The Last of Christmas

Carson has been such a...two-year old lately! He has been oozing with personality and attitude the last few months. It either completely cracks me up or completely drives me crazy! One day, fresh out of the bath I threw him up on the counter while I finished getting ready and he seized the opportunity to test out a few new faces to add to his repertoire.

I only curl my hair about once a year, so on days that I do, it calls for a shameless selfie with my littlest crazy man.

Eli has been such a...four-year old lately! Ha. And by that I mean he has been pretty angelic and calmed down leaps and bounds from his wild days as a two-year old. However, he is starting to try to outsmart me more and more often.

He is our summer clothes boy. Every morning we have to remind him to put warm clothes on because he is strictly a shorts and t-shirt kinda guy. One day after a bath and after being reminded to wear warm clothes, Eli slipped into my room with a guilty smirk on his face. After noticing his pants looked a bit garbled, I went over to inspect his outfit, only to find he had put on shorts and a t-shirt under his warm clothes. He was so proud of his clever defiance.

How heavenly is the week after Christmas?!? I have had serious nesting urges. Like completely declutter and organize the entire house nesting urges, and I have been able to do it because the kids have been so enthralled with their new toys! It's been so serene around here lately.

There is one problem though. Legos.

Legos are a neat-freak's worst nightmare. Jeff has started calling me President Business (from The Lego Movie) because I am so controlling over the Lego situation. I've tried to instill the rules of only playing Legos on a blanket and no dumping out the tub of Legos. I have even taught the kids to shout out, "WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!" If someone is about to either walk off the blanket with a Lego or dump the tub over. So far our only rule breaker has been Jeff, and so far my blood pressure has surely reached unhealthy levels since bringing this highly sophisticated interlocking brick system into our house.

Jeff always hates pictures so he sometimes purposely looks like a goof when I whip my camera out. But joke's on you, Jeffery because this picture is now internet accessible in an effort to teach you to always look cute for my pictures. We got a dutch oven from Jeff's parents for Christmas. We made our best batch of peach cobbler to date for a New Year's Eve party and it was clearly something to be excited about!

Have I told you yet that Carson is finally on a consistent sleep schedule? He's even started sleeping through the night once a month so that's encouraging. But have I told you yet that the process of getting him to sleep is...well...a process?

Last Friday was time to cash in our Jazz date. While I was putting Carson down for his nap in the afternoon I realized just how intricate and specific his bedtime routine is. Since my mom was going to have to put him to bed that night, I decided the best way to set her up for success was to write out a detailed list of the necessary steps for a successful night with Carson. And then I laughed out loud when I saw how ridiculous it is, and I can't believe we go through this literal song and dance two times a day.

We had a great time at the game. In the nosebleed section. Our seats were so high we were breathing in everyone's stale body heat the whole game because we were basically in the rafters. But luckily they had huge TVs that made us feel like we were right on the sidelines. We skipped out of the game a little early to have a kid-free City Creek experience. It was roughly the same experience as having kids there. We don't really love that place either way, but it was fun to be out on the town.

No. I wasn't on drugs. But I was kid free which is kind of like the same thing and explains my crazy eyes.

We got home at 10:30 to a little Carson boy who was still wide awake. Not due to my mom's lack of trying. Lo and behold, Jeff just had to walk in his room and say, "Go to sleep." And Carson was out like a light. I guess Jeff is the irreplaceable part of the routine that my mom didn't have access to. Curse my children and their obsessive love of Jeff! :)

Carson had a whole slew of funny quotes when he woke up the next morning. As I was praising Eli for being such a good boy for his Grandma, Carson sheepishly looked at me and said, "I got out of bed. Grandma's mad at me." Ha.

Then as we were eating breakfast I said, "Who missed me last night?!?" Eli cheerily replied, "Me!" While Carson shouted, "Grandma!"

And then my favorite quote happened as Carson was looking towards the kitchen window. He kept saying, "Mom, the bird is cold." I kept looking out the window trying to figure out what he was talking about. Then I realized he was looking at this duck my mom uses to hang her hand towel on in the kitchen. Apparently it looked like a cold duck in a blanket to Carson.

My mom still uses a lot of the decorations around her house that she had when I was a kid. I remember playing with these snowmen when I was little, so it was fun to see my boys take the same delight in playing with them all morning.

They also attempted another one of my favorite childhood memories -- sliding down the stairs. Though they haven't learned yet that sleeping bags make the trip a lot quicker, so they resorted to jumping down the stairs instead.

My mom babysat for us and then treated us to Texas Roadhouse the next day! My kind of babysitter! Carson spent his time waiting for his meal licking the outside of the peanuts. When we opened the shell up for him to eat the nut part, he gagged like that was disgusting and went on licking shell after shell.

Eli was super excited about his new church class today. He even combed his hair all by himself in anticipation of his big day!

His "V" hairstyle did not stay, but his excitement did. When I asked him after church how his new class was, he immediately replied, "It was...AWESOME!"

Then he spent the next 20 minutes chanting, "CTR, Choose the Right, CTR, Choose the Right!"