Look what I made!!

So I love the magazine Family Fun . . . it has tons of craft ideas to do with kids. But I also find some that I like doing. I made these reindeer cookies for Christmas Eve - we always go to my Grandma's house with the rest of my aunts, uncles, cousins, and their kids, so I thought this would be a fun dessert there.

Merry Christmas

Here are a few Chritmas pictures - Ethan wasn't too into opening his presents :( We got a couple pictures of him grabbing the first piece to rip off then he would crawl away.

Ethan would rather eat the ribbon . . .













His first present turned into breakfast . . .













Climbing on top of his box.



















We bought Ethan a Tonka truck that he can ride like this when he's older, but for now, the seat flips up and he can push it in front of him as he walks. Right now he pushes it farther than needed and then does a frankenstien walk to catch up - hopefully soon he learns to bend his knees when walking.













My lime green super hero mom .. .













Me and Becky bought our husbands the same sweater for Christmas and then my parents gave them and Alex all hiking pants (I think Nathan got some too, but he is in Idaho, so I don't have a picture of him with them on) cause they all wear jeans when hiking and that's not hiking protocol, so they all have 'Kuhle' pants that zip off at the knee.

Snow Day!

It's been snowing the past few days here and since the roads weren't that great, Michael stayed home from work a couple days. Once there was a good deal of snow built up, we drove over to my parent's house to make a snowman and let Ethan play in the snow for his first time.

We had him bundled up pretty good; he looked like a puffy marshmallow. He wasn't really fond of me trying to make a snow angel with his arms and legs . . .

He beat his mini snowman to death . . .

And then we put him down for a nap in the house with Grandpa and made our own snowman . . . it was quite ugly. My ball picked up tons of leaves - someone should tell the landscaping guys to rake the leaves before it snows or you get ugly snowmen!

Cutting down the Christmas Tree

**NOTE - you can click on the pictures in the blog to see them larger if they're too small to really view on your screen**

We went to cut down our tree with Alex and Jasmine (it was fun with a group, plus we needed Alex's truck to get the tree home. Our car has the antenna on the top of the car above the rear window, so we found out the hard way last year and had to lay down the seats and shove the tree through the trunk . . . luckily I was still pregnant then, so we didn't have to worry about what to do with the baby car seat and the tree at the same time.)

I wore Ethan in the infant carrier and a lady told me that he was just about as big as me. I like the thought that someone thinks I'm the same size as my 20 pound son, but sadly it's not true. Trying to explain to Jasmine what a Charlie Brown Christmas tree was, and listening to her and Alex try to pick out a tree was funny. Alex said it had to be at least as tall as her, but she kept picking out ones that were about 3 feet high. It was funny watching Alex carry it out since he could hold it over his head and walk. We went for about an 8 footer which was harder to carry (not that I would know cause I carried the baby and didn't have to touch the wet and dirty tree.)

Ethan is still sorta grumpy that we have a tree in our living room - it takes away some of his play area, but he still won't really go near it. He keeps pulling out my tree skirt, so I've resigned to the fact that it won't stay pretty and only fix it every couple days or when someone comes over. We rushed to get the tree up and decorated Sunday before Church because Rick and Debbie (my in-laws) were supposed to come over for dinner, but then cancelled on us - so I rushed for nothing but on the up side, I had a really clean apartment. But since we did it so fast, Ethan was mad the rest of the day. I laid on the ground and from his angle of the floor, it really is quite daunting since it's up to the ceiling and has prickly pine needles on it.

Santa Clause came to town!

We had our Christmas party at churh this morning. Ethan didn't really know what to think of Santa. He was kinda grumpy to begin with and then seemed mad that we sat him in the lap of some white bearded stranger. We took the pictures quick before he belted out a scream.













Then we added him in the picture with Emma and Lorelai (his cousins). Lorelai isn't too fond of Santa either . . . she never really has liked him.

Now, if I could have everyone's attention - take a look at Ethan's cute sweater. It is my favorite piece of clothing I have for him and this will be the only month he can wear it, so he may just end up wearing it several days in a row so that more people can enjoy it. I bought it when I was still pregnant with him last Christmas at Old Navy and I just had to buy it cause they never have the same thing there the next year/season.