Happy new year!

We had a pretty low-key, but lovely, New Year's Eve. We went out to dinner and then took the boys downtown to the family-friendly celebration at Marion Square. Not a good picture, but a picture of all of us for a change...


And me and my boys...quite a handful!


It was a beautiful night.






The boys enjoyed listening to a African dance choir. Parker was dancing along as best as he could. I tried to take a video, but ran out of memory. So you'll just have to take my word for it. It was cute.

Then we stopped to listen to a band as we were heading out. Parker and I stayed and listened, but Trey followed Thomas, who ran off to see some boys who were playing football. I watched from afar, worrying that the boys would be rude and dismissive to Thomas. They were much older (probably ages 9-12). Yet I must say I was so pleasantly surprised that they were not. One boy really took Thomas under his wing and kept making sure Thomas had a chance to catch and throw the ball. Thomas had a ball running around with them, even if his catching and throwing weren't too impressive. And that one little boy just touched my heart. They could have easily told him to get lost, but they didn't and it just warmed my heart. What a great start to the new year (or a wonderful end to the old!). I made sure (as did Trey) I went over and thanked the boys, especially that one, for being so kind to my little guy. I hope we, as parents, can do such a good job of raising our own boys.

Anyway, we didn't hang around too long before we decided it was time to get the boys to bed.




So another year has passed and I'm so thankful for all of the joys that came to us in 2009. The boys have grown by leaps and bounds in so many ways and I continuously feel blessed to be their mother. For as much as they exhaust me, they also bring me joy so great that words cannot possibly describe.

Christmas Part II

So after a quick lunch on Christmas morning, we packed up and headed up the road to Nana & Umpa's house.  We arrived around the same time as other family members and I can't remember if we opened gifts or ate first, but there were definitely many gifts to open!  It was a crazy scene and I'm still not quite sure who gave the boys the gifts they received, but they were all wonderful and well received!




Sometimes it's the smallest things that bring big smiles...


And Parker enjoyed his first candy cane...


Then it was time to relax...


The tree without all the gifts looked a little bare, but still beautiful...


Thomas' big gift from Nana & Umpa was his first real bike.  He was very excited about it and was so happy to ride it the day after Christmas (after riding it all around the house Christmas evening).




And then he and Parker switched rides (the ride-on was Parker's big gift)...


Later we went down to the "farm" and saw some other family members.  Thomas had a blast with his cousins.  He somehow convinced Mary D to push him around the house on the little car.  They must have had fun...


Meanwhile, Parker had his own fun, playing on the chairs at the table...


After a few nights there, we headed home where Thomas was excited to try out his new bike in our neighborhood.


And then he kind of crashed.  But not on the bike.

(with, fittingly enough, a book he received for Christmas about a boy who has TOO MANY TOYS!  Not that we know anything about that around here...especially post-Christmas!)

Christmas day in the morning!

Since the boys were up so late on Christmas Eve, they were in no hurry to wake up on Christmas morning. Parker woke up first around 8 and then we took him in to wake up Thomas around 8:30.


Then they came downstairs and were excited to see what was waiting for them. Parker quickly bypassed his gifts...


And was off to check out his brother's loot:


Then we reminded them about their stockings and we headed to check those out. Parker was a bit confused by everything. in most of the pictures he has this dazed look on his face. Too funny...

(Funny thing in the picture above. Santa left some crumbs on the plate...and Sully found them and was most happy that Santa left her a few nibbles.)

And then they checked out what was in their stockings...


A quick picture of our tree...

Notice how there are hardly any ornaments on the bottom of the tree. Parker decided it was his job to remove them all. If he could reach it, he took it off. Some of them he broke and some I replaced and some I simply gave up.

Thomas enjoyed his new Leapster game:


After breakfast, we opened gifts.




Thomas wanted to get right back to his game (though with his new headphones from Mommy & Daddy):


And Parker checked out and showed off all his new wheels...


