4 Miles

Sunday night we had our Sweedish Christmas Feast.

Then, the kids opened gifts:

BC was quite excited over the chocolate from Aunt Betty (I love the smile on her face)

Here is the only picture I managed to take of Will–he's showing the washcloths that protected his candy.

Alex, with his washclothes AND–Blankie Miles (or Purple Blankie), made by Aunt Betty several years ago, is in the background!

Alex looking at the Tractor Calendar from Grandma Lo:

Serena enjoyed the bean bags we made her–but found them to be a handful!

S, surrounded by the pile of gifts that will be passed out to the grown ups later.

Grandma Lo & BC look at her new book:

S uses BV's new dump truck to help in the clean up.

After the kids opened up their gifts and played awhile, they had to go to bed. Then the grown ups got to do their own Chrismtas time, in a much more relaxed pace. Randy and Shair are showing off the towels Aunt Betty game them:

Reuben tries out his new tractor–since he needed one, the grandparents gave him the best one they could afford. I think the kids will benefit a bit more from it!

Last Friday we left my parents house and came home to do laundry, pack suitcases, and load up the car with presents, food and suitcases for a weeks stay in Penn. Our goal was to leave at 5 am.  I made the mistake of telling Will we we'd be getting up around 4 and leaving around 5.  We learned NOT to tell Will this…we were up late finishing things and decided to push back the wake up time, yet he managed to wake up at 4 and was quite upset we weren't up yet.

We got on the road by 5:30. We were blessed with beautiful weather on the trip–at a few stops I was warm in my long sleeved T-shirt. It made rest stops very nice.  We did have to laugh abit on the PA Turnpike over the price mark up of gas. $1.76, compared to the $1.55 we'd seen elsewhere, and the $1.50 we'd had in Indy?!?  (Nevermind we haven't seen gas as low as $1.76 for a few years! )   Once we got over the final mountain range we had thick fog that slowed down the last leg of the trip. We got to the farm around 6, to everyone there and just finishing up supper–they did save us some and we enjoyed it a great deal. The kids were off, playing with cousins.

Sunday we got up and took the boys to Reuben's & Tessa's church (since they'll be going with them while we're gone, we thought they should experience Mass with us first). That was marginally successful. Both kids were tired and didn't put up with the sitting well. I made the mistake of telling Alex we had 1 prayer and 1 song left and he started to fuss very loudly "I want to go home!".  James took him out to the lobby for that last part. Then we ran to the store to get our supplies for the meals we were in charge of. We ate lunch and then made it back to the farm, for both boys to take some much needed naps.   Then–it was time to get ready to celebrate the Family Christmas!

Older kids ready for church, watching a movie while waiting for everyone else.

The younger kids, not watching the movie, Alex says he was teaching BV how to use the truck.

We woke up to hearing Will whisper to Alex "Alex! Alex! Want to snuggle?"  Then I heard, a bit louder, "We should wait until Daddy is up!"  Then they decided to go downstairs to see if anyone was up. Since we wanted to go down and see them see their Santa gift and opening their stockings, we got them to wait until we got up too. For the family members who couldn't be there–here are WAY too many pictures!   The boys seeing their Santa gift:

At first they didn't realize they could take it home, they thought it was a toy that stays at Grandma's house (it was funny to overhear Will later in the day say "Alex, we get to take ALL these toys home!")

Will's stocking.

Alex discovered the candy at the top of the stocking and was so happy to see that he didn't really look past it.

Alex wearing the bow.

Will's gift from Aunt Heidi.

Alex decided to open the presents on the ground, not the couch.

Grandma looking at Alex's gift (This is the only picture I got of mom! Oh no!)

Dad's gift from Mom–Go Navy!

James opening his gift from Will & Alex ("they" picked out a CD he wanted).

One of the two crock pots I got (I really did ask for one).

Will opening the gift from Alex–two race carss!

Will got Lincoln Logs–he had James had fun building with them.

Great cabin!

After that we had a nice lunch and a relaxing afternoon. We also got out the games and played several rounds of different games while the boys played with the new toys.  We came home Friday afternoon, to get ready to head out to PA.

Christmas Eve we went up to my Mom & Dads. We left right after naps and got there with time to decorate the sugar cookies we'd made the day before.

Alex enjoyed decorating the cookies more then icing them.

But he did try it for a few, this was one of his finished products.

Will really enjoyed icing them.

His gingerbread man.

Grandpa and Aunt Heidi also helped. 

We were able to enjoy going to the Christmas Eve service at Mom & Dad's church and then went to see the Walkway of Lights. Mom & Dad took the boys, and Heidi, James and I went in the other car. It wasn't quite as fun for us as it would have been with the kids! :)  The boys had another late night and went to bed rather quickly.

This morning Will came into the office and had the following converstaion with James.

