It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Oh what do you do in the winter time, when all the world is white?

Every year my parents neighborhood has a neighborhood party. Everyone brings canned food to donate instead of doing neighbor gifts. Each year, Santa arrives in a fun and unique way. This year he was preceded by his own marching band of neighborhood young men, then arrived in grand style in a Hummer. It's always fun to see what they come up with!

Max and Grandma visiting Santa

Tate and Max at Gardner Village seeing the elves. It was freezing, so we ended up seeing more of the cookie store!
Tate would stay in the snow all day--he loves it!
I know. I'm mean. Great blackmail when he's a teenager though!
Seeing the dinosaurs for the umpteenth time...
Max posing just like Tate did for his picture by the dinosaur. Please note the glass case behind and to the left of Max. In about a split second after this picture was taken he had walked around to the case. It was a few inches out from the wall so Max decided to scoot behind it. He ended up knocking the case over and creating a reverberating "thud" throughout the museum. A few ancient rocks took a tumble but seemed to survive. I'm beginning to understand those mom's who put their kids on a leash!

The Miracle of The Christmas Train (and other such stories)

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It was wonderful to be home with family for the first time in 4 years. We loved it! The only thing missing was the "other" family we spent making in the time we were gone! Alas, the grass is always greener...

On Friday, Chad and Tate went to Home Depot to get a Christmas Train that had been advertised in the paper. The store was all out when they got there, but soon found another store willing to hold their last train for 1 hour. Within 15 minutes Chad and Tate had scurried to the store to pick up the train. Tate was ecstatic! A train just like Nana's! Unfortunately the local Home Depot Grinch (aka the store manager) decided that items could not be held on that day and sold it just as Chad and Tate got there. We had one very upset 3 year old! A couple hours later who should appear but Nana, with a toy train she had picked up a few years ago (unbeknownst to us) to give to Tate when he was old enough. Without knowing what had happened at the store, she showed up with the train and saved the day! It may not be a "real" miracle, but sometimes it's the little things that count.

Tate and the train

On Saturday I had the opportunity to be "Santa's Helper" and take pictures of little one's with Santa to benefit a local museum. It was so much fun to see each child's reaction to Santa. The Santa was awesome, and spent quite a bit of time chatting and joking with each child. He really was great. Tate was happy to talk to Santa...from a safe distance. Max was just completely unsure of what the heck was going on!
Tate and Max with cousins Jaxon and Lindsey

We traditionally put up our Christmas decorations on the day after Thanksgiving, but we were pokey this year and they didn't make it up until Sunday. The boys had a great time decorating the tree-or undecorating the tree-as was the case with cute Max. Their favorite part of course was making the train go in a million and a half circles underneath the tree.

My friend Ali sent me this tag, so here goes...

7 Things I Can Do...
1. play the piano
2. take a picture
3. make a great cheesecake
4. write a story
5. act out stories with my kids including the voices
6. pretend to be asleep when the baby wakes up at 2 am so Chad will get up :)
7. sew a straight line

7 Things I Can't Do...
1. convince Tate that candy isn't good for him
2. convince Chad of the same thing
3. carry a tune
4. keep my house clean for more than a day
5. dress myself fashionably
6. tolerate inhumanity
7. eat at least 3 vegetables a day

7 Things I always say...
1. That is NOT Ok.
2. I love you to the moon and back, and all around the stars
3. that's silly
4. Just try one bite, you might like it!
5. Yea! Good job going potty!
6. Shhhh....the baby is sleeping
7. Where's Max? Where's Max? (while playing peek-a-boo)


7 Things I Always Eat
1. apples
2. chicken
3. pasta
4. cereal
5. bread
6. grapes
7. junk

Tag Alison and Mandy!

Who Wants To Take Pictures?

So, when I say to my family "let's do some family pictures today!" I get met with the most incredulous looks. Seriously, even Max has learned to run when Mommy says the word "picture." Lucky for me they occasionally indulge me and even let me dress them in coordinated sweaters. Here are some of the results. My favorite thing though is that Tate loves to take pictures too. When you ask him what his name is, he replies "Tate." If you probe a little further for a last name he will tell you "Goeckeritz the photographer." I promise I didn't teach him to say that! I think it's pretty cute though!

Halloween and other fun times around our house!

We had a great Halloween at our house. The boys were not at all interested in trick-or-treating so we only went to two houses--and that was under duress! Tate was much more excited to give out the candy to the other kids who came to the door. Max knew there was a whole bucket of candy by the front door, and was confused as to why I wouldn't just let him eat it. I could see him doing the math in his little head, so we headed home with our 2 bags of m&m's and then proceeded to raid our own candy bowl (so much more efficient you see?)




Tate was a "Black Cat Creeping" (The title of his favorite Halloween book) and Max was the Itsy Bitsy Spider.
Chad as Napoleon from Napoleon DynamiteLindsay as Deb from Napoleon Dynamite
Chad and Tate standing by the enormous "snow bunny" they made together

Sheer joy! Tate spent three solid days out in the snow. We had to convince him on a couple of those days that he had to wait until it was actually light to go outside!

Max was so excited to go outside. Until he realized that snow has this one peculiar trait--it's cold. That was it for Max. He turned right back around and went back into the house. He loved watching Tate play in the white stuff, and laughed whenever Tate threw a snowball that splatted right against the window where Max was.

Going Private

Hi All,

After watching a particularly creepy segment on the new last night regarding blogs, I have decided to take this one private. To be able to see the blog you will need to have permission to view it--and to give you permission I need to have your e-mail address. So... please send your e-mail address to me so that I can add it to the list.

Thanks!
Linds

Autumn leaves are falling down!

We are quickly learning that one of the grand chores of being a homeowner is raking the leaves. Our boys love this! We rake the same pile of leaves over and over into the same patch of grass and they never seem to tire of jumping into and throwing the leaves.