Skiing with Timmy!

Last Monday I took a vacation day to spend the day with Nicole and we took Timmy skiing!  Nicole and I have tried to make skiing an annual event, but it has not worked out well!  The last time we went, two years ago, I got all excited about bringing Timmy the next time, which finally arrived!  I had been telling Timmy about our plans to go skiing after Christmas.  I wasn't sure that he really knew what it was, but he came home from school with this picture, of him skiing, before break started so he had some idea!  I took this picture and we immediately sent it to Nicole to share the excitement!

I signed Timmy up for a 2 hour group lesson at the start of the day.  We got him outfitted and he was excited about his red ski boots and skis with flames on them!

Nicole and I went to get our equipment while Timmy took his first few runs.  By the time we were ready to ski, he was through the first hour of his lesson already!

Nicole and I went down the bunny slope a few times to get our bearings and then had enough time to go down the blue circle twice before picking Timmy up.  Timmy's teacher said she thought he'd do fine on the bunny slope, that he had pretty decent control.  We took Timmy down his ski school slope a few times, and it was such a small slope that he was practically ice skating in his skis to get down the hill, which frequently made him fall.  We decided he probably would do better on the bunny slope, where gravity would actually get him down the hill!  I quickly learned that ski poles are actually made for towing your child to the lift!

 Timmy did great on the bunny slope, except he didn't make any turns, just went straight down the hill.  He was supper excited about this at first, saying how awesome it was and how he was made for going fast, just like running!  It also meant though, that he crashed at the bottom each time.  After the second run he said, "This is awesome, I'm going to do this 8 million times!"  After his crash on the third run, he asked if he could have a break, so we stopped for lunch.  Unfortunately he lost his nerve during lunch.  I had to beg him to go back up the bunny slope again, and after our 4th run he was done with that hill.  Timmy and I went back to the ski school slope for our last half hour, and Nicole took a few turns down the Green Square slope.  Timmy and I would not have survived his first ski trip without Nicole!  She was so patient and took many a turn up-righting Timmy, which is not easy to do when you are on skis yourself!

Timmy did awesome being back on the tiny slope, he made several runs in a row where he'd go up the carpet lift, ski straight down the hill without falling, and maneuver directly back onto the lift to do it again!

I definitely think Timmy's first trip was a success!  Next year I plan to get him a private lesson so he can be more confident in making turns and that way he'll be able to slow himself down!  I'm already looking forward to it!

Cookie Decorating at School

The week before Winter Break started, both boys had cookie decorating parties at school.  Tuesday morning I went in to Tyler's class at pick up time and the kids sang a few songs for us before decorating sugar cookies.  Tyler liked decorating it more then eating it, lucky me!

Don't worry, I got all those sprinkles back into the jar!

Tyler and his buddy, Jasir

The next day I got to go to Timmy's class in the morning to help with Gingerbread Boy decorating.  The kids were very creative and they turned out great!  I loved Timmy's guys mustache!

Timmy's buddy Carter, who moved over break!

Best-buddy Nate

Yes, Timmy and Nate have been at the same table all year, making it through several moves!

Christmas Evening and Wrap Up

Usually when we head home from Tim and Susan's, Tim and I aim to stay on the couch the rest of the evening, opening whatever toys the boys bring to us!  This year though, we had another full round of presents to do with my parents and Joe!  The kids slowed the pace back down, and as the pile under the tree finally diminished they were pretty relaxed.  They enjoyed spending the rest of the evening checking out all of their new toys.

The next few days were spent playing lots of Skylanders, playing with their new action figures, watching the new movies, and resting!  We definitely had a very, merry Christmas!

Mom and Dad stayed through Sunday afternoon, so we met with Joe and Lindsey for brunch before they got on the road.  We are still recovering from all of the excitement of Christmas and trying to figure out where all of the new toys should live!

Christmas Afternoon

Christmas Afternoon we headed to Tim and Susan's house.  I think we may have set a record for how quickly the gifts were opened there!  A little over half way through, Grandad warned the boys that there wasn't a never ending supply of presents!  After they had everything opened the boys ran around like maniacs for a while before Jenny and family headed off to see Brett's side.  We got Tyler down for his much needed nap and the rest of us enjoyed watching Home Alone, which Timmy had never seen before and really liked.  Christmas Dinner was delicious, Susan outdid herself, like she does every year.  On top of the delicious dinner, there were five different homemade desserts!  Yes, I was in heaven!

