New Years Eve

My little men returned in time to celebrate New Year's Eve with me.

In order to really get in the mood, I got us all some noise makers.

 And boy did the boys have fun with them!

 Selfies were absolutely necessary!

 Man I love these guys!

What they didn't know was that I set all the clocks ahead 3 hours so that when the ball dropped in NYC, they thought it was midnight! Matthew got to experience the trill of staying up until midnight and yet he managed to get into to bed by about 9:30 so the next day wasn't ruined by lack of sleep.

That is premium parenting!

Christmas in Renton with Daddy

The day after arriving from Colleen's we celebrated Christmas with Daddy.

Here Daddy is obviously pulling Alex's leg but he is not having it.

And of course the empty box is the biggest hit.

At about noon they all went to spend a week at Daddy's house.

To Canada for Christmas Day 9 - Final Day

It snowed even MORE!!!

Back outside we go

This time to drive the quad around

Alex got cold so he and I got off 

Matthew and Papa took a spin

He rode that quad until he couldn't feel his fingers anymore.

First snow angel for Alex

More quadding

Matthew made a snowman

And a snow angel

Then I chased him around in the snow because it doesn't hurt when you fall in it.

  I also let him bury me in the snow which he thought was really cool.

This is Bill, the dog Colleen was fostering while we were there.  We all fell in love with him.

we pretty much had the airport to ourselves

There were many beautiful Christmas trees at the airport

and the blue/green/pink ones inspired us to plan for a white tree with blue/green/pink decorations next year

They looked good enough to eat.

Well that's another trip in the bag.  As always we had a great time and Colleen and family were terrific hosts.  See you all next summer for our camping trip to BC!

To Canada for Christmas Day 9

It SNOWED!!!

I insisted again that we go sledding now that there was more snow.

It was deep at the top of the sledding hill

Since the snow was fresh and light there was a lot of blow back when you went down the hill.  That meant Alex only went down once, cried the whole way back up and REFUSED to get out of the truck again.

Matthew was a trooper though

I even convinced Dad to go down once.

We detoured through town when we were done to stop at the bakery again.  When we found it was closed Alex was heart broken and wailed most of the way home.

So we distracted him by letting him clean the snow off the deck again

Colleen brought out the poppers she had forgotten on Christmas Day

Ah the joys of sharing a bed with your kid

To Canada for Christmas Day 8 - "Christmas Day"

An early start to another great day.

Matthew distributing gifts.

Alex got a big kitty from Nana and Papa

Which he LOVED

Showing Nana his new kitty

Excited? Its hard to tell with this facial expression

Total choas

Look what popped up in the mss!

Super cool dude in a shark tooth necklace