Building a Gingerbread House with a 2 year old

Harrison and I built and decorated a gingerbread house this week. It was a lot of fun and although it does not look the greatest he had a great time and is so proud of it. Harrison has told everyone who visits "I build" and points to the gingerbread house.

Here are some pictures of him working hard and some cheese ball pictures of him being proud of the completed project!

Concentrating on putting those buttons on just right!

He licked each piece before he put it on the gingerbread house!

Placing the last piece of candy...


CHEESE!!!

And a little TOO much cheese!

Leaf Extravaganza! (Mike wanted me to title it that)

Yesterday Mike and I tackled the leaves in our yard. Yes, we are a little behind getting them up this year but there are several reasons for that, let me explain...

Mike has been busy beyond belief at work for the past several weeks! They just don't seem to have compatent people working there and stuff just keeps going wrong! It has been very frustrating for him as well as for us since we aren't getting to see much of him. Pray that it will change soon and that he will get a little break over Christmas!

We did have all the leaves raked up for us once already. Mike's brother Mark and one of their friends, Ben, came over and got all the leaves up about a month ago. They put a HUGE pile up on the road for the city leave collectors to come get and our yard looked great for about 2 days - then more leaves started to fall.

It rained. About 2 weeks ago I raked the whole front yard to try to help Mike out since he was having to work so much. That Friday when he got home he raked the whole back yard and started bagging the leaves and then it got dark. So we had a yard full of leaf piles and planned on bagging them all on Sat. then it rained!

We went to GA. Last weekend we went to GA because the church we attended there was having the first service in the new building that they had started building while we were still there. We didn't get home until late Sunday night so nothing was done last weekend.

This week it rained a lot again and Mike worked a lot again.

No one raked the leaves out of the beds for several years before we lived here! The beds around our house are not the greatest and there were TONS of leaves in them. Mike raked them all out so we had a few extra million leaves to get along with the ones that were already in our trees.

We have A LOT of trees in our yard - which is great - but that means we have lots of leaves!

Here are our leaves...

36 bags FULL of TIGHTLY compressed leaves!!!

We wanted our neighbors to see how many leaves we had so we put them in a single file line in front of our house. Hopefully this way they will understand why we had leaves in our yard for so long! :) I was standing up against my neighbors house across the street and I still couldn't get all the bags in the picture, but you get the idea!

And here he is folks...my hard working husband who raked (the leaves that fell in the rain this week) and bagged the many piles of leaves we already had from 10:30 Saturday morning until 5 that evening! He even took me to dinner and Christmas shopping afterwards too!! He was a bit zoned during dinner and shopping though, but I understood.

GREAT NEWS!!! There are no more leaves on our trees so we won't have to rake again - until next year!

Updates

Update #1

Christmas tree news: We finally got our Christmas tree up and it is REAL!!!! This is the first Christmas since Mike and I have been married that we have gotten a real Christmas tree. It smells so fresh and looks beautiful in the corner of our living room. Harrison said it was "bootiful" when he woke up and saw it this morning!

Update # 2

Advent news: For anyone interested we have opened 4 more boxes in our advent calendar. We got a tiny snow globe on the 6th (which Harrison loves), a tiny Christmas tree ornament that looks like a little silver spiral tree with a bell on the bottom on the 7th, 3 more Hershey kisses on the 8th (Harrison thinks they are all for him!) and today we got tic-tacs and the dogs got chew bones (again Harrison thinks all the tic-tacs are his - I will give him mine though b/c tic-tacs have become lifesavers when we have been in the store just a little too long for him and he starts to scream - they allow me to check out without too much embarrassment!).

Update # 3

Potty news: Harrison pooped on the potty last night... and then cried when he saw it!!!! We are still not offically potty training but Harrison has been pee-peeing before his bath since he was about 18 months old. Other than that he is not interested so I am not pushing it yet b/c I don't want to get stressed out with it. Last night though I knew he needed to pee (you can just tell with boys :) Nothing was coming out and then I smelled it. I was in a little bit of shock and didn't want to scare him until he finished. When he did he stood up and I cheered and Mike went to get the M&M's. Harrison looked into the pot and started to cry like he was totally afraid - I laughed and then we flushed it. I am sure potty training is going to be lots of fun! We will probably start when he is 2 1/2 (around March or April) and I am sure we will have some more stories to relay - unless it just grosses anyone out too much :).

I hope everyone has a blessed day today!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband! He turned 30 today so he is feeling a little old, but I still love him anyway :).

Dickens of a Christmas

We had a fun evening at Dickens of a Christmas in downtown Spartanburg this year. We enjoyed a nice meal at Monsoon Noodle house with Jessica and her mom (John showed up a little later after taking an exam and Mike was working out of town :( ).

Then we wandered around the street looking and listening to the different sights and sounds. Harrison loved the handbells the best!

We watched the lighting of the huge Christmas tree (I think they referred to it as the Denny's tree - but we know better :) ).

Then we finished off the evening with some yummy hot chocolate. It was very cold but lots of fun.

Harrison was a little star struck at his first encounter with Santa!

Harrison and Grammie looking at the big tree!

The beautiful Christmas tree!


Pop and Harrison warming up after some hot chocolate.

Mom gave us an advent calendar this year that she had stuffed with little goodies. December 1st were some Christmas foam stickers. Harrison decided they should go on his shirt so here a picture of him all decked out. Later we decided to use the stickers to make Grammie a card to say thanks for our calendar!

So far we have gotten Christmas soap, Green tea to-go, Hershey kisses and today for Mike's birthday he got molah to buy some new tennis shoes! Thanks mom and dad!

I'll update on what else the advent calendar throughout the month - Merry Christmas!

Cutest Little Thanksgiving Baby!

Here is little Luke on Thanksgiving. He had a busy day and was such a trooper for only being 6 days old.

Leaf Jumping

It has been busy around here lately so I am little behind in my blogging. Here are some cute pictures of Harrison playing the leaves we've been raking up in our yard!

Luke Jared Knight

My adorable new nephew!

Born on Friday November 21,2008

6:53 pm

10 lbs. 12 oz.

21 inches Luke and his proud daddy

Luke Jared

Correction

Well, after having the previous blog up for several weeks I have just become aware that we were actually at CARL Sandburg's house and not CHARLES Sandburg! Oops!


Thanks for letting me know John!

Charles Sandburg's House

Saturday we took a quick trip to the mountains. We headed up to Flat Rock and hiked and visited the goats at Charles Sandburg's house. We had a really great time and a fun picnic lunch.

Here's some pictures from our day!

Hiking around the lake.

Posing with daddy by the lake.

He is really getting into saying "cheese"!

Peek-a-boo!

Some of the goats and the red barn.

This goat bowed to pray before he ate :)

Harrison LOVED the goats!

Boo in the Zoo

We went to the Greenville Zoo for Boo in the Zoo last Monday night with our care group from church. It was a lot of fun but VERY crowded which made it hard to stay together with the group and even harder to take pictures. Here are a few so you can see our cute little cowboy!

At mom's before heading to the zoo. He wasn't really happy about putting all these clothes on but we eventually did it!

Not wanting to wear his hat - doesn't the hay make him look authentic!

Here's who really wore the hat most of the night!
Happy Fall!!!! Pay no attention to the candy bar in his hand - it had NOTHING to do with the fact that he is looking at the camera!

Incognito

Look who I found hiding in his tent ~

...A bobbie snatcher!

He is having his last precious moments with them b/c he knows when baby Luke is born he has to give them to him! We hope our plan works!!!!

Teachable moment

Lately when I am talking to someone in the car Harrison will begin saying "mama, mama, mama, mama, mama, mama...." until I answer him. Each time when I get to a stopping point in my conversation I will tell Harrison that if he needs me when I am talking he needs to say "excuse me, mama" and then wait for me to stop talking. Well, in his sweet little head he hears "excuse me" as "goofy" so he will begin listing off minnie, mickey mouse, goc duckie and then say goofy several more times!

Last night we went to the fair with mom and dad. On the way home mom and I were talking and then the mama, mama, mama began. I said my usual little speech and Harrison again listed all the Mickey characters he could think of. Mom of course thought this was hilarious (and I do too of course)! We couldn't even finish our conversation because we were laughing so much! So we will continue to "teach" Harrison to not inturupt but I am not sure how much good it will do until he understands that I am not asking him to list off the Mickey Mouse clubhouse gang!

Here are a few pictures from the fair.

Grammie and Harrison riding on the train.

Daddy and Harrison flying the helicopter. I think Harrison really thought he was flying it too!

Harrison Birthday Dinner at GattiTown

We took Harrison to GattiTown for his birthday dinner because we thought it would be fun for him and we had a coupon :)!! David, Julie, Max and Jake joined us and the boys had tons of fun. The best part was we got two $3 game cards with our coupon and we could hardly use them up. The carousel is free on Tuesdays (good to know) and the boys didn't care if the games were working or not they just like sitting there and driving the steering wheels. All three boys played one game of ski-ball for like 20 min. because they couldn't throw them far enough. It was a fun night and we all had a great time!

Here are a few pictures from the night.

Enjoying some pizza!

They had fun playing the bop-it game!

Jake playing some soccer.

Harrison trying to kiss the monster!

The boys playing ski-ball. They were all throwing it overhanded!

I think Mike was having more fun racing the horses than Harrison!

The Knight's on the carousel.
The Master's on the carousel.

Harrison 2nd Birthday Party

Harrison's cake

I decided to make a train cake for Harrison's 2nd birthday and I looked up pictures and directions on the internet. It didn't look too difficult and my friend Julie has made lots of cakes and was going to help me - piece of cake - right!?!?!

Well, after 3 days and 11-12 hrs. of working on the cake it was finally completed. We had many set-backs and had to use 4 cake mixes to complete it, it continued to fall apart and the store icing was melting but in the end it was beautiful and Harrison LOVED it!

I could not have done it without Julie - she made the whole thing I just said "Go, Julie go!" We had lots of fun at the party and I will post more party pictures soon - just wanted ya'll to see the masterpiece :)

This is what happened before the end of the party! Thank goodness we took pictures, sang and blew out the candle first!

Birthday Boy...

The birthday boy DID NOT want to go to sleep today. On the first attempt he played is his bed for 45 minutes and I decided he wasn't tired enough yet so we went outside and ran around. On the second attempt he was in his bed playing for a hour and then he finally gave in - although I am not sure he meant to...

I did lay him down flat after I took the picture :)

*** Also the birthday boy has pee-peed on the potty twice today! We are not potty training officially but this is still exciting to me~

*** Here's one more sleeping picture that I meant to put up a while ago - I just don't know how he gets comfortable sometimes!