January Misc

Here are a few random pics from the rest of our January...

Balloon Bellies

After our Noon Year's Eve party, Jaden and Cody got a thrill out of playing with all of the leftover balloons in our home. One morning, both of them stuffed balloons up their shirts and said, "We look just like Mommy!"

 

And they truly did! :)

New Furniture

In order to prepare a nursery for our new baby, we had to shuffle around some of our upstairs furniture. Jaden and Cody's cube organizer shelf was relocated to the new baby room. It didn't really fit their clothes too well anymore anyway, so we were happy to purchase a new dresser for them from IKEA. Both boys (but especially Jaden, pictured more often towards the end) enjoyed helping with the process of assembling the dresser.

One of their favorite tasks was looking at the direction pictures and finding the right hardware for each step. It almost felt like they were doing Legos! :)

Because he stuck with the assembly process for so long, by the end, Jaden was doing quite a few steps completely independently. He was very proud.

Here is the look of their room now with the "big boy" dresser. We love it!

King Cake

At one of our family dinners in January, Papa and Grammy brought a King Cake for dessert. Since none of our boys knew anything about this tradition, Papa and Grammy read them a library book that taught about the wise men, Epiphany, and Mardi Gras. The boys were all great listeners (which was somewhat surprising considering they were all eyeing the yummy looking dessert!).

Grammy and Papa told the boys about the tradition of hiding a small baby inside the King Cake. Cody was very bothered by this-- "But it's not FAIR if only one of us finds a baby!" Grammy sure knows her grandsons! :) She had already planned ahead and made individual "King cupcakes" decorated in Mardi Gras colors for the boys. Each one of the cupcakes contained a small plastic baby. What a fun experience it was for the boys to find this hidden toy inside their dessert! 

All of the adults got to enjoy the actual King Cake pictured below. It was delicious! Kim was the lucky baby-finder in this dessert-eating experience. Apparently that means she has to provide the King Cake next year. Thanks for the fun idea, Grammy and Papa!

Playtime

Jaden and Cody have been very into coloring this past month. They were particularly into coloring pages from their coloring books we had given them for Christmas. Both boys amaze us with their attention to detail and their extreme focus when they are coloring. They spend a LONG time on each picture! Jaden colored all the Ninja Turtle pics below while Cody was the Minion artist. :)

One day while we were playing outside, Jaden and Cody told me that they were "Cone Monsters" and tried to chase after me. It was a little hard for them to run with cones on their feet!

Cody and Jaden's all-time favorite pastime continues to be building Lego sets. Last month, they decided that they wanted to build every single set that they own. Unfortunately, most of the pieces in these sets were all mixed up. It was a little frustrating (for all of us) searching our tubs for each small individual piece. So, we spent some time sorting the Legos into color piles which made the task of piece-finding so much easier!

Once the boys finished building all of their sets, they pretended that the dining room table was their Lego city. In fact, our table is still covered with these Lego sets (although the pieces are now all assembled or put away thankfully). Jaden and Cody will spend much of their time each day in the dining room, naming their Lego guys and engaging in imaginary play within their Lego city.