A white day-after-Christmas

A few days before Christmas I asked Thomas if he knew what was the big event on Saturday and he said, "CHRISTMAS!  That means there will be snow!"  I told him I was sorry, but we live in SC and it wasn't very likely that there would be snow on Christmas, or very often, period.  Well, little did I know, he was almost right!

The day after Christmas, there was, indeed, snow!


We were at my parents' house and unfortunately it was too wet for the kids to really play in very much, but it was pretty!




Andrew was willing to brave the elements...  ;-)


And even though it was a wet snow, I was impressed to see that you could still see beautiful little individual snowflakes (though I couldn't quite capture them in pictures the way I wanted to)...




Then we hit the road and traveled in mostly snow to visit Trey's parents.  It made for a beautiful day-after-Christmas.  However, I do believe having snow now twice in less than a year has set unreasonable expectations for our children about how often they will see snow in South Carolina.    Though I have had one white Christmas for myself (in 1989 -- the one in Colorado in 1995 doesn't count!), so perhaps they'll have theirs one day too!

Family photo 2010

You never know what you are going to get when you try to take a family photo at the holidays. This year there were 13 of us, with five under five. Surprisingly enough, there were two takes and one of them was actually quite decent (at least of the kids!).

Outdoor fun with the cousins

I thought I'd share a few more pictures of our Christmas with the cousins--these were taken by my brother Andrew. Though the weather outside was often quite frightful, we did manage to find some playtime outside that the kids found quite delightful. My mother fell victim to the John Deere bicycle display at the local hardware store and the kids were most appreciative that they didn't have to fight over two tricycles.

There were a few traffic jams...


A little help pushing here and there...


And a lot of smiling faces...


And no matter what, they were all looking quite cute in their gear...


And I think we missed the fun of this day of football, but looks like the girls had fun!






This turned out sweet. This is Pete and his oldest daughter...


And a few other good pictures that should be shared:

Sweet Eliza...


Uncle Trey reading a story with the kiddos as we waited to open presents...

What a fun time was had by all!

Christmas with cousins

I am terrible at blogging. No need to make excuses! But I do resolve to do better in the new year. And I also plan to catch up on some posts that need to be made. In the meantime, I thought I'd share pictures of my favorite part of our Christmas holiday this year -- children! Christmas is truly best seen through the eyes of children.

With my brother living in Canada (and previously in California), we seem to have one time a year when our whole gang is together and we try our best to make the most of it. The happiest of all of us though are the grandchildren--the five of them. They have a nonstop ball playing with each other and it is so wonderful to see. Our boys love their cousins dearly. But I'll go ahead and say that a picture of all five of them together just doesn't happen. Oh well.

The oldest ones (Katherine is six weeks older) took a moment to sip some apple cider (a first for Thomas):


The middles (Eliza is exactly six weeks older than Parker) had a ball hiding in the pantry with some flashlights, eagerly waiting to be discovered!




And the youngest, Lauren, was great at keeping up with the big kids and at doing her own thing. I taught her my best "TA-DA!"


There were cookies to be made...


And cookies to be eaten...


Gingerbread houses to be built...


A golf cart ride on a windy, cold day...


There were hugs...


And tackling...


And playing with Uncle Trey...


And there was Lauren trying to figure out how to get the sheep from the nativity set...



But most of all, there were smiles all around...











(first apple cider for him too!)







Nannie even managed to convince them they could be "ADVENTURERS!" if they tried various veggies (like raw squash)...and Parker even bought into it...


And on the rare moments when they weren't running full speed, they occasionally stopped to listen to a book...


Or crash for an episode of Dora the Explorer...


We enjoyed the time we were able to spend with our family for Christmas. The boys cannot wait until they can be reunited with all of their cousins again!

Christmas joy!

Oh the joys of Christmas!









Speaking of Christmas joys, one of my joys is visible in these pictures (beyond my boys!). The thing I love most about our Christmas tree are the ornaments on it that these boys have made. Each year we seem to be adding many more and I love it. It just seems like the way it should be and I love it.

Christmas morning

On Christmas morning, just like last year, Thomas was in no hurry to wake up. Parker woke up a little bit later than usual too, but then I think Trey was more eager to wake up Thomas than Parker was! :) I think it was around 8:30 when we finally decided to wake him up. Once he got out of his groggy state, Thomas and his brother were ready to see if Santa had left them any gifts.



My camera was acting up and taking blurry and dark pictures (which is part of the reason I've waited so long to make this post -- even though I am backdating it so you won't know I wrote it nearly a month later!), but hopefully you can still get a feeling of how it was Christmas morning around here.



Though Thomas was momentarily distracted by Parker's new big wheel, he soon caught a glimpse of his new Buzz Lightyear wings and rushed over to check them out.


There was definitely a Toy Story theme to his gifts! Santa knows Thomas very well! :-) He didn't wait long before asking to try on his new wings...


And Parker tried out his big wheel...


They were having so much fun with gifts, they nearly forgot all about their stockings:






Thomas was happiest about a fire truck whistle...


And Parker...of all the gifts he got that morning, I think he was happiest about a small box of Jelly Belly jelly beans and a couple of Dum-Dum lollipops.


Thomas quickly returned to his Buzz Lightyear gear...




We gave the boys some time to play with their Santa gifts and eat a little breakfast before they opened the gifts we had for them.

Thomas was beyond ready to open his largest gift and was thrilled to find a remote-control Buzz Lightyear.


Parker needed a little help with the paper ripping, but was happy with the gifts.












And the best part of it all was that after they finished opening gifts, they managed to play TOGETHER in peace.


And it even continued after they got dressed!