Holiday Highlights

Wasn't sick this year - woo hoo! - so there was cookie making happening. We actually ran out of tins to store them in! Here's our cookie station:

Crafts for gifts:

A weekend visit to Maine for Grandma's annual craft day with the "boys of '97", as R refers to them, also included a visit with Uncle R (my brother) who brought a box of Halloween clearance finds, some of which he gave the boys. He was amazed at how E falls right in to character for each item he puts on.

Our annual family outing was to see A Civil War Christmas at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven on a weeknight. It was a little difficult to follow with jumping story lines, actors playing several different characters, and no clear sets helping to define what was going on, but we did share an interesting critique on the way home, and shared our favorite parts. The Long Wharf Theater is a fantastic venue that we look forward to returning to.

Had a huge snow storm which dropped about 10 inches the first day and another three the next night.

Woke up to all that snow, cleaned it all up, and drove down to New York to visit B's family. Here are six of the seven male cousins spawned from the three male sons born to my mother-in-law:

Picked up my deliriously happy sister in New York after visiting with B's family. She got engaged during her two-month hiatus to Columbia to meet up with her till-then mostly pen-pal man.

E had lots of fun introducing his new Hess truck from his grandparents to the ones they had given him in previous years:

Mom arrived with matching pajamas for the girls this year:

Decorating gingerbread cookies that Grandma had brought was lots of fun:

We had lots and lots of game playing going on the whole time my sister and mom were here:

My cousin stopped by on her way from her home in Philadelphia to her family in Maine on Christmas eve. It was a disappointingly short visit, but an extremely enjoyable one.

We left the camera near the fireplace so that Santa could take photos of the room with his presents there. Fantasy is still alive and well in this household.

R's favorite gift was the Nintendo DS that B and I gave him. I hope I don't end up regretting that agonizing decision.

This year the only present E asked for in his letter to Santa was a box of 40 flavors of Jelly Bellies. He wrote Santa that he could surprise him with the rest. Santa was very excited and did a fantastic job. Here we have a mask with parts you can put together however you like. Then you choose a mouth based on the voice changer you want to use. So you choose a face, then choose a voice. E said it was his favorite present.

He also desperately needed a new knight costume. His was way worn out from all the Renaissance Festivals we went to this year. He was extremely excited that this one came with a helmet.

After opening all the presents and enjoying eachother's company for a while, we went to the movies to see Bedtime Stories:


We really enjoy movies in our family, and this was a great one. It was a wonderful, kid-friendly story. All six of us thoroughly enjoyed it. I have really enjoyed growing up with Adam Sandler. I wish he would show this side of himself more often. And I loved seeing his buddies from Grandma's Boy, SNL and others my sister pointed out.

I have to admit, I have a hard time letting the photos do the talking. There is so much to fill in that I will surely forget over the years. But this is so much faster. And hopefully I chose photos and wrote enough to spark my memories.

This was the best Christmas I've had in years. All of us were so much more relaxed this year than we usually are. It was wonderful.

Early December

Friends came by to play in the snow.

We went to see Bolt in 3D. This movie was exquisitely beautiful. I can't say much about the story, although the boys seemed entertained. I was too busy simply looking at it. It was so well directed and the use of the 3D aspect was not at all gimmicky. When watching it flat you would not likely be able to tell it had been made for 3D. I'm so glad we saw this. It reminded me of admiring the beauty of the backgrounds in Disney's The Aristocats in my History of Animation class in college. Candy for the eyes. Disney rocks 3D.

I'm very happy to have gotten my birdfeeder back up. I haven't seen as many cats around as I had, so I thought I'd give it another try. The first day we filled up all those feeders the boys and I spent hours watching and counted 14 different kinds of birds. I wrote a list, which of course I can't find now. That's fine though, the fun was in the writing. We consulted my identifier book and listened to my chirping identifier and have since been enjoying watching immensly. Here are a Downy Woodpecker, male Cardinal, and a Carolina Chickadee.

We had a good long visit with friends we haven't seen in WAY too long.

E managed to pry out the ice R had prepared in the buckets Thanksgiving weekend.

R is very pleased with the Electronics class he took at the Green Street co-op we joined in Middletown. He is looking forward to taking it for the next 14 week session too. E is looking forward to continuing his music appreciation class.

The boys practiced their letter writing skills: