Holiday Pictures

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Mahwee Cwissmas To All

We've been a busy busy family in the last week, but I wanted to do a quick recap for everyone.

Highlights of Jack's trip thus far:

• The ride was split up into two shorter rides. (He had asked me awhile ago to take a different way to St. Louis because "that last way made me kinda tired.")
  
• Daddy read him his brand new fire engine book 5 times on the drive.
• When we got to Grandmommy's condo, she had left a bunch of ornaments for Jack to put on the tree. He took his job very seriously, as evidenced by the abundance of ornaments about 3 feet off the ground in a ring around the tree.
• The breakfast he had his first morning in StL - I came out of the bedroom and he was sitting eating what looked to be a chocolate Rice Crispy treat. I said "what are you eating?" and he said "a chocolate beffest bar!!" Apparently he asked Grandmommy if she had one, so she looked around and found one. Sneaky little guy.
  
• Baking blueberry muffins.
  
• The Magic House in StL - he got to play on a pretend construction site, play with hachines, and fix some cars. I don't think he spoke to us the entire 3 hours we were there.
  
• His job every morning was to turn on the Christmas tree, and every morning it THRILLED him.
• For Grandmommy's birthday he got to help open her presents and eat her dessert. He also got to feed all the ducks that hang out at the Boathouse - they come right up to you and snap up the bread in your hand.
  
• Santa finally did come, and he left a fire engine and a forklift!
• We got to drive through a park that puts on a huge light show every year. And as we were leaving, Santa was there, saying bye to all the cars. The conversation went something like this: "Hi Santa!!!!" "Merry Christmas! Ho ho ho." "Santa, why do you have a sled?" "Yep, I have a sled and reindeer."...Santa tries to walk away from the car... "Santa, fank you for my fire engine!" (Yelled out the window.) Santa walks back over. "Oh you're welcome."...Santa tries to walk away again..."Santa, fank you for my forklift!" Santa walks back over. "You're welcome."...on and on and on. I finally drove off.
  
• Jack got a pair of scissors from me that cut jagged lines. He LOVES them and Grandmommy is blessed with many "unicorns" and "chairs" all over her condo.
• So much Gaga and Papa time (and Pwisti and Beff and Kaya and Joshy, but who are we kidding, we all know the pecking order)! Much chasing and searching for Jack and tickling.
  

Highlights of Ryker's trip thus far:

• All the relatives making eye contact with him.
• He got a cube that plays music, adding in a different instrument on each side of the cube and taking them away too. He's obsessed.
• Everyone clapped tonight when we announced that he had finally pooped. He liked being clapped at.
• He has had a lot of fun laughing at Mommy and Daddy as we play our new Wii!

Highlights of Mommy and Daddy's trip so far:

• Watching all of the above and seeing the kids with such excitement and wonder in their eyes.
  
• Being together with my family, as always, is so much fun and so rejuvenating.
  
• Our new Wii! AAAHHHH!!!

As Jack would say (and HAS been saying to anyone who will listen) - Mahwee Cwissmas!

I Still Maintain It Was a Good Idea

I went home from work feeling really ill on Wednesday. Bad headcold, couldn't see straight. After taking some Dayquil my headache went away and I was a little giddy. Chuck's been taking it for days and is also a bit loopy. He had gone to Target and came home with a home haircut kit (that I wanted earlier, sans meds). We were looking at it and Jack asked what it was for. We said "to cut hair." He said "Whose hair?" We said "Your hair." He smiled nervously and waited for us to say that we were twickin' him.

We weren't.

He looked fine...mostly...unless you looked at it from certain angles...or in a light-filled room...or closer than 10 feet away.

Once you got within arms reach you could see the massacre above his ears that came at the hands of the ear taper. For those of you aspiring to cut children's hair at home - heed this warning: DO NOT USE THE EAR TAPERS. We didn't get a good picture of Jack's version, but it's something like this:

He cleaned up the evidence. Maybe it was part of his healing process.

I touched it up Thursday morning when I was a bit more lucid. He asked me Friday morning when I was going to do the "rest of doze back dare." I need to win back his trust. Chuck went Thursday night to Great Clips for his own haircut, which should tell you how much faith he has in my haircutting ability.

Lucky for Jack, We Live in Minnesota

Jack is a strange breed of child. He LOVES to shovel snow, as evidenced by the following pictures taken a few weeks ago (when he was out there shoveling a quarter inch of snow in 50 degree weather in a t-shirt with his brand new shovel):

And by the following conversation, which took place tonight when he was shoveling 5 inches of snow in 10 degree weather in boots/puffy coat/mittens/hat with his brand new shovel:

Chuck: "Jack - you're a great helper."

Jack: "What you said?"

C: "I said that you are a great helper."

J: "I WUV you Daddy!"

C: "I love you too Jack."

Riding

[There's not any funny story here, just an excuse to share some cute photos.] When Jackson turned 1 my dad and brother gave him a rocking dragon. It was a hit and is one of those toys that just hasn't gotten old. Here he is, taking his first ride 2 years ago.

In honor of Ryker's birth, they gave him a companion rocking bull. Ryker finally got big enough to enjoy it over Thanksgiving, so I wanted to post his first ride pictures as well. It's worth noting that while Ryker enjoyed riding on the bull, he appreciated even more that it got him up closer to his big brother.

Hmmm...

I arrived at daycare today to find Jackson dressed in camo pants and a football-type t-shirt - just like we sent him. On top of that, however, was a red dress with tu-tu skirt and a fake fur cape thing, as well as gym socks with one green and one white high heel shoe. Miss Kay informed me that he was dressed up "because he had a meeting."

I'm glad he's noticed my fanciness on days I have meetings.