Shepherds and Cows

Our church had their Christmas Pageant this past Sunday and all three of the Bass boys were lucky enough to make an appearance!  Carter was ecstatic because he was asked to be a "speaking shepherd", which just means he had a few lines but he was thrilled nonetheless.  Cooper was a shepherd and Hudson had the choice of cow or sheep and chose a cow.  We've been hit with the stomach bug that keeps on giving this past week so we were happy to even feel remotely like participating in the pageant this year!  Everyone but Jamey has had it and we are really hoping he has somehow avoided it!  Our shepherds were great and well-behaved and Carter did great in his speaking debut;).  We had a pitiful, two-legged cow but he was at least pretty darn cute!

Rehearsing their lines

Don't make Cooper mad or else you'll get this face!

Carter and a clearly unamused king!

The Tableau

They bribe the little ones with M&M's to come up to the front of the church during their part, hence the chocolate mouth.

This little boy loves his Pop!

Carolina Basketball

We were so excited to finally have the chance to take Hudson to a Carolina basketball game last weekend!  His brothers have been lucky enough to go to several so I definitely felt like we were leaving him out.  I expected the Dean Dome to chill him out a little with all the sights and sounds but not so much unfortunately! He was pretty awestruck for about 2 minutes and then enjoyed climbing from seat to seat like a little monkey most of the time.  He did watch occasionally and would always yell, "Go Reggie" or "Yay, Tar Heels!"  Even though it was a bit more chaotic with him there, I wouldn't have traded it for the world being in the best place on earth with my favorite people!

Tis The Season to be Merry!

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we went as a family to get our Christmas tree from the Farmer's Market.  The boys think it's great because they get a candy cane and we think it's just quick and easy.  It didn't take long to pick what we thought would be the perfect one!

Our plan was to decorate the tree together but Hudson had too much of a magnetic pull to the giant leaf piles on our street so it was more of a tag team effort!  The boys wanted colored lights this year for the tree so we bought all new strands and Jamey worked away doing by far the worst job in my opinion!

My parents and Brian and Sarah came over to watch the last Carolina football game so we all chipped in and decorated quickly at halftime.  The boys are very good at decorating the front of the tree and hanging several heavy ornaments together on one puny branch!

Once again, Cooper has been precious and loved every bit of decorating for Christmas.  He has told me several times, "Mommy, I just love this time of the year!"

 Hudson was pretty cute coming down from his nap to check out the tree for the first time.

Once we finished decorating, we went back to game watching and my dad happened to notice that the lights on the tree were out!  I went over to troubleshoot and realized the bottom strand wasn't working so I just by-passed that one and went to the second and all was well.  We left the tree on while we went to dinner and came home to a dark tree once again!  It was late so we decided to work on it in the morning thankfully!  The next morning after church Jamey and I took off all the lower ornaments, took off the bottom strands completely and tried two new strands.  Once again it worked for a little while, just long enough for us to get the garland and ALL of the ornaments we had taken off back on and it cut off again!  We seriously felt like someone was out to get us and ruin our Christmas fun!  Jamey realized later that night we probably just had too many strands all plugged together so it was blowing the fuse in the bottom strands.  I can now happily report our tree is and has been working since then!

 This past Sunday we took the boys to ride the Santa Train at a local train station.  We had never done this before but were eager to try out something a little different.  We knew we were asking for trouble taking Hudson on a 2:45 train ride without a nap and having already had a full day but we pushed our luck!  They had several train cars decorated that you could check out and a cute model train area that Hudson really liked.

The boys loved Frosty and Hudson actually did too once he warmed up to him.  Love the decorated porta potties in the background!

Time for our train ride!  Everyone was all smiles as we boarded the train and were off for an hour long ride.  Santa comes through each car and sits and talks with the kids so they really loved that!

Carter was playing paparazzi as you can see!

 Cooper super excited because he just spotted Santa coming onto our train!

I love these pictures of them sizing him up!

Hudson was even a fan of Santa after he gave them candy!

Carter wrote his list on a post it and handed it to Santa so he wouldn't forget:).  So cute and so Carter!

I think this one is getting coal this year with that mischievous smile!

Long Time Gone!

I don't have a good excuse but for some reason the blog has been the last thing on my never-ending "to do" list so I just haven't gotten to it.  I'm happy to be back and can't believe it's been almost a month since my last post.  I took very few pictures this year around Thanksgiving but we managed to have a great time with school festivities, friends, and family.  Cooper has been especially excited about the holidays this year and takes great pride in decorating our house with school artwork and Target steals to fancy it up around here.  This is probably my favorite year with him because he is just genuinely excited and filled with wonder about it all.  He believes everything you tell him and acts like it's the most wonderful thing he's ever heard.  Cooper and Hudson had feasts at school and Carter's class I don't think really did anything at all!  Carter was feeling a bit left out so he borrowed Coop's school gear from some silly turkey and indian pictures.

Cooper's Indian name was Fast Running Cheetah for his feast:).

Nunu came to watch the feast at preschool!

Cooper's very best friend at school Jackson.

My little one-eyed turkey and an indian.

Cooper has been dying to have the "fire" on so one night recently when it was cold we let him see how it felt.  He and Hudson stayed right in front for a good while warming their little bodies!

We had Thanksgiving lunch at our house on Thursday because I had to work that night and Hudson was quite possibly the cutest child ever wandering off to the dining room all by himself and picking his spot.  Jamey and I were at the kitchen table talking and realized he wasn't in there so I started looking around and this is what I found.  He sure makes us yell sometimes but makes up for it in how often he makes us smile!

Brian and Sarah and their dog Willie came for the weekend so we had a fun belated Thanksgiving celebration together with them.  Hudson was so sweet to "help" Willie eat his dinner!