Christmas is so much fun with children. They are just in such awe of the entire day. Hopefully we can continue to impress upon them the real reason for the season, and help them understand the joy of giving under that light. It does seem hard right now to get them to understand all of that, but at the very least, Thomas knew it was Jesus' birthday. So there's something. :)

They were just happy and having fun:




We spent about an hour Christmas morning visiting our homebound neighbor (our 70-years young neighbor was dealing with cancer). She was a wonderful neighbor for the years we have been here, and such a delightful and kind woman. The boys love her. It was a beautiful way to spend an hour on Christmas (she was home alone with her live-in nurse). The boys were wild and crazy, but she said she enjoyed it tremendously. It was, to me, much of what Christmas is about. We shared the boys' joy with her on Christmas. It cost us nothing, but paid her greatly; and paid us dividends too. I know that for me, hearing her faith and strength was exactly what I needed. I was so in awe of her positive and faithful Christian attitude. It was, sadly, the last time we all got to see her. She took a sudden turn for the worse and died on January 2. I am thankful that we had that time and that memory with her on Christmas morning.

Back to more joyous things, after lunch we headed up the road to Nana & Umpa's house. That will be for the next post (I still need to gather all the pics). Hopefully I'll get back to it soon!

Boys in a box

You can have all the toys in the world, but sometimes all you need is a cardboard box.


Thomas is actually in the box in the above photo (see the green next to Parker). And POOF! Here he is!



Not sure why he looks less than happy, but they had a blast. Let's get rid of all the toys and just have a few boxes!

Naptime for a fireman

Most days Thomas says he doesn't want a nap, and that's actually good because he goes to bed quickly and easily at night if he does not (and often has a very hard time waking up if he does). But even so, he still needs a bit of rest time each day (and I need that time too!). Lately I've been meaning to post a picture like this since it's how I seem to find him sometimes.



He just plays until he can't play anymore and falls asleep wherever he is...wearing whatever he has decided to put on. Too cute.

Christmas Eve Eve

I need to recap Christmas, and I suppose I need to start somewhere.  So I'll start with the beginning of the festivities.  On Christmas Eve Eve we traveled to my parents' house to celebrate Christmas with them.  The tree was looking beautiful...


And the boys were most happy to play with their cousin, Eliza.


We had our big Christmas meal that night, and then the next morning, we woke up and opened gifts (after posing for some pictures first, of course).






My mom bought these reindeer ears for all the grandkids last year and we've yet to get a picture with all of them wearing them.  Maybe one day! 


Somehow I managed not to upload one picture of the gift opening.  For our family, it was relatively fast and furious (which just means that it didn't take four hours of one present being opened at a time...instead we all opened one at the same time and tried to take time to see what everyone got before moving on to the next).  Part of the reason I don't have these pictures is because we managed to forget to bring our camera.  These pictures are stolen from my brother's camera.

Later Aunt Beth had arranged for the kids to make some cookies for Santa.  They had a ball doing that.








And then I tried in vain to get a cute picture of the boys together in their matching pjs...


They are cute...and laughing...but not quite giving me the picture I had in mind (of two loving brothers, happily smiling into the camera!).








Oh well.  Better luck next year.

It wasn't long before the kids were getting a bit tuckered out, and they enjoyed a rare quiet and still moment reading a book with Aunt Beth.


These next two pictures are what tired and content looks like:




After all of the family fun, we decided to stay and go to church there to allow us a little more time to spend with everyone, and I think after being so overwhelmed by how excessively well attended the Christmas Eve service was at our church last year, it was nice to be in a smaller crowd (with so many familiar faces!). 

We got home too late for Christmas Eve traditions (we did read Twas the Night Before Christmas right after we put the boys in their pajamas for the ride home), the boys fell asleep in the car and were sound asleep when we transferred them to their beds when we got home. But the stockings were indeed hung by the chimney with care...


And on the next post you can find out if St. Nicholas indeed was soon there!  :)