Week 43: December 1-7

More catch up, more catch up.  To start, here's a few pictures I missed in the past weeks:

 These were too cute to miss out on!

One more pic from our trip to UNC, at the arboretum

Splashin-Jackson LOVES bathtime!  Stand back everyone!

Now for my notes on Week 43:
Mason

-Mason's teacher told him eating ketchup by itself will make his belly sick. 

So now he eats a scoop of ketchup, and chases it with a few swigs of milk "in order for the ketchup to not be by itself" (his own idea)

Jackson

- TEETH!  Two more up top, both of the lateral incisors.

- While I was holding my phone, Jackson kept taking it from me and saying "Da-Da" (Jim was out of town). 

Jackson working on his "scoop and eat".

He cracked under the pressure of the camera a bit.

Not exactly sure what was going on here, but both boys thought it was hilarious!

The boys were playing right before bedtime, and little stinker Jack-Jack decided it was a good time to start pulling up on his crib (which was still very high and easy for us to reach him).  So... instead of putting the kids to bed, we spent the next 30 minutes working on THIS:

Just some sweet sweet bros, playing in the middle of the kitchen floor while I did some cooking!

Mason and Miss Kelsy being silly.

(this has become her new picture on his weekly calendar!)

While I shopped at a store downtown, Mason sat in their window display and watched the construction workers :)

One of my sweet potatoes, helping me wash sweet potatoes!

We thought it was time to give all of Jackson's banging a purpose, and introduced one of Mason's fun old toys!

As Mason says, "I think this is not the best game to play while eating, Jackson!"

Darn PNW sunlight - messing up his movie watching!

Bundled up for a drizzly chilly Christmas parade in Anacortes

We went with Mrs. Daryl and Mae!

You'll never guess what Mason's favorite part was

He was still a little frightened by these big guys though.

(We saw them at a parade last Christmas too)

Jackson stayed up all morning and finally fell asleep as we were walking back to our car.  (OF COURSE!!)

Jim has been beefing up our Star Wars Christmas decor... you know, "for the kids!"

I scheduled our December freezer meal exchange event to be a family (husbands invited too for once!) Christmas party at our house - before we knew that Jim would be out of town that week.  That week, I made all my freezer meals, and also two lasagnas for the party and a bunch of sugar cookies for the kids to decorate... did I mention I did this while taking care of 2 littles while Jim was out of town?  I sure wished he could have been there, to partake in all the fun, but I was pretty proud of myself. ;)

I think it turned out to be a pretty fun/successful event. 

There was lots of sugar to be spread, sprinkled, and swallowed.

I love little Jack-Jack in the background wanting in on the sugar cookie action!

A little sample of one room of tornado-kid play

After dinner and cookie decoration, we went with a few of our friends to see the Christmas lights at one of the houses nearby.  Two of Mason's favorites were the snag boat and the fire truck: surprise!!

L&W Construction helmet: score!

Starting to pull up and stand up on things!

Mason doing Daisy's talent show dance with her :)

We pulled out Mason's plane-rocker that he got for his first birthday!

Of course Mason was interested in it too - they took turns, back and forth (NUMEROUS TIMES): 2 songs each turn.

"I turned the ABC's on... since you weren't doing it." HA!

Concerned that there were sprinkle-less spots inside his frosting

Eating the remaining frosting out of his bowl

<3 holding <3 hands <3

BEEP BEEP BEEP
I'm sure everyone else at the grocery store loved us.
Jackson discovered his horn, and also Mason's horn, which was pretty cute.

Speaking of pretty cute!!

Silly little Jack Jack faces to round out week 43

Week 42: November 24-30

Phew, here we are after Christmas, and I haven't blogged since the week before Thanksgiving!  It's been a fun and busy-filled month continuing our family visits, then coming home and rolling right into the end of my semesters at both Western and A&M (read: lots of evenings spent making tests, grading assignments and exams, tabulating final scores, arguing with students over their grades, etc!), which led right into the Christmas holiday!  

So here I go with the catch up:  Week 42 we were wrapping up our trip in North Carolina and traveling to Texas where we spent Thanksgiving.  My pictures don't always update in order, and I often take the time to move them around and organize them, but with 100+ pictures this week, and being 4 weeks behind... we're just going to roll with it!

We took a day trip to UNC, and this is the only picture I took!
Mason and a construction cone :)

We got to spend a day with the Leffler clan.  I love all of the couch pictures we've taken over the years - I'm pretty sure our bunch is done growing in numbers, now we just get to watch these buddies grow in size each visit!

A little messy pouch action for Jack-Jack

I kind of like that he sleeps with his light on, so that I can sneak in and capture some good pictures of this sweetness!  Both Olaf and the mechanic car were great sleepy-things in NC.

Time to move from NC to TX!  The Dynamic Duo checking out our plane.

Santa's Wonderland for our first night in TX!

Fun, Fun, Fun with the cousins

Pops tells some pretty great bedtime stories :)

(Back to Santa's wonderland a bit)

(Flying to TX) Jackson LOVES Peakaboo!

Mason transport through the airport ;)

<3 HEB <3

Coffee date with Liz, her son Merek (5yo) and Emily
Mason and Merek played so sweet together!

Shopping with the girls, taking over Aunt Lauren's dressing room

Another visit to Sassy and Pops' next door neighbor:
the College Station Fire Department!

We went on Thanksgiving, and took them a pie.
They might have been a little bored, they all came out to greet us, and gave us a great tour!

They even pulled out the hose for Mason to spray

And let him ask lots of questions

and carried him around to show him all the details

They even called the dispatch office to have a "test" alarm sent to their fire station so he could see what it looks like in their bunks when a fire alarm goes off in the middle of the night!

Pretty awesome!

Then it was time for our Thanksgiving feast - apparently a little sample of the pie first!

Then a sweet little feast with Cousin Court

While Jackson sat with me and sampled a little bit of everything!

Jim and I got to go to the Aggie game that night - I got him tickets as an early birthday present!

Meanwhile, our boys were well taken care of by the rest of the family <3

There was lots of sweet cousin playtime and shenanigans -
I so wish we lived closer and could see our cousins more often!!

A little bit of napping

And always time for snacking

Lots of great memories from this trip

And fun times with family!

One last meal (at Pappasito's ~ YUM!) with the family before heading home

Sweet goodbye kisses!

Two heads jiggling and nodding off as the plane took off

Mas spilled a water bottle all over his pants on the plane, and they were so wet and cold we figured he was better off without them until we could get our suitcase and get him a dry pair. Ha!

Back at home, ready to start decorating for Christmas!

And do a few other projects around the house

I still need to replace the pictures in a lot of these frames, but Jim and Mason did good work!

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More pix from other cameras:
Mason and Pops did a lot of good work together!

And THAT was a lot of pictures and adventures for one week!

Sweet little 42-week peekaboo-playing Jackster!