Did Owen need stitches?

Good times today...Russ & I took Owen to the doctor this morning to see if he needed stitches in his chin. He had pushed the bathroom step stool, which has two steps, up to one of the light switches in the hallway. Only problem was the lower step was pushed up against the wall. I was in the kitchen when I heard the bang and then the horrible crying. I found him face down on the floor crying. I picked him up and immediately put his head on my shoulder. He was crying the "I'm really hurt" cry and hugging me as tight as he could. When I was able to pull away, I expected to see the cut lip, not the bleeding gash under his chin. We cleaned it and called the doctor. An hour later we were in the office, the cut had already sealed up pretty good, and we were instructed to keep it clean and to try to get a band aid on it. Owen narrowly escaped the stitches. Lucky boy! Russ managed to sneak a band aid with Neosporin on Owen's chin while he was napping today. When he woke up he didn't even know it was there.

The Bier's Christmas Party

We gathered with our friends at the Biers' house for the annual holiday party last night. This year the kids did a lot of craft projects (making paper chains, jingle bell necklaces and ornaments, and decorating cookies) and Santa dropped by for a visit. The kids always love that Santa comes bearing gifts and candy canes. He gets us all to sing Christmas carols too. It's a good time. It's even better seeing all our friends. Everyone gets so busy, we don't see each other often enough. (To slow down the slide show, mouse over the photos. Three buttons will appear to go back, stop or go forward in the sequence.)

Chocolate Owen

For a boy who doesn't much like chocolate, he sure did get it everywhere!

Why is it so quiet?

Because Owen and Dylan were busy pulling out every stuffed animal out of the trundle bed drawer and piled them in D's bed. They were in heaven when they were done.

Fun Run at Caleb Greenwood

Brandon's school had a fun run today for the kids and a 5k for the adults, as well as the annual pancake breakfast. Brandon did the fun run all by himself. He looked to cute! It was just a run around the block, but they got to run in the street. I think that was Brandon's favorite part...no I take that back. The medal he received for finishing the race was his favorite. We skipped the pancake breakfast, since the boys were full up to their eyeballs with waffles from earlier that morning.

Photos: Caleb Fun Run

The Start

Almost finished!

Brandon sporting
that new medal

Photos: Davis Ranch in Sloughhouse

Time to get our Christmas tree

For the last few years we have driven up to Apple Hill to get our Christmas tree. We have always gone midweek so we could have the tree farm practically to ourselves. But now that Brandon is in kindergarten, we realized that we can really only go on weekends. We go to a really popular tree farm, so a weekend trip was out. There was no way we were going to sit in traffic just trying to get into the parking lot. On top of that, they cut the tree for you, so waiting for someone to be free would have been a long wait, too. We were aggravated just thinking about it!

Instead we stayed more local and went to Davis Ranch out in Sloughhouse. Russ and I missed the mountain air and hike to find a tree, but the kids didn't know the difference. We found our tree in about 5 minutes. That was just crazy fast. Brandon and Owen thought Daddy cutting down the tree was pretty cool. Not D...he wanted to cut the tree down with Daddy. After the tree was loaded up in the back of the truck, we let the boys run around a bit. They were just giddy running through all the trees.

We decorated the tree tonight, and I can't believe I don't have a single photo of us decorating! My super mom status is slipping! Anyway, Owen just couldn't get over the fact that we had a tree INSIDE our house and it was covered in toys and pretty lights!

Christmas program

Brandon sang in a Christmas program with all the kindergarten classes tonight. It was so cute. My mom told me, "Now you know how I felt when you and your brother were this age." Brandon did so great. He was really into it and singing every song. If I have time, I'll try to upload some of the video that Russ shot tonight. They sang Jingle Bells with actual jingle bells, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer with tiny red clown noses, Santa Claus Rock, 8 Little Reindeer and a couple of others I can't remember. My photos came out really dark since I wasn't close enough to the stage, so I did my best to fix them in Photoshop.

"How do babies get in tummies?"

The other day Brandon asked Russ, "Daddy, how do babies get inside tummies?" We were all in the kitchen, so I waited a little bit to see what Russ would say. All he could do was repeat the question. When I realized that Russ didn't have an answer, I answered for him. I told Brandon that babies grow inside tummies. He was satisfied with the answer and moved on to something else. Man! That question came out of left field! I think we were a little freaked out!