Christmas 2010

Christmas Eve ended with decorating cookies.  One of Nolan’s new favorite Christmas Books is The Gingerbread Pirates, so we made gingerbread pirates for Santa – and we left celery for the reindeer.

Christmas morning, Nolan and Brenden were up at 9:15 and they opened their stockings while we waited for Ethan and Cameron to wake up, which happened around 10:30.

Our family gift was our new computer, wrapped inside the desk.

Cameron enjoyed his hand and foot rattles.Brenden got some K’Nex Nolan loves transformers.

 

I love this kid – he’ll even pretend to be excited about underwear. Nolan LOVES Stinky the Garbage Truck .If this was the case in our house, our children would pretty much ALWAYS be disappointed:

That kid reminds me of Ethan.

Christmas was mostly books, books, and more books.     

This was Ethan’s big highlight – a Cars garage.  Christmas was a wonderfully lazy day full of fun.

12/27

One of Brenden’s highlights was his snap circuit set.  He has been creating things with it ever since Christmas.  Sometimes he allows an assistant.

Sledding Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve we met our friends the Leys, Quiners, and Maws at our elementary school sled hill.  All the schools here have a sledding hill since we have 9 months of winter.  It was a fantastic day – even at –10 degrees.

Brenden at the top of the sledding hillEthan on his way down…John testing out the jump – for safety, of course. Matt, being the good EMT that he is, also needed to test the jump. It was deemed safe for the children.

Brenden on the jumpLochlan on the jump Brenden – same jump, different sled

   I can’t tell under the layers, but I think this is Alyssa and Savannah.I had to try it out too, of course.  Not for safety sake, but for my own entertainment.The hill was pretty much all ice, so it was a hard landing!
Brenden has decided his New Year’s resolution is to learn to snowboard. Angeline, Tiffany, and MeIt was an incredibly fun way to start our Christmas Eve!

Pictures with Santa

Ok, so I know I am like WAY behind, but I thought I ought to post our pictures with Santa BEFORE Christmas.  I am downloading pictures for my big quarterly update (that I wish was more like weekly).  Friday we spent the day cleaning in our pajamas and then got dressed to go see Santa and decorate cookies at the Senior Center.  Doug had to work.

Nolan is miserably sick.

I had to include this picture because this kid was so funny.  He asked my friend Angeline what was on Brenden's head.  When she told him Brenden is deaf, the kid said, "That's so sad."  The kid then came and asked me if the kids were really totally deaf and when I told him yes, he kept saying, "How can you be happy about that?  It's so tragic!"  He wanted to know if we had any other deaf people in our family and I pointed to Ethan.  He thought that was really tragic.  He wanted to know if we had any blind people in our family and if the kids couldn't hear anything.  I told him that was what the implants were for and he thought that was so cool that they could fix their hearing in a single second!  When I told him the kids had to have surgery for that, he was again telling me how tragic our life is.  (Boehme family who came to visit this summer: we think he is the "Will someone please look at me!?" kid.)

Today:

Brenden singing a made-up song all about the fire in the fireplace to try to cheer up Cameron.

I can't get enough of this little boy's smiles.

Ethan thought the fire was too hot to pose in front of.

This was a much safer spot.

I am missing church tomorrow with sick children, so expect a better update soon!