Thanksgiving

Even before I fell behind on journaling through this blog, November's post didn't have a lot of updating to it outside of pictures. It was a good month and we started on more holiday festivities. The boys were a little sad that Halloween was over and kept asking about it for a good while, but they quickly got into the next holiday celebrations.

Sawyer

Sawyer's teacher called me at the beginning of the month and said that she had some concerns about how his anxiety his affecting is attention span/how he absorbs his education. She said that behaviorally, he's really great. He'll sit nice in groups but his mind is somewhere else. Her theory is that his little mind is so anxious, it takes everything in him to sit nicely and not panic, but then he can't focus on what's being taught because his brain is too busy worrying. And I've seen that in him, and think that makes total sense. So, since his anxiety was "officially" impeding his education, she wanted to know if it was okay with us if they ran him through some testing to see if he would qualify for some extra help and an IEP (individualized education plan). They also ended up deciding to do some speech testing after one of the testers (that he doesn't know) sat down with him and felt like he might need it. I imagine he either didn't talk a lot, or resorted to gibberish, wish is (or was) usually his go to with people he's not familiar with. 

Dawson

Dawson really got into the Christmas songs once we started playing them. He would sweetly and randomly sing, "Froooosty SnowMAAAAN!" while rocking his head back and forth. Every day, until about now. So that lasted a few good months of his life. He picked up on a song that played on my Pandora station called, "Snowglobe" and would run up and ask me to dance with him anytime it came on. So I'd toss him into my arms and we'd bounce around the kitchen while he giggled and it is one of those memories that I want really imprinted in my mind. 

On a less sweet note, one night we were all sitting around the table and Dawson kept trying to yank the decorations off the wall. After asking him not to a few (dozen) times, I finally told him I'd have to spank his bum if he didn't stop (which really doesn't work, but sometimes the threat of it does ha). That little boy looked at me, turned so his back faced me, arched his back so his little bum poked out, looked over his shoulder and said, "Spank me." Well, what do you do then friends? So Dillon and I tried to hold in our laughs and I gave Dawson a half-hearted spank. Then he sat back down and told me, "Thank you!" Like, what? Ha. This kid. 

I didn't have anything in my notes that was special for Dillon or I. We just lived our day to day and enjoyed doing holiday activities with our boys and families.

Putting lights on the house with Dillon.

Old enough to really get in on the action this year.

Babies bundled up and, especially, in beanies are one of my favorite winter things.

Doing some family coloring with our Thanksgiving gratitude papers.

He got to have a tree in his room this year and loved decorating it himself.

Most of the ornaments ended up bundled together on the same branch like this. Love it.

Eating some snow that we scooped up in his little bowl.

Thanksgiving Day we spent in Cedar with my parents. Then we headed to Delta the next day to visit Dillon's family. Dawson's in his element getting to color with cousin Allie.

Helping Kim bake some treats in the kitchen.

Sawyer had to get in on the action.

Going to see Santa.

Sawyer wasn't shy at all. He happily sat on Santa's lap and told him he wanted a bike; which is not what he told me, so we had to make a deal that maybe Santa would help bring a bike for his birthday which was just a couple days after Christmas. He seemed pleased with the compromise.

As soon as we got close, Dawson was having none of it. So we got a quick picture and let him get his candy bar and then hustled him off the jolly guy's lap.

After we left and Dawson had recuperated he kept saying, "Santa give me big treat! I love him!" ha So he clearly wasn't too scarred by the experience.

Surprises we had for them in this year's December Box (I like the idea of this tradition to kick off December fun, we're still trying to fine tune it). New jammies, some shark slippers, and a new Christmas book.

Just sweetly sitting next to each other.

Oh Dawson.

We took Sawyer to see the new Wreck it Ralph movie. I think he mostly gets stoked about getting popcorn at the theater but he seemed to really enjoy the movie too even though it was a little long.

The boys started to ask to wear my kitchen aprons so that they could run around and be batman while chasing each other.

Playing (eating) in our first little snowfall that stuck around.

I just can't help but take a million pictures every time my babies are in the snow. Even though they only vary by tiny angles and slight expression changes, I can't bring myself to delete any of them.