Before Christmas (Dec 21-23)

We had a great time in Tucson before Christmas even arrived. Joe and I really enjoyed staying at Great Grandpa Sabey's house. It meant that we could sleep in and get ready for the day without being bombarded by the requests of our little people. By the time we got to Grandpa and Grandma Devereaux's house the boys were already fed and dressed! So it was like a mini-vacation from parenthood for Joe and me. Thanks Grandpa and Grandma!

The boys had tons of fun things to do. The first day we were there they were out in the backyard, raking leaves and helping Grandpa pick pecans.

We were amazed at how warm the weather was! The boys were actually nearly sweating when they were outside and it was only 10 a.m. I actually ended up putting them in shorts so they didn't get too hot. Good thing I packed some.

We all enjoyed playing out in the sunshine. We don't get a lot of that in the winter... especially not without having to wear a coat!

The boys also had tons of fun things to play with inside. Grandma had this fun train puzzle that Jacob couldn't get enough of! He would put the cars in alphabetical order like he was supposed to, but then he would drive it around, which was hilarious. He and Aunt Emily even built a village out of their Legos, and you can see that the train puzzle is in the middle of the village.

It was fun how creative the boys were with their Legos. You can see that they actually put roofs on the Lego houses using folded paper. That was totally Jacob's idea. What a smartie!

You may recall that over Thanksgiving Joe ended up growing a beard. After going home and showing it to his parents, he decided that it was time to shave.

I told him that I wanted him to shave off various parts to make himself look different, and of course I took pictures of  him. Here is Joe with a goatee and big lambchops.

Isn't this hilarious?! It totally makes him look like he needs to be in a western movie or something!

So next Joe shaved off the lambchops (thank heavens), leaving only the goatee. I told him that I liked the goatee much better than the beard. What do you think?

So he decided to leave the goatee for a while.

Meanwhile back at the Devereaux's, the boys were having fun playing alphabet hopscotch outside. Check out their board! It goes all the way from A to Z!

Jacob and Ephraim both gave it a try and it was hilarious to watch them try to figure out how to alternate jumping on one foot and them on two!

Jacob was getting the hang of it after a while though! They thought this was tons of fun.

Another activity that the boys enjoyed was going on flashlight walks with Grandma and Aunt Emily. After it got dark the boys would each get a flashlight and they would walk around the neighborhood and look at Christmas lights. They had a lot of fun and burned off some of their abundant energy too!