Christmas Morning 2008

Christmas morning pictures...

Alex opening his big gift from Santa--a GeoTrax Train Station!

For reasons not completely understood, Andrew's favorite gift on Christmas morning was a toy cell phone. I have it on good authority from Santa that this was completely a last minute gift and also rather cheap! But he carried that thing around the rest of the day!

Not surprisingly, Santa brought us a Wii game, which Alex proclaimed as "cool!"

Andrew checking out one of his gifts...

Andrew telling Daddy how cool his new Thomas movie is (notice the cell phone!)

After breakfast (yummy French toast!) we opened our stockings. Andrew's stocking had just been finished on the 23rd!

Andrew playing with his new car track extension... still with the cell phone, too!

Later in the afternoon Nana and Grandpa Bob joined us for Christmas dinner and some more present opening. It was a GREAT day all around!!!

Cookies for Santa

We baked cookies for Santa on Monday night and I got to use my new decorating technique that I learned at MOPS--very effective and fun!

Mommy and Alex with our many cookie cutters!

Working on cutting out the cookies...

Alex checking on the cookies in the oven...

On Christmas Eve night Alex choose a bunch of cookies for our special Santa plate...

...and Andrew got to put the carrots for the reindeer!

And we left them on the table by the tree. Santa even left a thank you note the next morning, which Alex thought was really cool!

Gingerbread House!

Well, according to this blog, you would think we have been doing nothing festive this whole month but actually the opposite is true. BECAUSE we have been doing so much festive stuff, the blog is empty! The first weekend I came down with some sort of stomach bug that I will spare you the details of! Last weekend was spent decorating the house, trimming the tree and going to a couple of holiday parties.

Saturday's party was at the Delp's house and was a ton of fun. I brought my camera but sadly forgot the battery so we have no pictures of the event. Allison thankfully took some, which I will post when I get them from her. Santa even came to the party and gave the kiddos presents and sang some Christmas songs, which was also a lot of fun. Alex was super excited to see Santa but Andrew was quite wary. When Nick attempted to put him on Santa's lap, he started to cry and squirm away. The pictures are pretty funny!

On Sunday our neighbors the Keagy's had a Christmas party, which was also a lot of fun. The kids did fun crafts in their basement while the adults were upstairs enjoying some holiday cheer (aka Wine!) and conversation without interruption. For reasons unknown Andrew decided to wear Sophie's (Dwayne and Karen's daughter) Easter hat all night, which was hilarious. You couldn't take it off him or he'd throw a fit. Pretty funny!

Today Alex and I made a gingerbread house from a kit. OK, it isn't actually gingerbread but it's close enough! Alex really enjoyed it and wanted to know when we would move in. I told him we'd move when we shrank down that small!

Thanksgiving Feast

Alex had a Thanksgiving Feast at his preschool on Tuesday, which turned out to be pretty cute! The kids all dressed up as pilgrims or Indians and, honestly, what is more cute that that?!

Alex was a pilgrim, although Nick pointed out that he kind of looks like a bishop, too.













The kids all sat on the floor "criss-cross applesauce" as they say in preschool. The had each made a place mat that included the ubiquitous hand-print turkey. Alex's was very realistic and included a sun in a blue sky and some grass for the turkey to run on. He's in his realism period...











Alex all seated and ready for the feast to begin--isn't our little pilgrim cute?!













The feast was a preschool dream come true with cheese curls, cookies, cold-cut turkey rolls, potato chips and apple slices...for once Alex ate everything on his plate!

This is the video of Alex singing the two Thanksgiving songs that they had learned for the occasion. Again I have to say, "How cute is this!?"

Happy Halloween!

This year Alex dressed up as Mickey Mouse and Andrew was a pumpkin--cutie pies both!


Alex is really into Mickey Mouse right now so he decided he wanted to be him for Halloween. The ears on the costume even squeaked!










These are all our neighborhood friends all dressed up before the trick-or-treating began.

Both the boys before we headed out. This is one of the few pictures of Andrew posing--he was running around like a wild man! He loved the trick or treating!

Checking out the loot...Andrew loves Smarties now. He actually found a roll of them yesterday that Alex had rejected. I hear from the other room "Mmmmm! Mmmmm!!!" and the crackle of the wrapper. I went in to see what he was doing and he smiled at me with about 10 Smarties in his mouth!