If you want to find my boys this week....

If you want to find James this week, he will be writing or playing with his Lego Advent Calendar. First up, writing-this is a HUGE update for James.  Up until this week, he has written his name exactly twice, and has never shown even the slightest bit of interest in writing, drawing, or coloring. I have to laugh because at his school when I go to pick him up, all the cubbies are always stuffed with drawings except for James'. He never wants to draw anything. I admit that the teacher/paranoid mom in me was convinced that he would go off to Kindergarten not being able to write. Well in true James fashion, he just waited until he really wanted to do it and is now writing up a storm. The other day he wanted to write a letter to Santa and then all of his friends' names. This is his letter to Santa-it says"Santa Lego Fire Station.

And this says Mallory with a picture of Rapunzel on the bottom, because as James said, "She is obsessed with Rapunzel, you know." This also marks the first semi-identifiable drawing he has ever done.

Yesterday, he decided he wanted to write a Lego chapter book. His first chapter is called "Discovery Police Amazon." My favorite page that he wrote says: The sirens flash and lights blare as the heros race to the scene. This is the only page I took a photo of, it says: The police drive the car. Seriously, I am so proud of him!

My friend is a school psychologist and needed to norm reference a new set of IQ tests, so she borrowed James to practice on. As his payment for helping her out, he got a gift card to Target to pick out anything he wanted. After talking to Ian in October, he decided he wanted to buy a Lego Advent Calendar. He has been staring at the box for about 6 weeks, so December 1st was a highly anticipated day in our house. This thing has provided him with literally hours of entertainment each day. The first thing we hear in the morning is James calling from his room, "Can I do my Lego Advent Calendar?" And then he literally spends multiple hours playing with the little figures, rearranging them, and making up stories. So far his calendar has had a crook, a snowball catapult, a policeman, 2 sides of a police station and a Christmas tree. James is also fascinated that Zephyr has a Lego Advent Calendar that is different than his and has insisted on calling her multiple times to see what her calendar has had inside.

If you want to find Mac this week, look no further than the living room. Besides being madly in love with the Christmas tree, he is also having a total love affair with all of the holiday stuffed animals and toys that we have. Grinch and Max are his favorites and he hugs them and kisses them and rolls around on the floor with them about 17 times a day.

Cormac is getting closer and closer to walking, I think he is just lacking the confidence to really take off. He will walk in kind of a side step while clapping or waving with both hands-it is pretty cute (video montage coming soon). 

I have to pat myself on the back for getting this next picture. Taking a decent photo of James lately where he is not looking completely tragic is nearly impossible, forget trying to get both boys in a photo together. I needed my annual photo for our Christmas tree stump and the boys wore their Christmas jammies last night, so I decided to attempt a photo by myself this morning. I figured without Tim jumping around behind me, I didn't stand a chance. But I only had to take about 5 pictures and I got a decent one! Granted, Jax is mid-yawn, but I will take it!

 

And here is our little collection of Christmas tree stumps, with this year's just waiting on the photo. Can you tell when we quit going to a tree lot and started cutting down our tree in the mountains?!