Go Titans!

The boys loved getting into their new Titans outfits on Christmas Day!
Thank you Jimmy and Judy!

Scenes from Christmas Morning...

The Christmas spread...

Aidan does his best impression of Buddy Rich with his new drum kit...

Bryce opens his new Batmobile!

Aidan got a Hess Truck!

Daddy puzzles over how to free the Batmobile from its packaging.. Bryce has the greatest confidence in him...

Merrymaking and Mayhem..

Firefighter Bryce (in his new turn-out gear) makes another rescue of his older brother!Bryce (in new Titans uniform), takes a look at one of his new "No, David" books...

The Faces of Anticipation...

As if to make amends for his late-night joyride in the family van, Blinky brought the boys matching pairs of new Christmas PJs for the boys.. and it didn't take them long to get those PJs on and start getting ready for bed.... at 4:30 in the afternoon... (just kidding. It was no earlier than 5:30.)

The Infamous Sonic Run

Chief in the annals of Blink's mischief is the recently famous "Late Night Sonic Run of Blinky Sugarplum."
We woke up on Christmas Eve morning and the boys, as they usually did, scoured the house looking for Blinky, to see what he might have gotten up to the night before. Very quickly, they realized that Blinky was nowhere to be found in the house... and that's when someone noticed something odd about how the van was parked in the driveway outside...
The boys threw on their shoes and jackets and ran out through garage to see what had happened.... sure enough, the van was parked at a severe angle in the driveway. I'm afraid the neighbors must have figured we'd attended quite a Christmas party the night before.

As we got closer, things started to become clear....







And there he was, with the evidence of his fast-food excursion littered all around him... little bugger.

Thanks for everything, Blinky!

Well, now that Christmas is over, our visitor from the North Pole has gone back home with the elf in red, the Big SC... and the boys are a little forlorn about it. But on Christmas morning, Blinky left them a note telling them that he had a great time and that he's going to request to be assigned to our house again next year, as long as it's okay with us. Aidan has already composed a response to put in the mail letting Blinky know that we're looking forward to seeing him again next year.

Great time, indeed. The boys are enjoying looking back at the pictures and remembering all the mischief that Blinky got up to.

Aidan setting out Blinky's nightly snack of milk and crackers

One morning, we woke up to find Blinky had rolled the bathroom...

... and we came home one day to find Blinky had scaled the wall in Aidan's room using Bryce's Batman Grappling hook!

Storytime with Rudolph

In the days leading up to Christmas, Aidan and Bryce took some time to read some stories on the couch (along with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer joining in). Aidan is really enjoying reading to his little brother these days.

Too Cool..

Sometimes Bryce is just too cool for school!

Hold 'em up and pose for the picture!

Do parents still make their kids pose for pictures with every Christmas present they get through the mail? Well, we do, much of the time.

Many thanks to Jack and Kay in South Carolina, who sent the boys some great new PJs for Christmas!

Cast Photo

Aidan did a great job in the Nativity play.. and afterward, the cast all posed for some quick snaps by the hordes of parents and grandparents gathered around..

Nativity Play

Here's a quick video of Aidan's part in the school nativity play from last week...

Sorry about the sound.. (not to point any fingers, but I think King #1 turned the mic off)

Outtake

Bryce gets shy all of a sudden...

Dumped some more pictures and little video clips from the last few days off the camera last night, so I'm going to try to post some of the highlights today..
Here's the first one.. Bryce and I were listening to some Christmas music in the kitchen the other day when, as he's munching on some grapes, he blurted out "Jesus is the newborn king.."
Of course, he gets all coy after I grab the camera and, as you'll see, I have to give him a bit more prodding, but you get the idea.. :)

A holiday greeting!

Click here for a Holiday Greeting from our family to yours.

Merry Christmas!

Well, it's the start of the Christmas weekend here and, things being as they are, I don't expect I'll have much chance to post many, if any, updates to the blog before the big day.. so, to anyone reading this, let me wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas. I hope your home is filled with as many warm and loving smiles as mine is at this time of year.

And all the best for the New Year!
Cheers!

Wayback..

Was looking through last year's posts from this time of year and came across this.. a little compilation of photos from the past few Christmases at our house... not to be missed again this year, I think :)

Bryce sings!

As you may remember, after last year's pre-school Christmas Musical Program, the headlines read "Bryce.. not singing.."
Well, this year, we had a better feeling. We heard him practicing "Rudolph" in the car-- though only when he didnt' think we were listening.. and we caught him singing "Frosty the Snowman" to himself at bedtime.. So we had a pretty good feeling that he might sing. Just might..
And sure enough, this morning the boy was positively belting out the Rudolph!
Watch this:

Playhouse Disney Live!

We took the boys to see the Playhouse Disney Live show this afternoon at the Municipal Auditorium downtown. It was a good show-- nothing like the Wiggles extravaganzas we've seen in previous years-- but the boys surely enjoyed getting to see Mickey, Minnie, the Little Einsteins, and Handy Manny, among others..

We Three Kings..

