Holy Holidays

We made it through the holidays. In short, there was a lot of eating, drinking, presents and two black eyes. And since we never really keep it short, below is the extended version with pictures. We bought a camera right before Christmas, so hopefully I don't go over board with pictures. We only took about 350 throughout Christmas and New Years. So not necessary.

Pre-Christmas
Before Christmas the boys got to meet Santa at the Hansen's. Cole even got to wear a Santa hat and be his helper. Henry mostly hid behind a pillow.

Fort Building too

Kristin keeps telling me that if we keep our firewood in the garage we will get mice so I finally built a wood holder for outside. It was a pain. 

Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve was spent at Great Grandpa's and Grandma's. The kids got lots of presents, the grownups had a Christmas beer tasting and I got a black eye from a grade-schooler (thanks Walter). All in all, a pretty good celebration.

  

We now own everyone in the Rescue Bot family and extended family

Christmas
We had the typical Christmas morning. The boys were up early, but they did a pretty good job being patient while we dragged our tired asses out of bed. Our big present to the boys was a Lego tabletop (and Legos). I built the Lego table top that sits on our coffee table/bench. Surprisingly it has not yet fallen apart. It has also been utilized quite a bit, unlike the teepee, doll house and refurbished train table. Actually, we have all been building with Legos a lot. Kristin and I have even gotten quite into it.

The setup

The mess

The boys have been enjoying eating meals with toothpicks, like every day is a fancy party with heavy apps, so of course they each got their own container

Uncle Ben was not able to make it home for Christmas but we had other visitors. Auntie BBQ and Cousins Tildie and Etta (and family) from Oregon, and Kristin's cousin Andrew.   

Hilariously we discovered that both Henry and Etta have nicknames of "Boo boo." It had the potential to get confusing. They look alike too. 

Favorites from Santa: Dusty Crophopper and McQueen pj's and candy

Hen's black eye came from a fall when he was trying to leave his room in the middle of the night.We are not exactly sure what happened, but sounds like he hit his face on his bed.

Pickles all day long for Cole

We all had a good laugh looking at Cole's Christmas plate that he made. I'm not sure who he convinced to dip their penises in green paint and go tip to tip on this plate, but they did a nice job. Oh wait, those are apparently Cole's feet. 

New Years Eve
We ended up having our own party for New Years Eve. It got pretty wild up in here. In the morning the boys and I went and got party supplies and snacks. We probably started the party around 3:30 p.m. By 4:51 p.m. (I checked the clock) Cole shouted, "We are staying up so late." We had poppers, silly string, hats, balloons, bling, etc. We even had non alcoholic champagne for the boys. Cole took a sip and instantly yelled, "That's hot."

We ended our festivities with a drive out to Country Christmas at the Country Inn hotel (the largest Christmas lights display in the STATE!). The kids love this, so we decided to do it once more before they shut down. At some point in the drive Henry called out, "What in tarnation!" We are not sure where he has heard that before. Not from us. It was pretty hilarious (...probably had to be there).

Our party also included a few games of Bingo

"That's hot!"

Cheers! (turned out to be a difficult concept to grasp)

Perks of having a kitchen you don't care about - it can't get any worse

Two people in our group (Kristin and Henry) wore sweatpants for the party. I think that is a sign that it wasn't really much of a party.

Another mess.

New Years Day
We ended the holidays with a pancake breakfast at home, then a pizza dinner and then watched Planes: Fire & Rescue before bed. I guess it is back to work and the routine. It was fun while it lasted.

Good luck to all in 2015 (and may your gym memberships last more than 2 months).