family pictures

Our 2012 family pictures

Kortus Christmas

We celebrated Christmas with the Kortus's early, since my brother and his family were going out of town.  My dad lost his dog, Harry about a week ago.  But my mom's silly dog, Buster was there to greet us... with his incredibly long tongue hanging out of his mouth (a typical look for Buster).

 

 My brother, John and his kitty, Spaz

 Grandpa and Connor

 Jason being tackled by two crazy boys

 

 

 Madison and Alivia

 John and Ryan

 present time

 Right after we opened gifts.. Ryan started playing with an empty box and Connor had a blast with the bubble wrap.  Simple joys!

 John and Laura.. enjoying the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake that I made this year

 

 Some of the new wood crafts my dad recently made

 The gorgeous reindeer he made for my brother

 He made a wooden jewelry box for each of the girls and a horse

 

 And his toy... a Gatling gun with 50 rubber bands

 the boys checking out his new toy

 John testing out the new gun on Alivia

 His working wooden clock

 Grandpa's favorite place in the world.. his work shop

 a wooden lock and key

 My favorite place in the world.. in the arms of my boys

 Nana and Grandpa with Connor

We enjoyed a wonderful dinner with fantastic family!

 Nana and Grandpa got Connor a rock polisher, which he was very excited to start polishing rocks as soon as we got home.

 It came with a bunch of pretty (unpolished) rocks.

Jason and Connor assembling his new rock polishing machine... to add some more beautiful, shiny jewels to his collection.

Santa

Multi task!  The day after my last final, which was a Thursday,  I scheduled our family pictures... which means my Christmas cards might be late this year.  Oops!  That's what happens when you try to juggle 5 full time nursing classes and a family... and a husband who doesn't want to fight the crowd and wait 2 hours to get pictures done on the weekend.  The boys did great though and we only had to wait 30 minutes.  After the photo shoot we visited with Santa.  Connor did amazing.  He was a little bit nervous in line, but when it was his turn he hopped up on Santa's lap, got his picture and then had a conversation with Santa to make sure he knows exactly what Connor wants this year.  We finished the evening with a wonderful steak dinner at Out Back's to celebrate the end of my first semester.

 

 Before Connor was born Jason had the idea that all the walls in our house would be covered with ink, dirt and whatever a little boy could get his hands on.  Well, Connor is 4 1/2 and we have our first wall art.  Jason has a dry erase calendar in the den that he lets Connor draw on.  When I stepped out of the shower I was greeted by a smiling Connor who said "I drew something for you Mom."  When I got down stairs he proudly showed me his lovely picture on the wall.  I have to admit he did a great job!  I love the picture.  It's a face.  The line in the middle is the nose, lines on the sides are cheeks, line on very bottom is chin, small line on top is his brains.  The mark above the face is a sail boat.  We talked about only drawing on paper from now on, but I think Jason and I will leave his picture on the wall for a while.  I hate to paint over such cute wall art.

 Connor does an excellent job writing his name now too

mini snowmen

What's better on a cold snowy day than building snowmen?
Building 3 mini snowmen!  Mom, Dad and Connor snowmen =)

And snow angels too!

December lights

Connor loves stickers and it's very common to find a few stuck to the back of his hands.
In 2011 his favorite color was brown and favorite character was Peter Pan.
In 2012 it was purple and Spider-man.  He recently changed it to black and Batman.

 After dinner one night I made some hot cocoa, we loaded into the car with warm fuzzy blankets and drove around our neighborhood looking at all the beautiful Christmas lights.  The picture below is one of Connor's favorites.  The blow up group in the middle sings songs, the snow globe to the right spins, the Farris wheel to the left spins, there is a Christmas greeting projected onto the house and the other half of their yard is just as covered with Christmas joy.   Our second favorite is either the one pictured above or a neighbor who set their lights up to music.

 This last summer I had an entire week of science projects.  Connor loved it so much he asks me if we can do science projects all the time now.  So, after dinner we made a few colorful volcano's with baking soda and vinegar.  Then we played with some corn starch goop.  This stuff is so strange... it's stuck between a solid and liquid state.  You can roll it into a solid ball, but the minute you stop rolling it melts.

 Santa sent Connor a personalized letter from the North Pole, a Santa dollar, sticker and signed picture.  (courtesy of Dad)

 Reindeer and tree ornament from school

 Santa also sent Connor an email with a personalized video.  Connor was so excited!  I really like this site!  It's from Portable North Pole.  (courtesy of Mom)

 

I completed my first semester of WSU Nursing school!