Just a few other things...

- We managed to replace our car the Friday before Christmas! Her name is Audrey the Audi. She's a 2008 Audi A4 Quattro in excellent condition. Given the holidays, obviously, we haven't gotten to know her well yet but are feeling good about her. She's all wheel drive and checked out marvelously at the inspection we had done. Yesterday, Nathan managed to get all the paperwork finished up with the new plates and such. Whew.

- Asher went to a trial/introductory class for parkour the Saturday before Christmas. Unsurprisingly, he LOVED it, and we'll be signing him up for weekly classes in the new year. It'll essentially take the place of gymnastics since that ended unexpectedly in October and Asher's been needing more activity. (I've known about this place for awhile now but had been holding off on telling Asher about it, lol. We're feeling like now's the right time.) Here's a quick picture of Asher climbing a wall during the intro class:

- We've been to watch Jumanji and The Greatest Showman in the theater in the past few days...great fun! The first was hilarious (Micah and I actually laughed till we cried) and the music in the second one was fabulous. :) We recommend both!

And now back to finishing up year end tasks between trying out new games...

Details

Even though Christmas kind of snuck up on us this year, it was a pretty darn good one. :) It finally cooled off and snowed...Micah and Nathan made me lumpia for Christmas...(we generally ask the boys to either make or do something for their gifts for Nathan and me)...this is them prepping it the day before...

...we took our traditional drive to look at lights and found this house again with light shows coordinated to songs on a private radio station...

...we opened and then played lots of fun new games...(I counted eight new board/card games and three new video games)...(oh, and the boys didn't crack my present labeling code ahead of time this year either, lol)...

...and we enjoyed loads of YUMMY Christmas goodies--annual Christmas cookies from my brother Joe (always a favorite gift around here!), delicious treats from neighbors and friends, homemade chocolate dipped honeycomb that Asher made me, peppermint cake Nathan bakes most years, chocolate oranges the boys get in their stockings every year, and goodies from Italy, France and England that Santa brought along with passports for boys to celebrate the trip we're going to take next year. (Seriously, this picture is only a portion of the loot and we definitely have too much sugar here at the moment, lol.)

(Here's the chocolate dipped honeycomb Asher made me...)

Yup. Lots of fabulous, thoughtful gifts here and just feeling so incredibly blessed. Happy sigh. :) 

Merry Christmas!

Will post later with more details and stories...

In the meantime, just wanted to wish everyone a lovely holiday!

(These are the front and back of our New Year's cards. The back has a white background so looks a bit off size here.)

Okay, now I'm off again to enjoy these boys of mine... :) Hope you're similarly celebrating and loving your day!

Since the 11th...

Before potential snow rolls in and I hibernate for a bit, here's some of what's been going on since last I blogged here:

- Noah finished fall semester...and continued his straight A streak of late. :) 

- Micah had two more First Lego League practices and then their state tournament down in Denver on Saturday. Given scheduling and cars and such, I wasn't able to attend most of the competition but made it there in time for the awards ceremony. Our young Toilets of Tomorrow team didn't win any awards but their robot run put them in the top quarter of the 60 teams, and we're just so proud of their efforts (especially given that half the team was sick and feeling crummy that day). Here they were walking across the stage to receive their medals for making it to the state tournament:

- While Nathan and Micah were at the FLL state tournament, Asher and I were at Noah's JOAD tournament in a different part of Denver:

(Noah's second from the left.)

- Earlier that morning, Asher helped out at demo team auditions for karate. They added four new members!

- Speaking of karate, boys had six classes or practices since last blog post. And. The demo team (sans new members since it was planned before that) also had a fun gathering to ice skate and eat lunch and decorate cookies and play ping pong and pool:

- Asher and Micah went in for their follow up eye appointment...just to make sure the contacts were working out well and then to order contacts for the upcoming months. All good!

- We finished up our homeschooling stuff and are now officially on break! :)

- On Sunday, after our full day mostly down in Denver on Saturday, we finally finished our holiday decorations:

- Micah had his last day of Options before a rather long break. (Since they only meet on Mondays and other circumstances, they won't meet again until January 22.)

- I met up with Molly down in Denver on Monday and with Deanna here in Old Town yesterday...so awesome spending time with friends! (Wish there could have been more time!!)

- I've lost count of how many cars Nathan has test driven. We've come close a couple times (even took one to get inspected) but still haven't managed to replace our old car. Ugh. Wish us luck!

- Finally got all of our packages and cards in the mail!

Whew. And now I need to go finish up a number of other things. :) Hope you're all enjoying the holiday season and staying warm!

December?

It's been unseasonably warm here. It's weird. We finally started our holiday prep but it doesn't really feel right. 

Anyhow. On Saturday, we went to our annual tree lot to pick out a tree. It was about 60 degrees and sunny. Jackets and coats weren't needed. Strange.

After getting the tree loaded up, I gave the boys a choice. They could go see the Santa in Old Town, let me take their picture with the dancing Santa at the tree lot, or let me take a picture of them with the inflatable Santa at the tree lot. Here's what they chose:

Micah was not pleased with his brothers' horseplay, but I love their smiles in this one. :) (Don't worry. I also got a picture with all three of them smiling.)

Sunday, then, we finally put up our outside lights. Again, it was warm. I set the older two to wrapping the trees:

Micah helped Nathan with the lights along the fence and around the door. Then, Asher, Micah and I helped Nathan put the lights up over the garage and along the gutters...with Asher up on a ladder...

...because this is how Micah feels about ladders:

:)

We'll wait and put out our inflatables next weekend so that they're not out quite as long. 

So, that's that. We'll decorate the tree tonight or tomorrow now that it's set up in the front room. Got the New Year's cards ordered, almost done with our shopping, all that good stuff. Noah's last finals are tomorrow and the younger two and I have one more week of homeschooling before we take our winter break. Before Christmas, we also have the First Lego League state tournament (and a couple more team meetings before that), another JOAD tournament, four appointments for boys (hair and eyes and such), a demo team performance and get together, a couple dates with friends for me, a couple date nights for Nathan and me, and looking for a second vehicle so that we can get to all those things easier. Whew.

(In the meantime, I'm realizing a couple things...1) For all that Nathan sometimes talks about wintering some place warmer once boys are older, I don't think that will work for me. It just wouldn't feel like Christmas, lol...and 2) I must remember that putting up the tree in the front room always messes with my homeschooling--as now I need to reorganize everything or wait another week before pulling out the decorations. Note to self: move all the homeschooling stuff over Thanksgiving break so that it doesn't get interrupted when we get the decorations out.)