Christmas 2010

What a wonderful time of year Christmas is! I get so excited to re-live all our traditions and to simply be able to spend time together as a family. Abraham was old enough this year to learn the Nativity story and he and Tyler enjoyed acting it out with our awesome nativity that Aunt Carie made us all season long. We had a wonderful holiday and hope you all did too!!
One last thing before I begin with pictures ... this is the second year in a row we've had secret visitors leave us treats on our doorstep. We LOVE suprises at our house and these have been especially tasty suprises. So, if your secret elves are reading our blog, THANK YOU! THANK YOU! for our yummy treats!

Tyler woke up grumpy at 4:30 in the morning. He wasn't into presents at first, but quickly caught on. Abraham had no problem catching on to opening presents. He is at such an awesome age and every present was his best! My favorite was when he opened his bike helmet. His face immediately fell and he said, "What is this? I don't want it." We told him it was a helmet and asked him why Santa might have brought him a helmet. You could see the light go on and he said, "a bike helmet?" and then immediately ran over to his remaining gifts (none of which were bigger than a shoebox) and said, "which one of these is a bike??". The bike had been hiding in the dining room.We were so lucky to have my parents spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with us. Grandma and Grandpa made everything much more special. Tyler spent most of his morning playing with his new Thomas trains.We got some great gifts from our family members. Thanks to everyone who sent such awesome presents!Abraham spent most of his day playing with the Bat Cave.Abraham's first look at the ball pit that Uncle Gordon sent. Needless to say, the boys love it.After a wonderful day, the kids were happy and exhausted. Abraham fell asleep hugging his new Scooby Doo that Grandma Red made for him.

Merry Christmas!

Happy Birthday Ken!

Ken was able to take the day off and spend some time at home with us for his birthday. We had cake with the boys and then my good friend and babysitting partner came over after the boys went to bed so Ken and I could enjoy a nice dinner with just the two of us. Happy Birthday Ken, we love you!

Snow Days!!

A few weeks ago we had our yearly "snow" here in North Carolina. As you can see, the snow doesn't even quite cover the yard. Abraham was thrilled because he thought snow meant Santa! We had fun going out and scavaging snowballs.

Then, on Christmas Day, for the first time since 1944 it snowed in Raleigh! It is the most snow I've seen since I've moved here. We were snowed in for a couple of days with it! The kids didn't quite know what to make of all that soft snow! Abraham was thrilled to have a real snowball fight with Ken!
Abraham had seen kids making snow angels on a cartoon and couldn't wait to try it out. I wasn't sure if he'd go through with it, but he didn't hesitate to plop right down in that snow and proceeded to make snow angels all over the yard. Tyler thought about trying one, but never followed through with it.

The next day Abraham sadly told me that the snow was probably all melted. He was happily suprised when I told him that this time it snowed enough that it didn't melt over night! He ran to the window and said "All the snow stayed this time!". We were happy to have a White Christmas!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas!

One of my favorite traditions of the Christmas season is putting up the tree and decorations. It was especially fun this year, since both boys had a great time helping. Abraham loves to see "special lights" everywhere and whenever we are driving and it is getting dark outside we hear him in the back, "special lights alert, special lights alert!". So he was super excited to see them in his own house!

The tradition wouldn't be complete without cookies and eggnog!

I couldn't get this picture to move to the top of the post, so it is out of order, but oh well. It is still cute!

Fall, the State Fair, and Thanksgiving ... Oh my!

I should have posted most of these pictures a long time ago. But, I didn't. So I'm posting them now. Better late than never, right? We've had a fabulous fall with beautiful weather. Seriously, it got into the 70's the week of Thanksgiving. You can't ask for nicer weather. I know that many of you that read this blog spent Thanksgiving amid snow and blizzards. It's okay to be jealous. We spend a lot of time outside. The boys love to go and "help" Ken with the yard work. One day, it ended with jumping in the leaves.

Tyler loves to give kiss and to blow kisses. It is very sweet and very cute. We were so happy to catch him mid - kiss.

We were excited when we found out that Ken was going to be able to take a day off and attend the State Fair with us. Tyler loves animals and gets so excited every time he sees them on TV and we couldn't wait to show him the real cows. Of course they scared the pants off him and he buried his head in my shoulder until we walked away. We still had fun though, even if we didn't take many pictures. We are too cheap for fair food, so we settled for hamburgers and shakes from Cook Out later that day. Abraham feeling right at home with the turkeys.

I can almost hear Tyler speaking to us in his special grunt language, making sure we all realize there are dinosaurs.

The prize pumpkins are always one of my favorite things to see.

Abraham was very proud of his eraser that he won by spinning a wheel at one of the booths.

For Thanksgiving my sister Charlotte and her family drove from Connecticut. We hadn't seen them since we drove to their house last year! We had a lot of fun with our full house and Abraham thoroughly enjoyed his cousins. Sadly, these 3 pictures were all we got from the whole trip. I don't know how I let that happen. And honestly, they are the most random pictures ever. We did a lot of fun things, you'll just have to trust me on that.

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I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving as well!

When?

When did my baby grow up??

Happy 3rd Birthday Abraham

For Abraham's birthday we decided to go to the Department of Transportation museum. It was AWESOME! We practically had the place to ourselves and the kids were able to run and explore. They have lots of old cars and train cars. There are several you can climb on and through. We also took a ride on the turntable, right after we saw it in use for a real train engine. We will definately be making a trip back there!

Doesn't he look handsome??

All the old cars were awesome, but Abe loved the "race car slugbug"

Look at that smile!!!!!

Ken and I were there, we just weren't in many of the pictures. The man who ran the turntable thought it was great that Abraham loved cars and trains so much. He gave him a little Race Car movie for a birthday gift. The boys watched it on the way home and apparantly it was very enthralling.Abraham requested the "pizza shop" (aka CiCi's pizza) for dinner, so we met the Boyers there. Then we came back to our house for presents and cake. Abe loved all gifts and spent a half a second looking at each one before he was ready to move on to the next one. He wanted a dump truck cake. He's asked for one for months now. I'd made him a dump truck cake for his first birthday and didn't feel like repeating, so he got a very simple cake this year. Ken did draw a dump truck on it with frosting, so everyone was happy!It is obvious that even though it was simple, it tasted good and everyone loved it!Happy Birthday sweet Hammer! We love you so much and are so glad that you came to our family. You make us laugh and are such a sweet boy.