An old fashioned style cart/wagon with a loaf of bread.

Tyler figured it obviously belonged to the woman with the croissant from Day 5.

Day 10: A snowball catapult.

Day 11: An officer ready to sing Christmas carols with his megaphone.

Day 12:  A remote control duck, which the boy from Day 1 is taking out for a test drive.

Lego City Advent Calendar 2014 Days 1-6

Keeping with tradition Tyler got another Lego City Advent Calendar this year.  He had to clear off some of the Minecraft paper blocks off of his dresser to make room.

 

Day 1: A boy holding a letter

Day 2: A mailbox with a little frog

Day 3: A snowman

Day 4: A table with a pie and some cups

Day 5: A Lego woman and a croissant

Day 6: A stand full of fruit and veggies

What I like about the calendar this year is that it's shaping up to be more of an outdoor market theme, rather than so much cops and robbers.

November Favorites

With the gloomy weather we've had this month and lack of good lighting and just generally staying indoors more I ended up taking a lot less pictures than usual, so this is the best of what I got:

 

Tyler got the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid book, which he earned by maintaining a small streak of good behavior and he read it from cover to cover in less than an hour.

We went to Tyler's Veteran's Day musical earlier this month and it was great seeing every single kid in the spirit with red, white and blue.

There was a brief time period where we were able to enjoy the fall tradition of jumping in leaf piles before the polar vortex came and turned everything black, frozen and gross.

Kyle has been playing with Tyler's old Thomas the Train toys.

And sharing another one of Tyler's old toys: the Light Brite.

Max enjoyed a morning in the warm upstairs bedroom.

Coco Bear who hasn't been able to go outside as much also had to settle for a window seat.

And Carmelita helping me pad the holes in my Project Life with cute pet pictures.

Working out with Cathe as I always do on weekday mornings. I can't wait for her new Ripped with Hiit series to come out, or rather to be delivered to my door sometime next month.

Favorite outfits for November.

Tired? Who Me?

Kyle has long ago given up naps, or at least he says so if you ask him. He's a big boy and doesn't need them anymore. It's a ruse that he'd been able to keep up for the most part until Daylight Savings ended earlier this month. It's a change he hasn't been able to recover from and as a result it's been a month full of naps. Everywhere and Anywhere.

 

Zzzzzzzz.

Turkey Trot 2014

Yesterday was the annual Turkey Trot, a school sponsored fun run and food drive. It wasn't the city leftover turkey trot that usually happens the Saturday after Thanksgiving, but a small feud between two elementary schools. Each year Cottonwood Elementary and Mrs. Braun the P.E teacher compete against Nob Hill Elementary and their P.E teacher Mr. Braun. So it's not just a competition between schools, but also between husband and wife. Last year Cottonwood won the trophy and this year Nob Hill was looking to get it back.

 

The race was 11:00 on Saturday and it was only around 40 degrees outside and brrrr, it was cold waiting for the race to start. We got Tyler a new set of athletic clothes for the occasion and I thought he looked great! That kid was meant to wear bright colors! They just suit his personality so much!

The race was staggered with different age groups starting at different times and the teachers and parents went last. If I'd known I'd have to wait so long to run I would have brought a thicker coat.

But the extra time allowed for more pictures. Cheese!

Once the race started for Tyler I was able to get a few pictures of him before I had to head to the starting line for my group.

In the end he placed 8th in his age group. No turkey for him, but a ribbon was pretty nice.

I'm proud he did such a good job, especially since he's in the midst of a cold and had a pocket full of tissues.