Aidan's been cast as "King #3" in his school's nativity play.
They had a kind of mini-dress rehearsal tonight during a Choral recital, so Aidan got to dress up in his costume along with the rest of the kids and do his part. He didn't say his line-- that will come on Tuesday morning when the actual Nativity play goes on.

We are not Volunteer Orange here..

Aidan really likes his 1st grade teacher, Ms. Price.
And Ms. Price is a HUUGE Tennessee Volunteers fan.
So for Christmas, Aidan decided he wanted to make a Christmas ornament for Ms. Price... and he knew exactly how he wanted it to look.. so when he got home from school this afternoon, he went straight to work with his orange crayon and a piece of paper.. and with a little help from Mom, he was able to paste his work to a foam ball, add some glitter, and voila!

Sleepover at Gramma and Grampa's house!

Aidan and Bryce had their first sleepover at Gramma and Grampa's house this weekend! Hurray!
Aunt Patty stayed over too and they both did Great! Aidan is quick to point out that this is not his first sleepover-- he had one at his friend Jake's house during the summer... but this was a HUGE step, especially for little Bryce! Way to go, boys!

Christmas Partyin'!

We had a few of Aidan and Bryce's friends over for a little Christmas party this afternoon..
The kids ate some treats, exchanged some presents, and got to play like crazy people for a few hours (while the Moms got to catch up over coffee)..


I love this picture of Aidan and his friend, Eric.

Blinky Sugarplum

This may come as shocking news to some of you, but one of Santa's elves has come to spend some time with us. A few days ago, one Mr. Blinky Sugarplum came to visit us. According to the paperwork he brought with him, his mission is to observe the behavior of our two boys and report back to Santa with some first-hand accounts on behavior. Santa's note also warned us, however, that Blinky is known to get up to some mischief.. and boy, is that ever true!

Seems like whenever we turn our backs on that darn elf, he gets up to something..




A few days ago, we came home to find that Blinky had gotten out a bunch of our Christmas movies, had popped himself some popcorn, and had make himself a big old movie-time mess on the living room floor!








Then he apparently got hold of our camera and snapped a picture of himself with the Big Guy.













And then thought it would be funny if he put on Bryce's balloon hat..

It's beginning to look a lot..

..like Christmas!

Wear-able Balloons

The boys went out to dinner with their Aunt this evening... and this is how they came home..

It's that time of year...

Not that this is turning into a Foodie Blog, but it's a few days before Thanksgiving, I've taken most of the week off.. and I've had this serious yen to do some Holiday Baking.

In past years, I've not done a very good job of packing the freezer full of all the good treats we like to have at Thanksgiving and Christmas... and while I've got some extra time, I figured I'd do some of that cooking so I won't have to do so much in the next few weeks.

So yesterday, with a little help from the boys, we whipped up 8 Zucchini Breads and 4 Cranberry Breads..

And then, this evening, I put together a batch of a family favorite, Squash Rolls. This time, I didn't get so much help from the boys-- turns out, letting yeast dough rise isn't really their idea of a good time. :)

This is my second time making the Squash rolls-- and they've turned out pretty well both times. But each time had its own "should it look like this" kind of anxiety. So I snapped a few pictures to keep as notes for future iterations of the recipe.

Raise them. Roll them. Works out to about 24 to a 9x13 pan. Then bake them... By the time they come out, the kitchen smells wonderful. Take them out of the oven, then spread some butter on top of them and let it melt in... Oh yeah!

They came out great again this year.. and we've still got a couple dozen in the freezer to have around Christmas.

Chick Magnet

Batman breaking his fast...

I originally grabbed the camera to snap this picture because I wanted to try to capture the sublimnity of Bryce's hair this morning.. But instead, I caught him giving me this look, and so now you would hardly notice the hair if I didn't mention it. :)

The Tooth Fairy will be making a return trip..

Aidan lost another tooth this afternoon-- this time one of his front teeth! And he wasn't shy about showing it off tonight when I got home.
So it looks like the tooth fairy will be making another trip to our house tonight!

Impromptu Nap

Impromptu Nap
Originally uploaded by sleepydad

Bryce was fussing to his mother the other day, refusing to take a nap: "I'm never, ever going to sleep during the daytime again!" Shortly, that is, before he collapsed on the floor, surrounded by toys, and his mom snapped this picture

The Saint

Aidan's 1st grade class celebrated All Saints' Day by dressing as Saints and doing a special presentation for the whole school. Aidan dressed as St. Francis and, during the school assembly, recited a fact from a short report (5 sentences) that he wrote about St. Francis' life earlier in the week.

The Grease Monkey & The Bat..

Halloween night, Aidan and Bryce couldn't wait to get started putting on their costumes and get out to do some trick-or-treating!
Aidan went as a member of the Lightning McQueen (from the movie Cars) pit crew..
and Bryce, as expected, went as the ever vigilant crime-fighter, Batman!

Ready to go!

Batman wears Chucks!

The aftermath...

Halloween night, Aidan and Bryce couldn't wait to get started putting on their costumes and get out to do some trick-or-treating!
Aidan went as a member of the Lightning McQueen (from the movie Cars) pit crew..
and Bryce, as expected, went as the ever vigilant crime-fighter, Batman!