Christmas Cards

So... I intended to make a Christmas card this year. I even went so far as to take a bunch of cute pictures in the snow, and loaded them on my computer. That was all on December 7th! I was on the ball! But then, as you know, stuff happens and they never made it public. So here they are now for you! No words still, but look how cute these pictures are!

Merry Christmas from the Coles Family! Let's all pretend this came in the mail... two months ago.

Christmas 2013

Turns out, this year I was a bad mom, and took hardly any pictures at all of Christmas. Here's what I got for ya:

I wanted some glowing tree pictures, which I think turned out pretty well.

Christmas morning, this is what we saw from Santa:

And here is the obligatory shot of the kid(s) waiting on the stairs. It is super blurry and I don't know where Luke is. I have no excuses.

Fun With Lunch

How many grapes can you fit in your mouth at once?

William can fit four.

Poor Wills

Wills has a black eye.

He hit himself in the eye with his knee while he was jumping on the trampoline.

Mater Operation

We sometimes like to buy new games when Eric goes out of town as a treat for being left at home. We bought this Operation game that is Mater from Cars, and the boys totally don't get the concept of the "surgery", but they think it is hilarious to buzz him.

Happy Easter

We did our neighborhood egg hunt on Saturday again this year. The boys both loaded up on lots of goodies.

And of course the Easter Bunny visited our house and hid lots more treats. The boys got really into the hunt.

Luke immediately opened all his eggs he found and sorted the candy into piles. And then ate as much as he could before I stopped him.

Superhero Party

For Will's and Logan's fourth birthday party, we trained them to be superheros. First, we got them suited up in their capes, eye masks, and wrist bands.

Then they had to show off their muscles and super strength by holding buildings over their heads.

They also practiced flying over those buildings.

Next they fought some bad guys with killer punches and kicks. All the bad guys popped.

Then, a brother bad buy dropped a bunch of bombs and they had to diffuse the bombs with super strength and speed.

Some bad guys showed up on top of the buildings again, and our heros sprayed them with their ray-guns.

The best part of super hero training was practicing shooting webs, like Spiderman.

Wills practiced on Grandma too, but Grandma fights back.

For all their hard work, they were rewarded with lots of presents. Lots of superhero and imaginext stuff.

All the guests were wowed by the boys new powers.

We also had our treat of a Spiderman and a Batman cake.

Happy Birthday, big boy!

Happy Birthday Boys!

Pictures of the party coming soon!

What Boys Are Watching

(This is Part Two. Part One is here.)

Let's start with the good shows.

Jackie Chan Adventures is a show that I used to watch when I was too old to watch cartoons. The characters are funny, the plot has a good arc through the season, and your kids will learn to say things like, "Ai-yaaa!" which I think is Chinese.

Spectacular Spiderman is the best spiderman show there is. I have watched them all, and the rest are terrible. This show is no longer on Netflix, but you can buy the first season on DVD, and the second season was never released. I found a copy online from Ireland that I bought to give it to Wills on his birthday, but first I have to transfer it to DVD format that will play in the US. It's worth it for this show.

Fraggle Rock is another show that we both used to watch when we were little. It's not the best, but there are some cute toons and at least it's not potty humor like a lot of shows now are.

And now, here are two shows that I recommend you never let you kids watch, because then they will never know they exist, and they won't ever ask you to watch. The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, and The Karate Kid. Both are from the 80s, and they are so terrible there are no words. If you don't believe me, you can check them out on Youtube.

Pajama Monsters

I found this pattern on Pinterest for pajama monsters from Sew Fearless. The have zippered mouths so you can put your pajamas in them in the morning, and then they give them back at night!

I'm glad I did them with the minkee fabric. I think that gives them a "real stuffed animal" look, plus they are so nice to hug.

I let the boys pick out their own colors. Obviously, William's favorite color is red and I think the only color Luke knows really well is orange. Which is funny to me because that was the first color Will learned too.

It was a pretty simple pattern, and easy to understand, but I did make some adjustments on the second one that made it better. First of all, you don't need a yard of the main fabric at all. A half yard should do fine, I have tons of leftover. Second, the feet are too big and the legs too poofy. On my second one, I cut the soles a little more foot-shaped, and I cut much less fabric for the legs. By the way, so you can tell in the pictures, the orange one was first and the red one is a little improved.

Overall, they turned out great and the boys love them! Maybe these will help them keep their room clean... but I doubt it.