Twas The Night After Christmas

We woke up Christmas morning to freshly fallen snow and a deer trio in our backyard having a yummy breakfast. Very Courier & Ives.

Matthew was up bright and early. He was excited about all his presents from Santa.

He kept saying "This was on my list! Santa brought me this from my list!"

He was genuinely excited about every single gift he received.

It was awesome to watch him tear into each gift.

Noah wasn't really interested in the unwrapping part. He enlisted daddy's help for most of it.

Matthew could turn pro if it was a sport.

Of course there were stockings full of fun stuff too.

And even though Noah didn't want to unwrap, he sure did want to play with everything.

After about seven minutes of being awake, our living room looked like this.

Both boys were quite happy with the hauls.

Noah took a liking to all of Matthew's gifts in addition to his own.

After breakfast we headed to grandma's house to continue the Christmas fun with all the cousins. Matthew was intrigued with the dress-up sets the girls got.

Noah was there for the food.

After all the good food, the good company and the good gifts, we all went to bed completely exhausted last night. And the crazies that we are, we got up early and hit some post-holiday sales today.

Now the snow is falling again and both boys are asleep. It's been a fantastic few days, and with Matt on vacation for another week there's more fun to be had. I hope you all enjoyed your holidays and that you're all ready for a great new year!

Merry Merry!

I found this image in my photo stream. Matthew created it in one of the free Christmas apps on the iPad. He said it makes him feel "Christmassy"

We're going to be busy the next few days - we're hosting Christmas Eve dinner at our house tomorrow night (that's a lot of people in my house!), Christmas morning at home and then off to grandma's for Christmas lunch with the cousins. All good stuff.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Holiday Concert

Today was Matthew's holiday concert at school. We were out early to get Matthew to his last minute rehearsal at school. We killed time at Starbucks with Noah while we waited for show time.

Noah was actually much better than I thought he would be at the concert. He sat and watched Matthew bust a move for quite a while.

Matthew was fantastic - he sang, he danced, he waved at us, he genuinely enjoyed himself.

When Noah became restless (there are only so many Christmas carols he can tolerate at once), I brought him to the little playroom inside the daycare room. Once he saw this slide he had no interest in going back out to see Matthew.

But I was able to convince him to come back out in time for the pre-k's dance routine to Run Run Rudolph. Matthew was paired with one of the tallest girls in the class. But he held his own - and to be honest, I think it was all the much cuter because of their mis-match.

At the end, the lead teacher made sure to call out all the kids names for applause. They all felt like little rock stars.

After the concert there was a small holiday party where all the kiddos got to chow on Gogurts, bagels, cheese sticks and waffles.

I convinced Matthew to pose for a picture next to the Santa list with his name on it. He didn't quite get that I was trying to get his name in the picture as well. You might be able to make out the big M next to his head (all the kids got to write their own name on the list).

And because no post about a holiday concert would be complete without a video, here you go:



Happy Holidays Everyone!!!

Wordless Wednesday: Close, Closer, Closest

Status Quo

Things have been busy around here lately. Not bad busy, just busy. Lots to do with the holidays coming up.

Matthew's school is in full holiday mode. He's been coming home lately with the cutest little art projects.

Matthew himself is in full holiday mood as well. He's very into decorating, our Elf on the Shelf, holiday art projects, Christmas books, etc. He particularly likes the candy cane lights on our front path because he claims when he grabs on to them that it makes him look like The Riddler. I don't really know how that's "Christmassy", but I'm not a 4-year-old boy obsessed with super heroes.

Noah has been good about staying away from our decorations for the most part. Although the snowman at the top of our kitchen steps seems to be too tempting at times - I regularly find that poor snowman hanging on for dear life after being pushed to the edge of the top step by young Noah. This picture has nothing to do with that story, it's just a random shot of Noah and his sock hands.

This face - keeps him on the Nice List.

So, aside from the everyday stuff, and the holiday stuff added on top of that, we're still just doing our own thing.

And having fun doing it.

Happy weekend everybody!

Friday Funnies

I love Pinterest for making me laugh...

Happy Friday!!!

Thanksgiving Recap

We drove down to Bethesda on Thursday morning. Over 5 hours in a car with two maniacs. Needless to say they were restless and overtired when we arrived. Here's our lovely Thanksgiving portrait.

The highlight of Matthew's trip was being allowed to stay up later after bath time to play the iPad in order to give his brother some time to fall asleep in the pack-and-play.

Noah enjoyed the freedom of no baby gates. Made it a little tougher on me and Matt to wrangle him in.

Friday morning we hit up the local elementary school that has an AWESOME play area.

Matthew remembered the "spinny thing" from last year. He spun himself silly.

Noah was able to do more at the park this year which was nice.

He enjoyed the slides and the dirt (as evident on his jeans).

Once Noah saw how much fun Matthew was having on the spinny thing he insisted on taking a ride too.

He was even brave enough for a solo ride.

Matthew did a great job on the rock wall with Noah as his spotter.

And he navigated the playground on his own really well. He really has grown up so much this past year.

It was nice to see Noah so happy. He's a maniac, but man is he fun!

I'm happy to say we had a great time. And we only had one injury to report (The kitchen table attacked Noah. The table won. But he's okay).

We came home Saturday and settled in nicely. Now it's time for Christmas lights, school holiday plays, gingerbread house construction and all the other mania that comes along with Christmas!