Some videos

I've been trying to take more videos of the kids lately. Kelly's parents got us a great new HD video camera for Christmas that works awesome in low light and has so much less graininess. Plus, my friend gave me her old iPhone and it's SO easy to take a quick video of the kids and upload it to youtube directly from my phone with a few taps. Here is my youtube channel, you can check out some of my recent videos and even subscribe to the channel if you want. If you subscribe, I think you get e-mails if I uploaded new videos that week but I'm not 100% sure of that.

http://www.youtube.com/user/crayonsandcheerios?ob=video-mustangbase

Today was a gorgeous January day in North Texas so we went outside to play for awhile. Bryce decided he wanted to ride his bike. We gave him this balance bike for his 2nd birthday and he hated it. We showed it to him, he literally said "no!" and walked away. Today was the very first time he ever wanted to sit on it or try to ride. So I put his helmet on and helped him down the driveway. He didn't understand that he was supposed to balance on it, he thought it was a ride and kept trying to put his feet up and let me push him. So we're hanging out on the sidewalk just trying to sit without falling over and without me hanging onto him too much. Cason went inside to get something and when he came back out, the dog came out too. So a minute later, I wanted to put the dog back inside. I told Bryce to sit on his bike and try not to fall over. I put Kielers inside and when I came back, he was not only balancing, he started riding it too.



And here's another video from a few minutes later of him riding more and the boys playing.



And finally, my kids are completely crazy about Mickey Mouse. It's all they watch these days. Both of them walk around quoting lines from the shows all of the time. Cason builds Mickey Mouse stuff constantly out of Trio Blocks (more about that another day). This video is from one morning when Bryce was quoting Mickey so I got out the video camera. It's dark because it was still pretty early and Cason wasn't awake yet.

Paci Train

Bryce has been a paci lover since he was days old. We have limited him to only having them when he's in bed for over a year now but last month, he kept sneaking them out of his crib when he was playing. So I gave him a little pail and told him they have to stay in the pail when he's not in bed. He can put the pail in his crib, up high on his bookcase, or on the shelf in his close but they had to stay in his paci pail. He loved this and has been good about leaving them alone ever since. But at night, we hear him plopping his pacis in the pail before he falls asleep and I often find him curled up around it when I check on him before I go to bed.



One morning, about a month ago, I walked into Bryce's room in the morning and he had linked all four of his pacis together. He called it his paci train. He will sometimes even suck on the paci train, which looks crazy and hilarious at the same time. He doesn't do it every morning but does it often enough! Crazy, silly boy.

Christmas 2011

We had another great Christmas this year. I think I was more excited for it than the kids but they were definitely pumped up about it too. Cason had a Christmas party at school after his Christmas program, we went and saw lights at Texas Motor Speedway, we walked around and looked at lights on multiple occasions, went to a living nativity, and baked special holiday treats.

I tried to stress the joy of giving to the boys, it's hard at this age because they love to get new toys but Cason took a new toy to school to donate and I had them help make Christmas gifts for relatives. I also took each boy separately to the store to pick out a gift for each other. Then I took them to the supplement store and let them pick out protein bars for Daddy.

On Christmas morning, I waited until both boys were up and then gave them their stockings. They are both super into Mickey Mouse right now so their stockings contained a Mickey drinking glass, Mickey utensils, a Mickey movie, Mickey jammies, and some candy.







Then we let them open two presents and munch on their candy while we made breakfast. Kelly and I each picked out a present for each of the boys this year. Here is Cason opening the real model rocket that Kelly got for him.



After breakfast, we moved to the playroom and opened the rest of the presents. Here is Bryce opening the baseball glove that Kelly got him. It's too big for him, we knew it would be but it's the smallest they make and he really wanted one. He'll grow into it!







Watching his new Mickey movie, wearing the helmet Grandpa got him, playing with the trains that Cason picked out for him.



Reading one of Bryce's new books.



He loves the trains that Cason got him.



And all his new football guys.





Cason loved all his presents too. His new Trio block castles were big hits.



They both love the giant fire house from Grandma and Grandpa.



And the rocket.







On Monday, we headed to the "park" to launch Cason's rocket. The boys loved it, I added a video as well.

Cason's Christmas Program

It's been really busy around here but I wanted to post this video of Cason's preschool Christmas program from this morning. Cason doesn't like to sing and his teacher told us that he hasn't been participating in music class lately so we have been talking to him about doing his best and how sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do. We even told him he doesn't have to sing but to do the motions and maybe even pretend to sing. This morning was his program and each class sang two songs, then all of the classes got back on stage to sing two more songs as a school.

I was so proud of him, he looked so nervous during the first song but he actually sang. He warmed up by the last song and even did some motions. When I picked him up, his teachers told him he did such a great job singing. He was even proud of himself and told me that he didn't want to sing but he did it anyway.

Fire Station

We work out with quite a few firefighters at our gym and have become good friends with them. Bryce likes fire trucks, like most little boys, so he loves to talk to the firefighters, especially Erik. A week or two ago, Erik said that we could bring the boys to the fire station to check out the truck sometime. So yesterday afternoon, we took the boys there. They were so excited to go and they loved everything they got to see and do.





Erik showed the boys some of the big hoses and one of them responded that they have squirt bottles at home. So Erik got out his squirt bottle and let the boys spray it. It sprayed some sort of chemical foam.





Then Erik got out one of the ladders and let the boys climb it.





He went around the outside of the truck, showing them all of the tools and letting them get their hands on them. Here they are testing out a hydraulic spreader.







Neither of the boys wanted to try on his big fire coat or boots but they both did like trying on the helmets.









Next they sat in the front of the truck.











Then Erik pulled the truck out so they could spray some water from the hose.







And of course he had to turn on the lights and the boys ran around the truck, checking them all out.





Then we got to ride in the fire truck. Three firefighters accompanied us and we just did a quick spin around the neighborhood.



Firefighters use headsets to talk to each other in the truck.





Erik showed us around the rest of the fire station and we saw the kitchen, living room, bedrooms, bathrooms, workout room, lockers, etc. But that was boring in comparison so we quickly ended up back in the garage. We also checked out the two ambulances but the boys were more interested in the fire truck.