Christmas Tree Farm

We made our annual trip to the Concho Christmas Tree Farm yesterday.  We were the only people there until right before we left so we had the place to ourselves.  We don't normally get a tree quite this early, but I felt like it would help motivate me to finish unpacking and getting our house in order!

When exactly did he turn into a little boy and not a baby?! 

The boys liked the animals like always.  This tiny pygmy goat was full grown!  She was so tiny!

 

Monte really liked digging in the corn!

So Ann found these tiny wranglers at Salvation Army I think and they are just about the cutest things ever!

Monte asked Gunnar to help him rope. 

Gunnar and Kit...

So the boys favorite part was the irrigation system...

Love my boys!

Climbed all over the train!

Finally got around to picking out our tree.  I love cutting down our own but I also love how pretty the ones they get in from North Carolina are!!

Because we were the only ones there, the owner offered us a hay ride!  Monte was a little apprehensive at first but ended up loving it!

Kit got really into jingling the bells!

I love this boy!

Merry Christmas Season!

Cousins

I keep Jaxson once a week usually and watching the boys develop into great friends is such a treat! Jaxson is a year younger than Monte, although the same height, and 6 months older than Kit.  Sometimes he seems to be more in Monte's developmental range and other times he and Kit seem to be together developmentally.  Right now he and Kit are jiving and seem to understand life about the same.  They both want to do everything Monte does and say everything Monte says. 

You have to admit, they're pretty darn adorable!

They were all laying down, covering up with blankets, and pretending to sleep. 

Last time I had Jax, I took them on a walk to ya know, wear them out some, and get them out of the house. 

Jaxson carried his excavator and front end loader the whole time!

We had a game of "run like an animal" across the yard.  Monte would make it all the way across while Kit and Jaxson would forget about two steps in and just run.  Here they are holding their "deer tails" up behind them.

Pi Is our dog...

Monte James

I realized that I never did a Monte update when he turned three so I wanted to do one now to remember some of the things I love about him in this season before he changes again and I forget.

Life just delights him so much!  His joy is infectious!  

His memory amazes me!  One day at Tom Green, down at a feeder, Ann tried to show Monte how to take a step while throwing a rock.  Several weeks later the boys and I walked back down to the feeder and as soon as we got there, Monte picked up a rock and started trying to step while throwing it! 

He is so sweet and thoughtful already.  I'm not sure where he got this idea from but somehow he thinks that giving people leaves is like giving flowers, a great gesture!  So he periodically goes and cuts leaves and brings them to me.  He gave Sara leaves the other day too at our house.  After the rain last week all the onion flowers popped up and on his own he went and picked me a whole bunch of flowers. 

The boy LOVES Adeline!! From the moment she was born, Monte has had a sweet spot for her!   The other day while I was babysitting her, he went and got his bible and told me, "I'm going to read my bible with Adeline."  He proceeded to sit beside her, turn a page, pat her knee, turn a page, pat her knee, for like 20 minutes! 

He has progressed so much this summer in the water!  At the beginning of the summer, he jumped in without a floatie and scared himself.  After that he was so NOT going to go under the water on purpose!   Later this summer he starting putting his face in the water on his own and will now go under completely on purpose!  I'm really proud of him! 

He is a CRAZY sleeper!!  It is a regular occurrence for one of us to go cover him up and discover him on some crazy position! And honestly the better he sleeps, the more he moves around!

 - Building, building, building, puzzling, puzzling, puzzling!  This boy spends hours building blocks and doing puzzles!  I love it.  The first thing he does every morning is dump out his blocks and start building!  I love watching his little mind figure things out!

We love you Monte James! 

Cooking Hotdogs

The boys ended up pretty sick the week after we moved.  So that was no fun.  Poor Monte was fighting a 104 temp. at times!  Kit didn't get nearly as sick thankfully.  I mean one morning Monte crawled up on the couch by himself, covered himself with a blanket, and fell asleep at 9:30 in the morning!  You know he's sick if he's doing that! 

Last weekend the boys were finally feeling better, still tired but not sick anymore, the sun was out again so we decided to finally enjoy our new place some after being stuck inside all week and cook hotdogs outside for supper!

It was actually kinda difficult because everything is still so saturated Gunnar had a hard time getting anything to light, but finally we had a little fire going and the boys were thrilled!

They had fun finally getting to explore a little! Check out our new smoker! 

Fascinated!

Gunnar teaching Kit how to roll a hotdog into a tortilla.  We didn't have any buns... Kit was ready!!

Hotdog heaven!  (more like tortilla heaven, they rarely get bread so they were happy campers!)

I was so happy to see that smiling face again!

Check out that barn...errrr house... back there! 

We decided to walk down to the creek after we had eaten.  Where we are standing was under water just a day or two earlier.