Santa Claus, Snow, Thanksgiving and Potty Time

Ryan and Luke made their 3rd annual visit to Santa Claus tonight. The first year they were 6 months old and were quite cooperative. Last year, Ryan fell to pieces and Luke was fine. This year, Ryan was fine and Luke wanted nothing to do with him. But the chore is done and we don't have to do it again until next year. I think Santa is going to come to their school, but I don't know if I'll be able to get individual pictures of them with that Santa. Plus, I have a thing of wanting a picture with a Santa who has a real beard, not a fake one. Below are the Santa pictures from the previous 2 years.

We had a great Thanksgiving with Nana and Grandad and the boys really enjoyed their apple cake and pumpkin pie. I've never made or really enjoyed eating pumpkin pie before, but I found a Paula Deen recipe that included rum - and it turned out quite good. We also used our time off to put up the Christmas tree. We didn't put a tree up last year because we were trying to sell our house, so it was really fun to get it out this year. Luke in particular had a great time taking the ornaments from Greg and handing them to me. He now wants to "play Christmas treet" all of the time.

It snowed most of our Thanksgiving weekend and we were able to take the boys out and sled down the hill in our backyard. They had the best time sledding and playing in the snow - Ryan in particular loves to eat it and throw snowballs. There was plenty of snow to make a snowman, but we just didn't get around to it - maybe next time.

Ryan had a very successful weekend learning how to "pee pee on the Potty." Luke really enjoys watching the Elmo potty video and reading the few potty books that I got them, but he has yet to apply that knowledge. Ryan just gets it. I don't really know what I did, but starting on Wednesday he has routinely asked to go to the potty when he needs to. We have somewhat created a monster because he loves to go and takes forever to do so, but they whole point is that he is going. He's not perfect yet, but he was able to go to school today wearing pull-ups instead of a diaper. Hopefully Luke will catch on soon. I got a really cute picture of Ryan sitting on his potty, but I don't want him to hate me later in life for posting it on the internet. Instead, to show how wonderful he has done, I've posted a picture of their potty charts. Poor Luke's chart has 1 real star and the rest are there only because he "tried" and then really wanted a star on his chart. Ryan's chart is so full of stars now, he could care less about the whole thing.

I leave you with a picture of the boys with their new Christmas stockings that their Nana made them. They are just like the stockings that my mom made for myself and my brother and sister when we were kids. Thank you Nana, the boys love them.