Santa 2013

I just realized that I never posted the boys' picture with Santa.  We went right before Thanksgiving.  It was a Friday, right after lunch.  There were NO lines!  Literally, not even one person in front of us.  We got to the mall, walked right up, the boys saw Santa and were driving back home in less than a half an hour!  Tyler seemed to follow Brennan's lead and hopped right up to see Santa with a huge smile on his face.  Santa told Brennan he needed to keep his room clean in order to get presents.  Brennan seems to be taking his chances.

Also looking back to photos from earlier in December that I never posted, we had a bit of snow on December 9th and 10th.  The boys had a great time playing together.

I wasn't sure what Zelda was going to think about the snow, but after being cooped up in the house the day before, she spent an hour and a half outside playing with us.  Unfortunately, between the sleds and Zelda, our backyard is in terrible shape now!  We will need to do some serious reseeding this spring.

The boys did not want to come in and were playing some game where Tyler would throw snowballs down the slide to Brennan.  I can't remember what they called the game, but it had a name at the time.  They way they've started playing together is adorable and I love that they seem to make up games to entertain themselves.

Holiday Fun at School

Tyler only goes to school on Fridays, and his preschool started their Christmas vacation today, so last week, 12/13, was Tyler's Christmas party.  I had signed up to organize this party, so I got to spend a little time in his class that day.  In preparation for the party, I made my first trip to the Dollar Tree to pick up some party supplies and couldn't believe what I found there... those adorable Santa headbands were just one of many cute things I found!

Planning a party for two year olds is a little tricky because the kids don't have much of an attention span and don't really follow activity instructions.  I planned two very simple crafts and an ornament toss game, pictured below, which turned out to be a hit!  There were bells hanging down from the wreath's bow and the kids had to try to ring the bells by throwing the ornaments (huge, decorated foam ornaments from Dollar Tree!)  They seemed to really be into it.  Tyler's teachers kept the game to use with their other classes this week.  I picked it up yesterday to bring to church for our Toddler class this week!

Since school was off today, Tyler's class was invited to come to school on Wednesday to participate in the Christmas Program.  Tyler's class dressed as reindeer.  The play was about the smallest Christmas tree, but I didn't get it on video this year.  I had a fairly hard time even getting a good picture of Tyler during the show, but included a cute video below of the children singing Feliz Navidad.  Tyler got into it and was clapping away.  It was very cute.

Afterwards, there was a cookie reception and the kids ate more brownie bites, oreos and goldfish than they should have and ended up skipping lunch.

Brennan had his winter party at school on Thursday.  Tyler came along and really enjoyed the Winter Bingo station.  He stayed at this station for almost three full rotations, which was extremely helpful to me as I moved around with Brennan.

Brennan played bingo, created a hand-print reindeer ornament, made reindeer snacks and made a cute marshmallow snowman.  This party was better organized and more fun than the last one.  He is wearing pajamas because that was the reward his class chose for receiving compliments (it's a reward system his school does... I honestly am not sure how it works.)  I suggested he wear Christmas pajamas, but he insisted on the skeletons.

Today, Brennan came home from school with this gift for us.  He wanted me to open it right away.  I thought it was just adorable!

Tyler's teacher sent home two ornaments - a photo snowflake and a reindeer thumbprint.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Yesterday was my mom's 60th birthday - Happy Birthday Mom!  To celebrate, my dad, siblings and I planned a surprise birthday weekend in Virginia.  I asked my parents to come for the weekend under the pretense of babysitting, but in reality Debby, Joe, Pete and Meg were driving down on Friday night to surprise Mom.  My siblings arrived around midnight, much to my mom's surprise!  On Saturday, we had lunch reservations at McMormick & Schmick's at the National Harbor with 2 pm tickets for the ICE show at the Gaylord National Resort & Conference Center.  This year's ICE theme was 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.  Thankfully, the boys behaved well at lunch and then we headed over to the conference center for the ice show.  Tyler was hamming it up while we waited in line.

Here is the crew decked out in the stylish parkas that they give you to keep warm for the ICE exhibit.

I'm going to share a bunch of pictures from the ice show.  Pretty much everything you are looking at is made from ice.

You were asked not to touch or lick the ice, but there was one room in the middle of the exhibit with ice slides that you could ride down.  Tyler's parka wasn't long enough to cover hit tush, so he took his parka off to use as a "sled" so he could zoom down.  He loved the slide and went down it a dozen (or more) times!  Brennan also loved the slides, but went down the bigger ones with Uncle Pete for the most part and I didn't get a picture.  The room with the slides was colder than the rest of the exhibit - freezing air was blowing directly on you.  I'm guessing it was because you could touch the ice here and they needed to keep it from melting.  The kids could have kept sliding, but the rest of us were freezing and ready to move on!

They had a Christmas in NY room that included the Statue of Liberty, a big apple, Times Square, ice skating beneath the tree  in Rockefeller Center and a taxi that you could take pictures in.

Last but not least, the exhibit recognized the real reason for the season with a sculpture of the nativity scene and a voice over telling the story of the birth of Christ.  We really enjoyed the exhibit and spent about an hour there.  It was definitely worth the trip!

We left the exhibit cold, and ready to get home and relax.  The funny thing is that after being inside the exhibit for an hour, the "freezing" temps outside felt warm and humid!  We headed back home for a little down time before dinner and cake.  Brennan was happy to help Nana blow out her candles.

We had a great weekend and really enjoyed Saturday together.  Unfortunately, snow started falling on Sunday and my family had quite a slow drive back to NY.  After 10 hours on the road, my parents made it back to Jamesport.  But, at least everyone was  back safe and sound.  Happy Birthday, Mom.  And, thank you all for coming to Virginia to celebrate!  Love you guys!

Christmas Tree Time!

We kept up our tradition of getting our Christmas tree on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  It was a cold morning and Tyler and I weren't feeling the greatest, but we managed to still go and get the tree!  Tyler carried the rope and Brennan carried the saw while we hunted for the perfect tree.

Tyler kept pretending to rope trees.  It was very cute.

Brian found this year's perfect tree, but Brennan was sad that it wasn't a blue spruce.  The blue spruces were all way to big for our house, so we went with a douglas fir.  Brennan was having a moment when this picture was being taken, which is why he isn't in it.

After Brian cut the tree, both boys took turns "cutting" it down too.

One final picture before the hard work of lugging the tree to the barn began. 

We had learned our lesson two years ago to search uphill for a tree, so you could then drag it downhill to the barn to pay.  But, this year, the selection uphill wasn't that great, so we knowingly searched lower ground.  Brian said he was ready for the work!  Tyler on the other hand was not and I ended up carrying him back most of the way, which was harder than I anticipated.  He is heavy and on uphill terrain, it was rough!

We got the tree up and decorated, but then the next morning, our Elf arrived.  His name is Ogre - named by Brennan last year.  He toilet papered our tree on the morning of December 1.  What an entrance.

He seems proud of his work!

This morning, the elf antics continued and he marked up Brennan's school picture.  I'll post later in the month with more news on the trouble Ogre is making in our house.