quick visit from grandpa...and other stuff

over thanksgiving, jason made my mom a slow feeder for her horses.

however, only one would fit in their truck. so, when my dad came west for some fish,

he came a little farther to houston and picked up the other one to take back to her. 

he was only in houston for one day, but we had as much fun as we could pack in!

we stared off with some painting....

then, why i was at my physical, they caught mosquito fish from a nearby bayou.

grant and chase loved it, and now we've got fish named bubbles, sally, and monster.

(you can see them barely at the bottom of the tank)

catching chase with the ornaments again...

that night after dinner, we walked to the train house. thank goodness it was
 the first night it was open! it was fun to show to my dad,
and the boys had a great time.

the boys are determined to get their tongues stuck on a pole.

not sure why, they've seen that boy cry on the movie....

after my dad had to go, we did other fun stuff. 

like frost this gingerbread cookie we got from a friend.

i caught grant doing this more than once. too funny.

also, a funny thing i noticed, if you watch the movie, we are that family!

it's a little scary.

a big part of our vacation time this year was making the boys' new beds.
platform beds, custom designed by jason.
i'm so grateful for his hard work and dedication and talent. i tried to help, but 

he did 99% of the work. i can't WAIT for them to be done.
they are going to be awesome!

aaaaand...having fun with buddy the elf, as usual.
chase doesn't follow that no touching rule.

in fact, if you leave buddy where chase can climb and get him, he does.
 and then he chases grant around while grant screams,
"dont touch me with him! i won't get any presents! stop chase! STOP!"

decorating for christmas

one of the highlights of the season is getting all the christmas stuff out.

i'm not sure who is more excited, me or the boys! jason is always a big help with the lights. 

it's a fun tradition to play music and get all the stuff out and watch our cat go nuts.

i love having lots of kid friendly stuff. i love it that they can enjoy everything as much as i do.

it really makes me so happy.

this year we did a new thing, we made our own snow globes. it was fun, and we learned

some good lessons for next year's snow globes....

ornaments!

one of my favorite parts of this year was watching chase move the ornaments

around every day. grant would be gone at school, and he would just look at the tree and 

then move all his favorite ones to his special part of the tree. i loved how involved he was.

 i loved it even though every day there were huge bare spots in the tree. i loved 

hearing him talk about each ornament and what he liked about each one. 

he did this everyday for weeks. i loved it. it was so so so cute.

chase: "mom! is this what a star looks like?"

beach in december

i wonder if i'll look back and think wow, our photo album has WAY

too many pictures of the beach. haha! 

we love going as a family and this trip was a unique one.

first of all, it was FREEZING. in the 40's and the wind was blowing. 

the waves were supposed to be really big, but when we woke up, 

they looked small on the Galveston beach cam, so we decided to go 

just in case they were big and if they were small, 

we'd just enjoy the day at the beach.

the waves did end up not being very big, so we just played. hunted for shells,

chased birds, had a fire, dared each other to go in the water, and overall

had a great time. it was sort of like we were camping. fun memories for sure.

i think it's funny the boys are on the beach in their winter gear!

we found some watermelons growing in the sand!

grant organized some races to warm up...

and chase learned he could "win" if he turned around and ran back before grant noticed!

it's sort of scary how fast grant is...how can my first grader already almost beat me???

chase attempting to escape...or rock climb.....or something.

(sorry for the terrible quality of pictures, i forgot my camera and only had my phone)

chase being his happy self....wearing his "crunchy pants" that he NEVER takes off...

grant being the only one brave enough to try the water! he didn't stay in too long...

and there may or may not have been some tears....

enjoying the fire! (and cookies too by the looks of chase's face)

cutting open the watermelon (that tasted like a cucumber...)

it really was a fun day!