New Year's Eve Christmas

Kathy and Tony were in town for a few days around New Year's Eve.  We celebrated our family Christmas with them as part of our celebration to ring in 2014!

Quirkle-d Out

 

And, he still won!

Air Hockey

James and I broke tradition a little this year and surprised the boys with an actual material gift from us.  We figured an air hockey table would provide lots of family fun!

Slack Lining

Santa Claus brought the boys a slack line for Christmas.  It's been quite a challenge for all of us to find any success on it.   The first time we set it up, the boys complained that it was too short and too low...they soon realized that it was still nearly impossible!

We've read that the trick is to balance on one leg at a time and not really try to walk quickly.  That advice doesn't help much!   It's quite a full body workout just to get up and try to balance on one leg.

Some fun with photo editing:



And a more realistic movie:

)

Cousin Time

It was fun to have some time at Oma and Papa's house for these guys just to hang out and have fun together with no particular set agenda.  Lots of giggles (and lots of wrestling!).

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Santa came!

  We had to wake up the kids again this year....I think they're broken!

It was pretty clear that Santa must have found some bargains over the course of the whole year, because these kids sure ended up with a lot of goodies from the big guy! 

Who let the guy in the bright yellow shirt into this picture??

And - WOW - who dressed these two kids?  Mismatched socks on one.  Matching stripey socks pulled up to the knees with stripey pajamas and a down vest on the other...

Both kids had wanted a ski mask but were even more happy with the "baclava" they received instead.  What are the odds that they manage to keep track of these for a whole winter?

Happy Christmas!

Christmas 2013

We headed to Oma and Papa's house for Christmas Eve and Christmas day this year.  It was great fun having all the cousins together for the whole day, with no particular agenda except hanging out and spending time together!  We took our time opening presents, spreading it out almost throughout the whole day, so the kids could have time to play with their new treasures and with each other.

 

Teddy was thrilled with his heroes house.  He also liked the little ride on rocket ship we got him; we all got a kick out of pushing him back and forth with him demanding that we send him "fupa-fast" (super fast).  Fupa-fast has already been added to our family lexicon! 

I was happy that Lila wanted to build her new princess castle with me...it's not often that she's willing to leave her daddy when he's around! 

No one had any energy or desire for more dessert, so we put together plate of cookies with candles as Jesus' birthday cake.  I'm sure he didn't mind.

These two monkeys got something like a combined total of 27 books for Christmas!  AND, as Brian was quite surprised to learn, they weren't even a little bit disappointed!  Harry Potter accessory books, Big Nate, animal saver books, and so much more!

Christmas Eve pictures

We did manage to get a few handsome pictures of everyone all dressed up for Christmas Eve mass.  I'm not sure where Brian and Rebecca snuck off to, though?

Baking and crafting

One of my favorite things about Christmas is the time we get to spend together baking and crafting.  The boys are rather resistant to craft type activities most of the year, but are still interested and excited about holiday projects.  And, they love baking all year round especially when they get to sample the cookie dough.

My traditional sugar cookies and their traditional dipped oreos:

My two projects for the year:  a way to display Christmas cards and Mickey/Minnie ornaments:

Rudy's play-doh creation.  This kid could spend hours with play-doh.

We even shared the love with some cookie decorating at Garth and Ellen's house: