A Holiday in Pictures

Let's start with the best quotes of the season.

Nathan, after opening his first gift from Santa: "SWEEEET!!  What's in here?"

Evan, after shaking a wrapped gift that was tagged for Nathan:  "Grandma, these are Legos, but it says it's for Nathan.  Are you sure you didn't get the tags mixed up?"

 

Everyone was excited about Nathan's new scooter, but no one was as pleased as Evan, who will no longer have to fight to ride his own scooter.

Reading the book that I made for Dad.

 

First game of catch with the new mitt.

Trying out the new scooter.



 

Annual walk downtown to enjoy the lights at the park and on the pier. 

The Great Scooter Show.  These kids did all kinds of jumps and tricks.

Not pictured:

Legos, Legos, and more Legos.

Nathan stripping down to change into his new pajamas immediately after opening them, and staying in them all day.

Cut-throat games of Old Maid.

Nathan's enthusiastic exclamations of "Sweet!", "This is just what I wanted!", and "Awesome!" when opening every gift.

Grandpa's second annual Christmas morning outfit.

Dad building us an airport for our fighter jets in between Christmas celebrations.
Building a huge fort on the beach.

Did I say Legos?

I lost  my first tooth yesterday!  It's a pretty good story.  Nathan and I were wrestling and Nathan kicked me in the mouth and out popped my tooth!  Actually, in popped my tooth, and I accidently swallowed it!  We learned that the tooth fairy does not need evidence.  She left me a silver dollar despite not getting my tooth in return. 

All of the tooth wiggling during the past couple weeks sure made Mom think a lot about Great Grandpa Bob, who was fairly diabolical in his encouragement and ideas to "help" his grandchildren lose their loose teeth.  Although, she told stories of pliers and slamming doors and dancing with dolls on my head, she didn't have the gleam in her eye that he did, so I didn't fear that she would actually go through with any of it. 

 

"All the animals came to see Jesus, and now they are snuggling!"

Charlotte's Web

We got to watch our first movie today.  Evan has been looking forward to this since reading the book this summer.  Actually, Mom only let us watch the first 20 minutes, but it was a good start!

What a terrific day!  First, we spent the morning celebrating Holden and Karen returning to their Washington roots.  We are so, so, so happy that they are now living just down the road!  Mom said this is the best thing that's happened since Miss Dani moved back to Washington.  What a great reason to get together with these wonderful friends.  We expect to be doing this more often!

 

Thank you for hosting us, Dani!  What a fun crew!

 

Lots of soccer players here.

Later, we went to our friend Miss Jamie's house to celebrate Elsa's birthday.  Aunt Katy and Miss Jamie were college roommates for three years (one of them as housemates with Mom, too).  We had lots of fun playing with Elsa and Lauren and Micah.

Reindeer Dash

We ran a 2K (about 1 1/4 miles) race this morning.  The temperature was 25 degrees.  Brrrr!  But that didn't slow us down!

A reindeer led the race and Santa pulled up the rear.  Evan got 5th overall.  He ran with his friend Sophie (next to him in the picture below), and Mom saw him stop a couple times to let her catch up.  What a good sport!  Nathan wowed everyone with his jackrabbit speed in between short bouts of rest.  We're still working on pacing.  Both boys had fun, and there were no complaints about the cold.  Evan thinks he's ready for a few more Ks.

Mom took us on a date to a Christmas program followed by dinner.  I'm sure you wouldn't guess that Nathan was so tired that he fell asleep on the way home and didn't even wake when Mom changed him into his pjs and put him in bed.

So Thankful

We have too many blessings to count.  One day just isn't enough to celebrate all we are thankful for.

 

We started our Thanksgiving with a visit with Great Grandma.  She was thrilled to see the boys and our visit definitely brightened her Thanksgiving day.

We ended our Thanksgiving day with a stop at one of our favorite spots.  We played until it was too dark to see the rocks we were throwing in the water.

This view is something to be thankful for.

Practicing my rock climbing skills.  I wanted to take this picture for Grandma.

Beautiful sunset.

We spent the next morning hiking on trails where we could see both sides of the island from one spot.  Hard to know what direction to look!  

We had fun running as fast as we could past the camera to see if Mom could catch us in action.

 Uncle Joe got the pictures of our Thanksgiving dinner, which was pretty fantastic.  Elsa and I made a driftwood fort.

 And we pogosticked, biked, and scootered into the night!  Fun weekend!