Graham Cracker houses

Pictures of Caleb making a graham cracker house at preschool. He was much more interested in eating the candy and the graham crackers than he was in decorating a house. It mostly survived the ride home, but was somehow demolished while we slept that night.

Pine Cone Reindeer

I asked my sister for some Christmas craft ideas, then forwarded the list she sent me to a friend to see what sounded like it would be fun for our kiddos to do together. She picked pine cone reindeer and got all the stuff for it, so all we had to do was show up and start gluing. Caleb wasn't a fan of the hot glue gun. He'd help with the craft until he got glue on his fingers and then didn't want to do it anymore. Then after a while, I'd convince him to try again and he would participate until he got glue on his fingers again.

We ended up with two reindeer and one little Christmas tree. He liked doing the tree better than the reindeer since he could help more, but once he got glued, he was out on that one too.

Winter Hat

For Christmas, I crocheted Agnes a hat. Caleb loved it immediately and asked very excitedly if it was for him. Sadly, it was super girly looking, so the answer was no. Instead, I started crocheting him his own hat. He helped me pick out the colors and I got to work. Halfway through, as I was about to switch colors, Caleb insisted on wearing his new hat. I should have quit at this point, because several rows later, the hat was much to big for him.

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving, we had dinner at the Crowley's house. I was in charge of making mashed potatoes, so I used Pioneer Woman's recipe (which I also made for last Thanksgiving). Once Caleb got all his food, he was really only interested in eating the rolls and a tiny bit of turkey. I insisted that he try the potatoes, since he likes potatoes (or at least french fries) and I had made these ones. He took the tiniest taste, decided they were delicious (which they were) and ate the rest on his plate, then asked for more.

Caleb and Naomi got their own little table to eat at, just the two of them.



Caleb being silly:





Here's a look at everyone else that was there: Amy, Craig, Liz, Cory's mom and stepdad, Cory, and Brandon. And my nice plate of food.


Inspired by Charlie Brown, Caleb had been saying for a while that he likes pumpkin pie. So when pie time came, I made sure to get him a slice of pumpkin pie. Not only would he not eat it, or try it, he couldn't be bothered to stop watching football long enough to pose in a picture with me and the pie.

Preschool

Liz invited us to join a preschool group that she was doing with some ladies in her ward. We started back in August. It's two days a week, for two hours, and we all take turns teaching on a weekly basis. Caleb really loves it. He loves socializing with the other kids as well as actually learning things. He's doing great with his letters, but they also learn numbers and shapes and colors and all kinds of other things (he's doing great with it all, but especially his letters). We have a overall theme for the month, then an individual theme for the week. They've also learned the pledge of allegiance.

Here are some photos from when I had them one day. It was fairy tale month and we did Hansel and Gretel. They also learned squares this day, so we built houses and pretended they were like the one in the story. (The only other boy in the group wasn't there this day).

(Tenney)

(Kaylee)

(McKenna)

(Kaylee)

(Tenney)

(McKenna and Caleb laughing together)

(McKenna)

(Naomi)

(Kaylee)

Hobble Creek Canyon part 2

(In order to get the rest of the pictures from the canyon posted, I completely skipped any pictures that didn't have Caleb in them, despite the fact that I still took plenty without him.)

Whenever I was in a picture, I had to ask the children who were also in the picture (usually Caleb) if we were smiling or frowning, just so I could match them. Caleb often answered frowning.


No, the children were not told to be sad for the following photo, that's just how they were all day. We were begging for smiles most the time -- or tricking them out of the kids.




Jacob found a great spot a little ways up the hill for us to take pictures, so we headed on up and continued coercing our children to smile.





Me and Cristal with all our kiddos.


Sitting on a rock up the hill.



Climbing up the hill to see what else we can find.




Caleb reluctantly posing next to a small patch of red leaves.





The kids were done. They were hungry. They were cold. They wanted to go. We were headed back to the car when I saw this gate and being me, needed to go take more pictures. Somehow, the idea of climbing on the gate was appealing to the kids despite the cold and the hungry.






When my card was completely full, I finally gave up my photo quest and we left the canyon.