Will: Daddy, only 4 more days til Christmas!
James: What happens on Christmas?
Will: We celebrate Jesus’ birthday!
James: What else happens?
Will: Alex gets to open up his police car, his dump truck and race car! (He picked out some small cars to give Alex for Christmas yesterday.)
James: You like to give gifts, don’t you?
Will: Yes!

* * *
Tonight, at our Christmas party for the youth workers, one of our friend’s son fell down and bumped his head. He started crying and Will said “What was that?” James said “Owen fell down and hurt his head”. Will said “Oh, that’s good–well, that’s bad for them, but good for us because I don’t want Alex to get hurt!”

Alex: Mommy, can cats fly?

Tina: No, they don't have wings.

Alex: What can they do?

Me: They have paws to help them run or climb trees.

Alex: Oh, they have paws to run on.  And to fly.

* * *

Alex: Can Payton Manning talk?

Me: Yes.

Alex: Why?

Me: Why can you talk?

Alex: I have tooths. And brain. To let me talk.

Today I was surprised by the ring of the doorbell and to see our postwoman at our door.  Seems I had postage due on something sent in the mail. It was a "Thank you for serving" gift from our church. So I got to pay $0.41 for my Thank you gift.

* * *

Last night I woke up with the dry, sore throat that usually comes before getting sick. So I got up to get some water and take some Tylenol (having been taught by my mom that helps your body fight off colds). I didn't turn on the light but knew the first bottle of pills on the shelf were Tylenol PM, so I put those on the bathroom counter and got 2 pills of the next bottle–the one I KNEW was plain Tylenol. This morning I looked and realized I'd grabbed the wrong one and actually taken the Tylenol PM–not a good thing to take at 3 am (that's something you take at 10, when you have the whole night ahead of you to sleep). At least that explains why I'm having such a hard time waking up.

* * *

So, in other news, we seem to be the one area in the country NOT getting bad weather right now. We did get a bit of ice Thursday night/Friday morning, but by 7 am it was just rain. Will got to go to his preschool and Alex and I got to run some errands. Then, while James was home for lunch, I got shopping done for all the stocking stuffers. I needed to do that without kids–Alex is old enough he notices and remembers what I'm getting. All I need to do is take Will out to buy Alex's gift and get a gift for my favorite sister.

Right now we're having a slow, relaxing morning. Last night James and I got to go to our Sunday School Christmas party. It was adult only & we ended up sharing a sitter with some friends. So the boys were up late playing. We had such a good time we ended up not getting home until about 9:45. They had just started getting a game out and Alex went into hysterics after being told he wouldn't be able to play it.  Of course neither boy slept in, so they are both tired. In a few more minutes I'll be making lunch and putting them down for naps.  Tonight we have another Christmas party that the kids get to come to. Tomorrow night we have our THIRD party of the weekend, also kid friendly but probably resulting in a late night.  So I've already planned for Monday to be rest day & baking cookies day.

I'm feeling rather relaxed about Christmas, even though nothing is wrapped and a few more gifts need to be bought, and cookies need to be made. I keep thinking "Oh, I have a week, PLENTY of time!" We'll see! I have White Christmas recorded, waiting to be watched while I wrap gifts and we'll get it all in. I hope everyone is staying warm and un-buried in snow!

So, yesterday we got snow…and then ice…and then a bit more snow. The 2-hour delay this morning meant no preschool. By mid-morning, the boys needed to go outside and run off some energy so we went for a walk for me to take pictures and to look for pine cones. The goal, this afternoon, is to put peanut butter and birdseed on them and then put them out for the birds (or the fat squirrel).

The boys discovered the snow + ice combination makes it possible to get big chunks of ice.

We did find pinecones! By then my toes were cold (even with my wool socks on) so we headed home.

Walking home, I was carrying the pinecones and the boys were carrying all their ice. I asked them what they were going to do with it and they said they were going to keep them outside until they melt.  Um…ok.

Then Alex dropped his ice and Will picked his up and carried them with his own…such a thoughtful big brother!

My grandfather sent the boys a gift card for Christmas…I remember when I was a kid, the joy of taking the money they'd send us and getting to pick out whatever I wanted. So I decided to let them pick out what they wanted. I suggested we go to a local train store and they could pick out what they wanted.  (I was wanting them to get something that would last & they LOVE the trains…I had thought of going myself and getting things for them but the train store has hours that make it tricky to get to without the kids with me.)

Alex picked out a signal house that tells the trains to stop/go:

Will picked out a crossing station–see how it has signals to stop the cars?

and then they switch to stop the train?

They played nicely with them all day, and had great fun sharing both. We also got a T-switch track and a few other switches that came from a bin so they were much cheaper then if we got them in a box in a regular store. The store was busy filling orders for Christmas and they had no problem with the boys playing with the display models as long as we didn't mind being ignored. So there was a nice morning out! Then we came home and played with our own!  Thank you Grandpa Harbin, they're having lots of fun with them. Tomorrow we'll be working on the thank you notes, but I wanted you to be able to see some pictures.