Inauguration Day!

You've probably seen the painting of Barack Obama in red and blue that became iconic and was the cover for Time magazine's Person of the Year issue. Well, I found a website that lets you make your own, so I loaded in photos of Josh and Lucas. It is from Paste Magazine's Obamicon.me. I think they look cool!

Happy, happy day!!

Fun times

Here are the boys (all of them!) playing their guitars together. Not only is it visually cute, but they go around in a circle and make up lyrics, and it is super-cute to hear the things Josh sings about. Lucas still doesn't talk much, so he just strums along. I just love that they each have a different size guitar to fit their needs.



I also brought out our Ladybug tent, which was a gift from my Aunt Mary Lou a few years ago. Josh has been asking about camping, but of course we were buried in snow last month and we're moving into the dead of winter, so I was happy to substitute this nice indoor tent! Now Josh wants to picnic inside it for every meal. The boys are loving it, especially the fun tunnel, and the velcro side door that each of them can open and close by themselves during repetitive rounds of hide-and-so-seek/peek-a-boo, Lucas' very favorite game.

Disney album

I never got around to posting the pictures from our Disney vacation in September (there was just too much going on then, sorry!), but upon my friend Krista's suggestion (via her blog), I made a photobook of the trip at Shutterfly to give as our Christmas present to my family. Thanks for the tip, Krista!

You can view the album, if you want, by clicking on this link. You will not have to join Shutterfly to view the album.

share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=2AaMmbVu0ZsXHQ

We had more than 1,000 photos between everyone's cameras, so I had a lot to choose from and tried to hit the highlights. I think it turned out well, and it was well-received on Christmas day too!

Christmas Day

Well, with the record snowfall and heretofore unseen 14 straight days of snow for Portland (which rarely gets snow at all, such that we don't even own a snow shovel and heard tell of friends digging out with items such as food trays), it looked like we might have to spend Christmas alone. But alas, John's brother and sister-in-law Curt and Jeni managed both to arrive via plane (after a few days of nothing but cancellations, including John's parent's Monday flight) and to drive the short distance from the airport to our house, but not without getting stuck in the snow and enlisting the help of truckers to chain up their rental car and get them back on their way.

So, having arrived Christmas Eve they decided to spend the night with us and witness Santa's visit to Josh and Lucas Christmas morning. On Christmas Eve, we let the boys open their gifts from Curt and Jeni. Josh received Moon Sand, which he was so excited about and proceeded to quote the tag line to anyone who would listen: "it never dries out!" He made a castle and a treasure chest full of coins, giving the adults lots of time to catch up (but apparently none to take a photo, so you'll have to take my word for it).

Lucas received a marching drum and he loved it, and drummed all around until we made him go to bed. He was the cutest little drummer boy.



Of course Josh snaked most of Lucas's toys at one point or another (see illustration below).

Lucas also received a cool textured book, which Uncle Curt read to him:



After some toy time, it was time to put out Santa's cookies and go to bed. When the boys awoke Christmas morning, and came out to the living room, the first thing Josh noticed was the crumbs on the cookie plate--but no cookies! "Santa came! Santa came!" He was so excited. Then he spotted the presents from Santa, and immediately held up his wrapped gift and yelled, "It's a jet plane!" Guess he was pretty sure Santa deemed him "nice" this year. But indeed it was a jet plane, a large one for Josh and a small one for Lucas, just as requested. Guess who plays with which one, though?! Lucas rides the big one around (sitting on it), and Josh zooms around flying the small one. But hey, they're happy.

The tree, full stockings (or "sockings," per Josh), Santa's gifts, and the tell-tale plate:



Josh fetching his gift:



Lucas was just happy to be there, he had no idea what was going on.

Christmas Day x2

After their Monday flight was cancelled, John's parents spent the rest of the day trying to get rebooked for another flight. It took a good 12 hours. There are few things worse than trying to travel at Christmastime. But thankfully, they did get another flight booked, for the day after Christmas.

They were supposed to arrive Friday evening, but were delayed for several hours, leaving us all to fear the flight would be cancelled again. But it finally took off shortly after midnight, landed after 2, and John drove out in our chained-up Subaru to pick them up and get them here, a little after 3 am. Needless to say, everyone was exhausted! But very glad they made it!

So after gymnastics class Saturday morning (both Josh and Lucas have just started going to our neighborhood gymnastics gym for Saturday morning classes, and they are so cute!), we had Christmas #2. Actually, Gail and Gene came to the class, which was the first time the boys and I had seen them since they arrived (yeah, we didn't wait up for the 3:00 arrival). Josh saw "Gammy" watching him in the gym through the viewing window, and we saw him say to his teacher, "It's my Gammy and Poppa!" We could only see him mouth the words, but he was so plainly excited to see them, which was really nice.

We got back home and awaited Curt and Jeni's return from her dad's house, and then resumed the opening of presents. Josh was all business.



Hey, it's matching guitars, just like Daddy's but sized appropriately to each kid!



Playing jumping up and taking flight with Poppa:



and Legos with Gammy, who felt she may have been more invested in the final product than Josh was:



Grandparents and grandkids, complete with Sammy: