Christmas 2013

It was a whirlwind Christmas! Henry was almost collapsing with anticipation this year. He literally Could.Not.Wait. He had three different advent calendars to change every day (a wooden block countdown, a felt hanging one Aunt Gina made us, and his favorite - a Lego Star Wars calendar that gave him a different mini Lego creation every day) and every morning of December he would leap out of bed to count down one more day until Christmas.

Elliot obviously didn't quite get it, but he loved our tree (well, he cried hysterically while we transported it home on the car roof, but once it was inside he enjoyed it), was remarkably well behaved about not pulling off ornaments or playing with the wrapped gifts under the tree, and was OBSESSED with our Elf on a Shelf. Any time he was upset about something all you had to do was ask "Elliot, where is Whizby today?" The tears would instantly stop and he would run to point out Whizby's new location (I am very sad Whizby had to return to the North Pole today!)

Christmas Eve we did our usually cookie decorating:

And new PJ opening:

Along with the boys opening their gifts from each other (Elliot "picked out" a Lego Star Wars thing for Henry, and Henry selected a train/construction vehicle set for Elliot):

Milk and cookies were left for Santa:

And after everyone was asleep Santa arrived:

It was a Christmas miracle in the morning when our early bird Elliot slept until 6:30 (!). We got him and went to wake Henry, who was sitting wide awake in bed. As we all walked out to see what Santa brought Henry was TOTALLY busted when he yelled out "Elliot, lets go look at the bus Santa brought you!" Ha! He had snuck out in the middle of the night to see what Santa had brought. Seeing as how I did the same thing nearly every Christmas of my youth, I couldn't fault him :)

The day was spent all in our PJs, eating various baked goods, and playing with new toys. Henry spent literally the ENTIRE DAY building all of his new Lego sets. We could barely get him to stop for lunch.

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Haircut

We finally gave in and took Elliot to the kid's haircut place - where they can strap them in, throw some cartoons on, and hope for the best. The stylist we used had an extremely effective method called the "double lollipop" and we actually managed to get a full haircut!

Snow!

We got some snow this week - Henry is insanely excited. Elliot saw snow last year but obviously has no recollection of it, so this was somewhat like his first time. He has great difficulty walking in the snow, but squeels with glee every time he falls.

Holiday Party 2013

We had our annual kids' holiday party today. It was full of the usual holiday joys - cookie decorating, gift exchanging, laughter, and complete and utter chaos (10 kids under 7 in our tiny space....oh my). Even with the insanity we love it, and love the tradition of spending time with some of our closest friends.

1st grade concert

Henry had his winter concert today! It was one of the more adorable things I have ever seen. Here is a video (that hopefully works) of all the 1st grade sections singing. Bonus - you can hear Elliot whining and me shushing him near the end :) Henry is in the green and blue plaid shirt on the right side of the 2nd row.

Santa!

Considering that Elliot is in the depths of extreme separation anxiety and stranger anxiety, are we in any way surprised that this is what happened we we attempted to meet Santa?

Thanksgiving 2013

For Thanksgiving this year we rented a house in Newport, Rhode Island and were lucky to have Aunt Gina and Mike #2 join us!

The house was very neat - originally an old barn from Indiana. The kids loved the open spaces and excessive amounts of couch cushions they could play with.

Thanksgiving day had excessive food:

But once again my children only ate pumpkin pie and turkey. Elliot only ate rolls. Sigh.

The kids had a lot of fun with Aunt Gina:

And there was much relaxing:

The day after Thanksgiving we went to tour The Breakers:

And then we took a long, scenic drive to Watch Hill only to discover that the town was completely shut down for the season (although we did find Taylor Swift's house!)

Happy Thanksgiving!