Meeting Santa

Cooper and Jackson had a great time meeting Santa! Last year Cooper was really scared and I had to sit with him on Santa's lap so this year I was very happy not to be in the picture! Cooper was thrilled to see Santa and stood waving at him afterward. The only problem was we had to wait about 3 hours...not so smart. Jackson wasn't thrilled by the end of the wait. But at least we got a picture!


Here's Cooper posing-they had some cute decorations ! (it was at Bass Pro Shop)

For some reason Cooper did NOT want to go on the carousel at first. I have no idea why?!?

I just thought the pictures were funny. :) Mean mommy. Ryan is trying to talk him into riding on it. He eventually did and had fun.

Pre-Christmas Activities

We had a busy week before Christmas! One day my mom had Cooper, Jackson, Elizabeth and Ben, along with our friend Ashlynn over to play. It was a "peppermint party." They had lots of fun!


At lunch

Then another day that week the kids came over to do some art projects.

Gma also had the kids over to decorate Gingerbread houses. Here they are in their cute aprons.

With the finished house. Cooper put about two pieces of candy on the house and then asked a million times when he could eat the candy.

Silly "Arf" the elf brought silly string one day!

"I'm excited for Christmas!!"

Gpa came over one day to take Cooper to Lowes for their kids project.

A fun and busy week!

Church Christmas Carnival

Last Fri night we went to our church for their children's festival. We had never been before and had a lot of fun! They brought it tons of games and bouncy houses, a full size carousel, and a live nativity. Eliz and Ben came with my parents so we all hung out together. The only negative was Elizabeth wasn't feeling the greatest and then Ben fell down and hurt his lip and nose, so we ended up having a little bit of drama. Besides that, it was great!


Cooper and Ryan at the end of the night
His "ahhhh!" moment. He met Frosty and LOVES frosty. We have a book about him and so he was thrilled to meet him! He gave him a hug too. This gives me hope about Santa. Last year I had to sit on Santa's lap with him, so I'm hoping I don't have to do that this year.

They had all kinds of houses set up to take pictures in front of. Isn't this a beautiful church?

On the ride... Ben, my dad, Cooper, Ryan, Elizabeth, and my mom. I stayed with Jackson and took pictures!

Playing a baseball game

A fish stomping game. It was funny because both E and B were really good at this. You stomped really hard and tried to fling your fish into a hole. Cooper would barely step on it and the fish would just roll off. Oh well!

Ben about to do the game. His lip is hurt at this point.

Watching the live nativity. (again, Ben's hurt lip. you can't see it too well)

Sweet Jackson. This is where he was most of the night.

St. Nicholas Tea Party at Grandma's

My mom and Elizabeth hosted a St. Nicholas Tea Party for the boys and a few friends. We had a great time and the kids had fun playing games and eating lots of food. My mom had the house decorated SO cute. Here is a picture of the table (and it also shows what Cooper did the whole time-steal little treats!)

I made these ornaments for the kids-super easy!

Gma and Jackson

Cousin picture! Cooper, Ben, Elizabeth, and Jackson

Elizabeth is such a good cousin to Jackson. She loves to hold him and help me entertain him. Can you see Jackson's cute reindeer socks? They even have a tail and little red nose.

Me and the boys

Playing Christmas Bingo. Marshmellows were the place markers and Cooper seriously would grab handfuls of them and shove them into his mouth. I tried to stop him and told him he only got to eat one when he got Bingo and said "bingo." So I look over again and he says "bingo" and grabs a handful ..even though of course he didn't have bingo! I don't think he quite understood the concept!

My mom also had this CUTE craft for them to make. I thought it was adorable.

The kids at the party (Elliott, Elizabeth, Berkley, Ben, and Cooper. ) Jackson was too hard to pose with them!

Thanks for such a wonderful memory mom!

Christmas Sight-Seeing

We went to a beautiful hotel here in the city that has some beautiful Christmas decorations. The kids had lots of fun seeing all the decorations-especially the train sets. Poor kids, we posed them SO many times! Cooper will be a pro at taking pictures when he's older!


Cooper and Ben were very huggy, so cute! Look at Elizabeth's cute outfit, I love it.

For some reason Cooper was SO into these reindeer. He loved to hug them, isn't that funny? They weren't exactly soft!

The gingerbread house they had there. Everything was made out of food! I think the sign said it used 500 pounds of flour and 350,000 m & ms. Crazy! Those boots and star are made out of

M & Ms.

All the kids. Cooper and Jackson weren't too into the pictures at this point.

My cute boys :)

We tried very hard to get Jackson into the pictures :)

another hug from Cooper

I love how they are hugging eachother here

A little of the train set is behind him.

I wasn't too successful here with the picture.

Christmas Fun

We have been fun doing our Christmas traditions around here. Here are pictures of a few of our advent calendars we do. Every night we do our advent calendars. My mom used to give us one each year and has also given the boys some, so we do at least 8 advent calendars a night..it's quite a process!

This one is Cooper's favorite because there is candy in each drawer!
Putting an ornament on our advent tree.

We have another tradition of the "elf." Every night our elf visits Santa and reports on how Cooper has been that day, then comes home to a new spot in our house and brings Cooper a little treat. I don't have a picture of that but I wanted to write about it because I thought Cooper gave him a funny name. We talked about naming him and he came up with "arf." I think because it sounded like "elf" and maybe he forgot the word "elf" for moment?? I'm not quite sure, but now we have Arf the Elf who stays with us throughout the Christmas season. Cooper's not that into finding him every morning, he just wants the little treat. Arf made the mistake of leaving Cooper a hershey kiss one morning, so now that's what he expects every morning! Healthy, huh?

Showing off an art project
I just thought this was a funny picture so I had to post it

Cooper has been a little more into making Jackson smile. Here he is making him smile at lunch. I thought it was so cute that he's getting more "into" Jackson.