Merry Christmas 2013

Our Christmas week was great - hope everyone else's was too.

 

We started out with a play - The Cat in the Hat.  It was great!  We loved the fish - he was a puppet and he was great fun to watch.  Here we are at the theater.  We're lucky enough to get the same great seats every year!  Plus we got to ride the light rail train from our house up to mom's office to meet her for the play.  Talk about a great day!

 

After the play, dad treated us all to lunch at Hires - mmmm, mmmm, good!  It's now one of our most favorite restaurants.  

 

We finished up all of our shopping and mom and dad got our secret Santa gifts off to our angel family.  On Christmas Eve, we remembered to put out some special food for the reindeers.  

 

We also got to do a fun scavenger hunt to find our new Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve.  That was really fun!

 

We still enjoy our little train that runs around the base of our Christmas tree.  Watching that train run just never gets old.

 

We also read Christmas stories before we went off to bed.  Each one of us got to pick a story and read it to the family.  This is a picture of Sam reading "Santa's Stuck" to us.  He read the whole thing all by himself.

 

And then, finally - - - Christmas day came.  Here we are headed down the stairs.

 

We got a couple of great family gifts this year including a new basketball standard and tickets to see Mary Poppins this summer.

 

I really wanted some Skylander figures this year and Santa came through - - along with lots of other fun gifts including some games, lots of books, and a robotics kit.

 

Sam really wanted the "Game of Life" and Santa followed through.  He also got lots of books, other games, and a marble set and a science/circuit kit. 

 

Here we are playing with our new Aquabots - they are robot fish that really swim in water.  We even put them in the bathtub with us the other night.

 

 Here are Sam and I exchanging gifts.

 

 Our family and friends spoiled us again this year - thank you everyone!  We got so many great gifts.

 

 

 We pretty much spent the entire rest of the week in our pajamas just playing around the house.  Here we are playing Sam's new Life game.

 

We also got some Hexbugs that are really super fun to play with.

 

Here's dad and Sam setting up his marble maze.

 

We did manage to get dressed for a few hours on Christmas day and headed over to have dinner with Uncle Noley and Aunt Christy.

 

Ahhhh - PIE!  Nothing better than kicking back, relaxing, eating ANOTHER piece of pie.

 

We earned some iPad play time this week too - Skylanders!

 

We got busy one afternoon and put away all of our Christmas decorations for another year.  We're already thinking about Christmas 2014.

 

Here we are in a rousing game of Battleship.  What a great week we had!!!

 

Sam Alert:  Hey everyone - Christmas definitely lived up to my expectations this year.  It was great to be with my family and to have lots of time to relax and play.  Here I am opening a gift.

 

And here I am just being Sam.  I love being Sam! 

 

Thanks to everyone for all your kindness!  See you next week.

Let It Snow

 Winter certainly is not shy this year.  We've had super cold temperatures and lots of snow this December.  This week was no exception. 

 

But first - as our tummies are getting used to solid food again, we decided to enjoy a nutritious holiday snack.  We made these cute little fruit kabobs the other day - look closely - - they look like little purple Santas.  They were yummy too!

 

This is a quick look at the level of snow on the ground at our house.  That's 8 1/2 inches for those of you without glasses.  That's a lot of snow!

 

This is a really bad picture of our snow dog, but a picture none the less.  We went out to help mom shovel the snow after getting home the other night . . . . and instead a neighbor came over to help.  So we made a snowman . . . which turned into a snow dog.  We're pretty proud of him!

 

Sam Alert: Howdy!  Ah, an evening playing in the snow.  Nothing better, in my opinion!  I was one happy little dude!  

Over and out - see you next week!

Getting in the Christmas Spirit

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas . . . . and we managed to fit in some Christmas-y things this week.

 

First up - Sam had his Christmas program at school.  Santa came to visit his class and Sam got to stand right next to him.

 

Here he is at his desk waiting for mom to come visit.

 

 And here is Sam with his Snow Globe writing.  His is the Christmas tree on a black background right above his head.

 

And here he is with his teachers - Mrs. Olsen and Mrs. Pulley.  

 

And for your enjoyment - 4 videos from his program.

 

This one is "The Marvelous Toy".

 

 Reindeer Boogie

 

 What Will You Get Your Parents?

 

And Sam's favorite - Silent Night. 

