The Harvey Family: November and December {2018}

This month Brett:

has wanted a playdate everyday with his friends. He loves playing pretend and making up games, and most of them are perfect for kids his own age. He has a lot of friends at school that he wants to come over and play and he has been asking for them almost daily.
loves having our chocolate protein drink. I found a dairy-free protein powder that is chocolate flavor and the 2 of us have been loving such a yummy way to add more protein to our diet. We mix it with vanilla almond milk and aside from the chalky texture, it is really great.
is so excited that we got an ice cream maker. Since there are no ice creams you can buy in the store that are made in a peanut free facility, we decided to get an ice cream maker to make our own. We tried a basic vanilla for the first try and it was really great!
has been very defiant. He is constantly making everyday tasks extremely difficult. He hates to cooperate with our daily routine things like getting ready for school and getting ready for bed. He gets punished with time-out, and losing screen time and sweets on a daily basis but it doesn't seem to make his behavior any better.
wants to run super fast. Now that we have more room in our new house, he loves to zoom around and work on getting faster. His goal is to be as fast and his friend Beckett (who is admittedly crazy fast for a 5 year old). He gets this very determined face and grits his teeth as he pumps his arms and flies around the house.
favorite tv show was Sunny Day. It's a cartoon on Nick Jr where this group of girls and their dog are hairdressers that work at a salon.
got allergy tested. It was torture for all of us involved (as you can imagine). Chris and I took him while Blake was in school so we could both be there to support him (and hold him down as needed). We had him tested for only a handful of items. He tested negative for peanuts, cats, dust mites, and birch (which a positive result can be related to peanuts). The only thing he tested positive for on our list was dogs. We're so relieved that we don't have to worry about him eating foods that have been processed in facilities that process peanuts (at birthday parties or events our of the house) even though we'll still continue to keep our house peanut free.
learned how to put on his own jacket, socks and shoes. I think I pushed for this more than his independent nature pushed for it. Having him help with getting out the door is so nice (when I don't have to nag him 20 times).

This month Blake:

loves watching Boom Beach videos on YouTube. Boom Beach is the mobile gaming app that he was into while he was waiting for the next big game to be released.
became obsessed with a new game called Brawl Stars. This was finally released and it has been his first waking thought each and every day. He, Brett, and Chris can each play it together as a team on separate phones and the kids love it.
wanted to make a ton of ornaments for the tree. Each year we seem to end up with tons of new ornaments for the Christmas tree which is really fun. Blake even went beyond normal this year and made as many as he could come up with. Needless to say, our ornament storage box is filled to the brim after this year.
got sick for a long time. He battled fevers and a cough/runny nose for close to a month. He even missed the last 2 days of school before break, which meant he missed his Winter party. He finally recovered right before school started back up, so our break was pretty low key.
finally got to download the mobile game, Brawl Stars. He'd been hearing so much about it as it was hyped up before it's release. He had to end up downloading his copy on my phone since the old phone he plays mobile games on is too slow to run it correctly. I ended up not getting as many pictures this month since he had my phone quite a bit. I've never seen him as excited about a game as he was about this one.

Pics:

This should be the last school picture I'll take for Brett. Next year will be Kindergarten... crazy!

Letting his personality shine through.

Memaw and her great-grandbabies.

Mr. & Mrs. Heron and their great-grandbabies.

These 4 get along so well.

Brett likes to see if he can get all his marbles going down the run at the same time.

And Blake with a tower once he got home from school.

Somehow we ended up with some really cute pics of the boys. They were extremely adorable lighting test subjects for holiday pictures this year!

If only it were like this in real life.

The. Best.

And this was our Christmas card this year. Quite possibly the best smile Brett has ever had in a picture. Woohoo!

The boys' tradition of making ornaments continues.

I just love all the Christmas ornaments we've collected so far!

Blake's from the front and back.

And Brett's.

His has a doggy door I think.

The boys really enjoyed counting down the days until Christmas this year. They were very good about it and shared the days extremely well. Brett got to do even days because he's 4 and he wanted to do all the numbers with 4s in them.

Our niche of winter decorations.

Brett's Christmas program. He was smiles when he walked in and saw us.

Then the rest of the time he looked like this. I don't see a stage performing career in his future.

We're finally at an age where the boys can do most of the cookie activity without getting too out of control. They each made their own tray of cookies by themselves and were very proud.

And Mimi flew in to spend Christmas with us!

Final decorations.

And ready to go in the oven. As soon as they were done, they were eaten quickly. There were also a couple left out for Santa along with some vanilla almond milk.