Men at Work

Silly Boys

Christmas: Part Two!

Christmas morning began with amazement about Santa eating the cookies we left out for him (and milk!) and then doing stockings. Did I mention that Jake started believing in Santa this year? It is truly magical to watch. Paul always does the best stocking for me. I need to get more creative (note to self). We followed with opening gifts that Santa brought us. Jake was super excited about his gumball machine and Handy Manny workshop. Josh thought his xylophone was pretty fantastic. (He's easy.) After a mad dash to get dressed and look presentable, we headed back over to Paul's parents house for brunch and stockings. I love stockings. Always have, always will. After watching Toy Story 3 (and me taking a brief snooze), we went to my parent's house for Christmas. More gift unwrapping and screams of delight from all of the kiddos (4 kids, 6 adults, lots of noise). Some hits: the old school fischer price record player for Josh and a chainsaw (yes, chainsaw) and new workbench for Jake. Let's just say that those were put together and being played with before Christmas day was over with!

Slideshow below of more pictures of Christmas day at our house and my parent's. Hope you and yours enjoyed a happy, healthy, and magical holiday this year!

Christmas: Part One!

With both of our families being local, we're blessed to be able to spend time with everyone during the holidays. For Thanksgiving, we switch houses each year. For Christmas, we alternate XMas Eve and XMas Day. This year was XMas Eve at Paul's parent's house in Fairfax. B and BoBo even joined in on the festivities! We had a delicious (of course!) dinner prepared by Kathy, the boys ate at their own "kids' table", and then we opened gifts. Jake was quite enamored with his Toy Story 3 landfill, his very own ridable digger, a Handy Manny shirt and jacket, and a fireman's outfit! Josh liked all of the boxes and tissue paper! Ha ha, no really, he likes whatever Jake got. Ha ha, okay he loves the fly new shoes that Aunt Allison and Mr. Brent got him (for whatever reason, my boys always have the "coolest" shoes, and I never buy pairs of shoes for them!), the Stand 'n Play racetrack, puzzles, and his very own workbench (which will be interesting to see how that plays out at home).... And lots of other very fun things! By the end of the night, we were exhausted and both boys passed out on the way home. Paul and I headed home to do stockings and catch some zzzzzzz's... Tomorrow morning is Christmas at our house with just the 4 of us, then back to Paul's parents for brunch and stockings, and then to my parent's house for Christmas with Mom, Dad, Nick, Kelly, and the kiddos.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

The Grown Ups

Every once in a while we like to get dressed up and socialize with other people from our generation. Of course, that usually includes being silly and doing things like taking shots from an ice luge and playing beer pong. Pictures below from last weekend -- Nate and Kate's annual holiday party. Fun times had by all! (Note that we did have a designated driver; thanks, Jason!)

Children's Museum

Last weekend we took the boys to the Port Discovery Children's Museum in Baltimore. Oma and Pa were on hand to join in on the fun! This place was really cool. There are activities for kids of all ages to enjoy and Jake and Josh really had a great time. Of course the main attraction, and reason for our visit, was the Bob the Builder exhibit. Hence, most of our time was spent there (and almost all of the pictures are from there!). Slideshow below.

Highly recommend a trip here!!

Holiday Program at School

Last night was the boys' holiday program at school. Paul got a great picture of Jake and I.

The first video below is from Josh's performance. They sang "Jingle Bells" with their own little bell bracelets around their wrists. Ms. Amber is holding him in the video; that is his primary care teacher in the Toddler room. The two infant rooms participated with Josh's Toddler class. The woman singing and playing guitar, Ms. Em, if one of Jake's teachers in his preschool room. Most notable from Josh's video is his slight meltdown at the end when Ms. Amber is holding him and then he sees me and realizes that I am not the one holding him. (Note that this was at 6:45pm and he is about ready to put on his PJ's and settle down by then.)

The second video below is from Jake's performance. His class did their own rendition of "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" with hippo headbands on. All of the kids up on stage are in his class. Most notable from his video is how he is looking for me in the audience and then towards the end he sees me, does a quick little jump, his face lights up, and he says "mama!". Then at the end, he claps, and does the cutest little wave ever ("hey, mama, I see you, yay!").

OK so I am not the best videographer in the world, but hey, at least I have the fun times captured on film. We'll have to be sure to have these kinds of videos around when the start bringing home girlfriends :-)

jake holiday program

josh holiday program

Dance Party!

We like to do a lot of singing and dancing at our house :-)