Holiday Fun

Here are some of our Advent Activities from last week:

**The boys collected food from our cupboards and pantry for the food drives going on at their schools.

**They also filled two boxes of toys to pass along to other kids.  Their generosity never ceases to surprise me.

**My work holiday party was last Wednesday.  There was a great cocktail reception with delicious food and drink, and then we went to Miracle on 34th Street, The Musical.  The boys loved it.  I thought they would be ready to go home by intermission, but they really wanted to stay for the whole thing and make sure Santa got out of jail.  They looked quite handsome in their Christmas sweaters from Grandma Pam.  We didn't get home until 11 pm, but it was worth it.

**We enjoyed a picnic dinner.

**We drank Grinch punch and watched the movie.

**We bundled up and went to the Parade of Lights and had a great time.  Jacoby is getting really good at picking out safe candy, and both boys dutifully shared a lot of the loot (candy, balloons, teddy bears, etc) to kids sitting behind us who couldn't reach.

The boys loved the donkey wearing pants

**We made sparkly snowflakes. 

Morgan and Mommy working away.  Minus one Jacoby...who was on the Naughty List during this activity.

This was all going fine until Morgan rubbed his eye and got sparkly stuff in his eyeball.  Chaos ensued and I now have sparkly stuff all over my house.

They're very pretty, but should have come with a maker beware sign!

Once one kid was off the Naughty List and the other had been hosed off completely, haz-mat style, to rid his little body of all sparklies, we took on a quiet activity.  Both boys are puzzle masters, so they were quite proud to be working on one with 60 pieces.

Morgan got a teddy bear at the parade, and I don't think he let go of it all weekend.

Admiring the finished product.

 The boys made these cute houses at Lowes

A prototype for the activity I'll be doing with the kids at Jacoby's upcoming holiday party.  Thank you very much Martha Stewart!

Star Light, Star Bright

The holiday season is in full swing here at the Barber house.  For the first of our Advent activities, we invited our friends over for a Polar Express night.  We dressed in our pjs and enjoyed popcorn and hot chocolate while watching the movie together.

Sorry this is so blurry!  Here are the munchkins before the Polar Express started.

Today, we decided to take advantage of our beautiful (very un-winter like) weather and go see the Boulder holiday star on Flagstaff Mountain.  We got there a bit early, so we climbed on rocks and watched a herd of deer.  We didn't tell the boys what we were waiting for, only that it was a big surprise for them to see (Jacoby thought it was going to be a mountain lion...yikes!).  The look on their faces when they turned around and saw this huge star beautifully lit on the side of the mountain was priceless.  They eagerly hiked the short, but very steep, hill to sit under the star and touch the points.  It was a great treat.

Climbing on some rocks at sun down

  Two brothers

 

 Lovely Boulder

Beautiful Star.  We discovered we could actually see this all the way from southwest Longmont.

 My camera isn't great with night shots...but it's still pretty.

Standing at one of the points of the star with Daddy.  It's hard to see, but it was a very steep mountainside, so we had to keep ahold of the boys or else they'd tumble down the hill.

Sitting in the middle of the star.

More of the star

Here we are!

Looking down towards the city

The month in review

The month is nearly over and I haven't written much, so here's a recap of our news:

*Both boys voted on Election Day.  Morgan was the only kid in his class who knew the names of both candidates.  Jacoby gave us a break down of how many kids voted for each candidate, the number of years the president will serve, and other numerical information from the day.

*Grandmanette and Grandpa Michael visited us for a few days.  We enjoyed our time with them.

*Jacoby came down with croup and landed in Urgent Care in the middle of the night.  He also caught a tummy bug, so he missed a week of school.  Morgan also got croup, but not as bad.

*I had quite an adventure getting to Salt Lake City thanks to mechanical issues and snow.  At times it seemed I might have walked there faster, but I finally made it 20 minutes before the show started and the board meeting went very well.  I'm so glad to have it behind me!

*We enjoyed time with Grandpa Bill and love the result of our new mud area in the garage (see a few posts below).

*We spent time at Washington Park in Denver riding bikes and playing on the playground.  Jacoby is now riding his big bike and doing really well.

*Thanksgiving was a quiet holiday for us.  We enjoyed some restful time together.

.

*We also enjoyed a great feast: pork tenderloin, butternut squash, stuffing, cranberries, rolls, and pumpkin pie.  It was delicious!

*Jacoby took it upon himself to organize our books.  His categories included: people, animals, dinos, transportation, and misc. 

*We visited the Rocky Mountain Toy Train Show this weekend.  It was fun to see all of the model trains and displays.

Morgan rode the "Polar Express" train.

One of our favorite Christmas trains

*We put up some Christmas around the house.

The boys enjoyed hearing some of the stories behind our ornaments.

Morgan put the tree on top for us this year.

Here's the special Christmas house they love.

Pretty tree

Enjoying some Christmas dress-up things

Reading books together

Another Rudolph

*Jacoby is glad to be back at school.  I volunteered in the class this week.  I'm making friends with his classmates and enjoy my time with them.  The Gingerbread Man is secretly visiting the Kindergarten classes and causing mischief.  (:

*Justin is busy with work.  He's taken on several big projects and is working hard to get them completed.  Still no word on his dissertation proposal...grrr.

*Morgan's class mascot, Captain Kangaroo (a hamster), passed away over the weekend.  They spent a lot of time talking about it today.  Captain Kangaroo lived a long, satisfying life with these preschoolers.  He's been with them since they were in the toddler room.

*I got a raise!  Woohoo!

Hope you all are doing well!