Santa

Every year we get out Santa pictures at my firm's annual Breakfast with Santa event held before the Christmas parade. This year, however, the parade (and breakfast) were cancelled due to the crazy ice storm. Luckily, my firm rescheduled the picture opportunity, so the kids got to see Santa this past Friday. This was the first year where David was not crying (which sort of makes me sad because I love the screaming Santa pictures).  Henry was, of course, completely cool with Santa because he is just happy with everything.

We previously gave David a catalog that came in mail to circle things he might want for Christmas. When Santa asked him what he wanted, David informed him that he didn't remember what he circled. When Santa tried to get something out of him, David, in true David fashion, had an extremely long story about the magazine, and how much time he took to circle items and how he didn't have it with him because it was at the house and how he should go get it and come back, etc. etc.  He finally settled on requesting a race car....adding that he really had spent a lot of time looking at the magazine and really wished he could remember everything!

David's First Sleepover

I am not sure if it is because some of the kids at David's school have older siblings or if this is just a normal kid thing, but all he can talk about lately is having a sleepover. On a daily basis David tells us how he and William or he and Alex have big plans for a sleepover. In the interest of full disclosure, David has yet to sleep all night in his own bed...so I can't imagine he is anywhere close to sleeping over at some one's house, but why should a 4 year old have to concern himself with such details. With this backdrop, David was thrilled to learn that his cousin Colton was coming to stay the weekend with us this past weekend. In his mind, this was the beginning of the era of sleepovers. In fact, he told me we could start with Colton and then move to William next weekend.

The boys had a blast and Matt and I discovered why you should have kids close together. They kept themselves occupied the entire weekend and, for the first time ever, David didn't want us to constantly entertain him. They played with toys, built forts, played video games and chased each other until they passed out. At night, they laid in bed and told each other stories. It was a great weekend and we manged to fit in some fun activities - including bowling on Saturday, followed by a trip to Chuck-e-Cheese and a trip to Kyle Warren park in downtown Dallas on Sunday for ice skating, golf, games and park time. David was very sad last night when Colton had to go home. Good thing Christmas is just around the corner so they can hang out again!!

 

 

David v. Henry - Snowpocalypse 2010 and 2013

In February 2010, when David was a little over 4 months old, we had a big snow/ice storm in Dallas:

 

And here is Henry at the same age:

Snow Days

We had a big ice storm come into Dallas this past Friday..... it would have been a fun opportunity to work from home and eat cold weather food, until the power went out Friday afternoon. So David and I headed to my office (a very slow drive on ice) and Matt and Henry bundled up and waited for the power to be restored. By 6pm, there was no movement on the power front,so Matt booked a hotel and met us downtown. Turns out that there were a lot of Lakewood folks with the same idea - so David found a ton of kids to play with in the lobby of the Adolphus. Our power got turned back on early Saturday morning, so we headed back home to continue the weekend of confinement. We have watched cartoons, cooked pot roast, decorated the Gingerbread house, played board games, braved the ice and now it is Sunday morning and we are all going crazy. Ice or not, we are going to have to get out of this house today!!

David at my office:

 

Henry enjoying the snow/ice:

Matt and David playing in the ice:

 

Sleeping in on our snow day:

 

The Gingerbread house:

 

 

At the hotel:

 

 

 

Playing the wii:

 

 

 

 

The Thank You Song

Dance Party

The kids having a dance party (check out Colton's moves):

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a really great Thanksgiving. On Thursday, we had my family over for a Thanksgiving meal.  David loved playing with his cousins and we enjoyed visiting with family. I even got the Christmas tree up with lots of little helpers. On Friday, we headed (via plane since my kids hate car seats) to Oklahoma City to celebrate with Matt's family. It was a great visit - we had a Thanksgiving meal, went to the Science Museum, had a family bowling night, met Luke's girlfriend (yes - that is right, Luke brought a girl to meet the family), and got to visit with the Winklers.