Christmas Morning Continued

Jenny, Brett, Brayden and Bryce arrived shortly before breakfast was ready.  Once everyone had finished eating, presents started being passed out again!  As always we tried to go slowly, but it got pretty frenzied!  Brayden had received a dirt bike from Santa and was mostly happy just modeling all of his new equipment!  Poor Tyler was pretty tired, actually requesting a nap around 10:30 am!  He managed to rally though and had a nap much later!  Everyone gave such nice presents and it was a really nice morning!

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning I set my alarm to get ready before waking the boys up.  Tim woke up when I was coming back into the room, and Timmy went from apparently asleep to climbing over Tyler on his way out of the bed in a split second!  Tim pulled him back into the bed and told him to relax a minute.  I interviewed the boys on the video camera for a few minutes while Tim got ready to go upstairs.  We let the boys take a look at the tree and all of the presents that had arrived over night before sending them upstairs to wake everyone else up.  The boys sat among the pile of presents waiting for their grandparents, aunt, and uncles to come downstairs.  It felt a bit like torture for all of us, but I love these first few pictures, and the range of joy, anticipation, and torment on their faces before they were allowed to start opening gifts!

Santa presents went first, and Timmy was able to read the tags and pass them out correctly this year!  Timmy's main request of Santa was for Skylanders Swapforce.  As usual, he was not surprised at all to receive his requested gift, but he was extremely excited about it!  He and his dad have been getting a lot of use out of it already!

Tyler asked Santa for an airplane and every time anyone asked him what he wanted Santa to bring, all he said was airplane!  Actually, the first present he opened was in Ohio, from Donny and Peggy, when he saw it his shoulders fell and he said, "I want a airplane!"  after I reminded him that was what he had asked Santa for and he had to wait for Santa to bring it to him, he was happy with that present and every other gift he received.  Little did he know that Santa would bring him several airplanes (and so would lots of other people!) so when he opened his second airplane he said, "Another airplane?! What in the World?!" and cracked all of us up!

The boys had a large, happy audience while they went through their gifts!

Timmy did Secret Shopping again this year, this time at his school.  We had him buy presents for everyone in his immediate family this year (you should have seen the expression on his 6th grade helpers face!) and he did a really great job.  Most of the women in Timmy's life got beautiful jewelry and most of the men received football related items!  I got a "Mom" plaque and Tim got a football handled screwdriver, which he put to use almost immediately putting toys together and batteries in!  Timmy was most excited about his gift for Tyler though, which he had wanted to give to Tyler immediately after buying it, and he helped Tyler open it quickly!

Tyler had a gift picked out for Timmy too, and gave him a sweet kiss when he delivered it!

After Timmy passed out his gifts, the boys opened their gifts from us too.  After that we took a break while Al and Elena made a wonderful breakfast for everyone and the boys got to check out most of the stuff they had just opened!

That wrapped up the first of four rounds of gifts on Christmas Day!

Christmas Eve

Christmas went a little differently this year, as Joe did not make it to Ohio and my parents decided to come back from Ohio when we did, so that they could see all of us for Christmas.  We had a very full house for Christmas Eve and Christmas!  Everyone had a very nice time and as Al put it, there was great fellowship.  It was a fun year with the kids, so it was especially nice that we got to see everyone for Christmas.  On Christmas Eve we went to church at the boys' preschool.  We had two shepherds this year, and Timmy even went up on the stage with the big shepherds when they called everyone up.

After church we went downtown to see the National Christmas tree.  Unfortunately the wind made it unbearably cold, so we only stayed for a few minutes!

Mom, Dad, and Joe stopped for dinner on the way home, and we stopped to visit with Tim and Susan for a while before heading home and getting into PJ's to take pictures in-front of the tree and make cookies for Santa!

Right after the last photo-op I told the boys it was time to go up and get their snuggle puppies and then they could sleep in our room.  Something very special happened when they got to their room; they peeked out the window to see what they could see... and Santa walked across the front yard just as they looked!  The video below really doesn't show much, but you can hear the excitement and the frenzy that the boys were in at the sight of Santa!  I'm so glad to have heard it, because at the time I was nervous about what they would think, and everyone caught Timmy's reaction... but I had no memory of what Tyler's reaction was, and hearing him on this, he was clearly as excited as Timmy and was the first person to say, "Santa Clause!"

Baba went downstairs with the boys to read them a book, when I told Timmy her plan he shouted, "We don't have time for a book!!! Santa's coming right now!!!" But he did calm down and allow her to read to them.  :)  The next morning while stalling them from going upstairs, I asked Timmy if anything special had happened the night before.  With a big smile he said, "I saw Santa!... But I thought that he flies from roof to roof..." I stopped him short and said,  "Maybe they dropped something when they were landing!" and went ahead and ushered them upstairs!