quick visit for cousins

On their way south, two cousins (and their parents and Grandma & Grandpa) stopped by for an evening. Uncle Greg was here, too for a soccer clinic.  The cousins had a FABULOUS time and the house was rocking!  Everyone had a great time.

snow day

Here are a few pictures from our snow day.  Scott was very excited, and spent a long time outside chasing bad guys and just generally stomping around.  Meg visited the snow and then said we should go inside and drink hot chocolate. In the time we were outside, though, we made it up to the cul-de-sac, around the whole yard and down to the water, which was frozen.  The kids thought that was pretty cool. Scott was a great helper, scraping off the van and helping Meg to get across the rocky part so she could look at the ice, too. He was disappointed that we could not build snowman - the snow was very dry and did not ball up well, but he was completely engrossed in kicking snow off the dock onto the ice and wanted me to make sure I captured that with a photo. :)

basketball team photos

visit to the transportation museum (with train ride)

We went to the transportation museum today and had a great time.  Meg talked about the train all morning on the way there, and told us the noise that the train makes (toot toot) and that we were going to ride it.  We even saw a train on the way there and had a discussion with Meg about how we were not going to ride that particular train, but a different one.  

 

 Here she is, doing the toot too with hand signal... 

Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa

Christmas continues!  We are having a great visit with Grandpa and Grandma.  Here are some pictures from fun times in the living room.  Steve and Chris even brought down their guitars so Scott could have a jam session. Right now, Scott sings "Jingle Bells" and strums randomly, but he is interested in truly learning to play his new guitar, and he points out "rock and roll" guitars like his whenever we see them in movies and shows. 

Meg's new big girl bed

Meg has moved to a big girl bed! I found this bed on Craig's List and painted it white.  Scott helped me paint it.  (Side story: Scott painted a picture of a squirrel with the white paint on the piece I asked him to coat, which was the foot board. He asked me how many fingers and toes squirrels had so he could get it right, then he told me a story about how the squirrel had eaten too many nuts, so now it was a big ball that could roll down the street and it was hard to find his feet anymore...Realizing that the paint was going to dry soon, I said that if Meg had a squirrel on her bed it might frighten her, so we should paint up and down to cover up the squirrel.  Scott said that she would really like a unicorn, so we should paint that instead of the squirrel, but he finally agreed that we could just paint it white and put unicorn stickers on it later.) It is a platform bed with 4 drawers and a cabinet under the mattress as well as a bookshelf on the headboard. It looks very cute in Meg's room with the Minnie Mouse sheets, and she loves it.  Right now she is using the bathroom step that Brian made to help her get up to it, and we layered pillows and blankets around the outside in case she rolls too far.  She spent last night in it and did well. At naptime today, she rearranged all of the stuffed animals onto different shelves on the bookcase. 

 

fun with cousins, Grams, Pops, Aunt Jennifer & Uncle Matt

We had super big fun when all the D cousins came to visit and Grams and Pops, too!  13 people in the house means big breakfast and super big adventures!  Brian held a garage teaching session, we played kickball and went hiking on a nearby mountain, and some of the boys played with laser tag guns. Here are some of the pictures...