First in English and then in German.

 

 Then a few days later it was time for my Christmas program. 

 I also did a winter essay.  Mine is just above my right ear.

 

 

Here I am with my teacher, Mrs. Anderson.

 

 And for more video enjoyment . . . Here is my class singing Simple Gifts. 

 

 O Christmas Tree

 

 Santa's Usin' Zebras Now

 

 Winter Wonderland

 

 We also made it out to select our Christmas tree.  Here we are doing some shopping.  We ended up with a Nordman fir - never had one of these before, but it sure is pretty.

 

 Sam sang Christmas songs and thoroughly enjoyed decorating the tree.

 

And here I am getting a few ornaments on the tree.

 

Daddy also set up the train for us.  It's our favorite!

 

But I haven't gotten to enjoy it yet.  I've got a serious stomach bug/flu.  Yuck!  I'm actually asleep in this picture.  With a bucket propped up in front of me, just in case.  

 

Sam Alert:  Hey everyone - it's lonely without Mason to play with, but I'm keeping busy watching movies and eating chocolate.  I love Christmas time. 

 

 Thanks for reading!

Is It Summer Yet?

 Right here is where you are supposed to be reading about our new Christmas tree and about decorating that tree and about a great week and weekend.

 

While our week and weekend were just ok, there is no tree and the associated decorating of that tree to tell about.  It's all because of SNOW!  It snowed this week, more than once . . . and it snowed a lot.  And to top it off - - - it was super dooper cold!

 

So while we did make it outside the house for school and work, and we did sneak in a dinner out and some Christmas shopping late Friday night . . . we decided to call it a snow weekend and hunkered down in the house.  Snow days almost always turn into pajama days . . . which are our favorite! 

 

Sam created a reading nest for himself.  Here he is doing some mid-Saturday reading.

And this is me doing some video game playing in my nest.  Comfy!

 Yep - there you have it.  The most exertion we had all weekend! 

 

We did talk Sam into venturing out to the first step on the front porch to take a picture in the snow last night.

 

And then, this morning after more overnight snow, both of us ventured out in our pajamas and snow boots.  Just for a minute.  The snow was super powdery - - not good for making a snowman.  Or else we would have definitely had snowman making pictures to show you.  

So there you have it - is it summer yet?

Disaster Thanksgiving

We forgot to upload a video from Thanksgiving for everyone's enjoyment.  This is a short story that I wrote at school. 

 

I present to you - Disaster Thanksgiving.

 

Giving Thanks

We have lots of things to be thankful for this year - our family, friends, house, school, pets, and so much more!  We had a great week which included our feast at school on Wednesday that dad and mom got to come to.  Then we had Uncle Noley, Aunt Christy, and Grandpa and Grandma L. over for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday. 

 

We started with a little football in the yard.  We're learning about running patterns and trying to remember to catch the ball in the middle of all the running of patterns. 

 

 Grandpa even threw some balls for us.  Here's Sam catching one.

 

 And here I am catching one. 

 

We had lots of yummy food.  I especially loved the stuffing this year.  Sam particularly loves the sweet potatoes.  Mmmm, mmmm, good!

 

Here's Sam asking for another yummy roll.

 

I loved having everyone over and having our tasty food.  Thanksgiving food is all about traditions and Sam and I have already started deciding which foods will become our favorite traditions.

 

We did some game playing while we were letting our feast digest.  Here's Sam playing some chess with Uncle Noley.  

 

And here is a Thanksgiving evening family picture.  

 

We enjoyed a nice, long weekend off.  We spent a lot of time playing and relaxing.  We also got our Christmas decorations up, including our house lights.  Here are Sam and I helping with the lights.

 

We also added a little culture in to our lives this weekend.  We saw Frozen at the movie theater and totally LOVED it!  We also went to the Utah Children's Theater and saw a play - Tinkerbell and the Pirates.  It was excellent!

 

Sam Alert:  Hey everyone - Sam here.  I am in chess club at school and I'm always trying to get someone to play against me so I can practice.  Dad and I finished this game in a stalemate. 

 

And here I am with my cool headband from school.  Hum - what is it?  Princess Leah?  Brown balloons?  Nope!

Turkey drumsticks!!!  Bet you didn't see that coming!

 

Ok - Sam out until next week.  Adios!