And a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

We've been having a hard time accepting the fact that Christmas is over and that we don't get to see Santa again for another year. Despite singing Christmas songs over and over and over, we've learned to let Christmas go. Instead, we're celebrating the next big occasion - New Years.

A new year means lots of things - we'll each be another year older. And when you have growing boys, there's always a lot of cleaning and shuffling around to do. We did that a lot this week. Sam had finally outgrown his crib and I was getting pretty big for a small toddler bed. So the parents finally broke down and moved us each up to bigger beds. That of course meant total room cleaning and reorganizing!

But it was all worth it - check out our new rooms. Here's mine:

And here is Sam's:

After mom cleaned out my closet, she found this super cool bed tent that they had for my new twin size bed. We love it!Sam and I both napped in the tent the other afternoon.
After that huge cleaning job was finished up, we did find some other fun things to do. Here we are practicing tying shoes with daddy - let it be noted that both Sam and I prefer velcro!We also took a trip to one of our most favorite places - the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point.

Here we are playing with the dinos.We got to spend some quality time at the water/sand tables. It helps if you have a daddy who's willing to hold you up the entire time so that you can avoid the raised but really crowded area of the table.I'm tall enough that I could reach in on my own, even without being in the raised area. Here's our baby Triceratops - we always have our picture taken here.

And if daddy is with us, we like getting a lift up to see the T-Rexs up close and personal.Sam forgot how big they are so close up. He was just a bit nervous.And another of our favorite dinos - the big Triceratops.We spent a fun New Year's Eve having Uncle Noley and Aunt Christy over for soup and games. They brought their Loopin Louie game with them - SOOOO much fun!

We played Uno Moo, and Gone Fishing. The games made the night fly by.

Before we knew it, it was New Years. Of course, we celebrated on Halifax (Nova Scotia) time so our "midnight" was really 9:00 p.m local time. What we don't know doesn't hurt us!Some party hats and noise makers really add to the fun!Uncle Noley took care of reading time duty and we were off to bed - Sam in his party hat and all.

Other than that, some good playing around the house kept us mostly out of trouble. Have a great week everyone.Sam Alert: Howdy y'all. Enjoy some cute pictures of me from this week. First up - me marching around at the stroke of "midnight".And me playing Loopin Louie - I think I may have won every game we played - at least in my own little way. See you next week.

Merry Christmas to All!

Mom says that she doesn't think our house will ever be the same after Christmas this year. It's like a tornado hit and it is fantastic! But before we get to all the Christmas day fun, let's show you the start of our Christmas week.

First - we spent some time getting our energy out . . . this particular event was wrestling with dad. Sam has taken to making an unannounced flying leap on whoever is unsuspectingly sitting around. And dad - well we've always called him the Octopus - those long arms and long legs seem to come at you from no where!

We went to our first live performance . . . of anything . . . this week. A local acting company was doing a children's theater performance of "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie". It was FABULOUS! Here we are waiting for the performance to start.

The play was excellent! Sam and I especially enjoyed the parts where the mouse tried to mop the floor and when he tried to tape his picture on the frig. Dad and mom both said that their favorite part of the whole thing was watching us watch the play.Our annual experiment with dry ice - Uncle Carl and Aunt Francine sent us another cooler full of dry ice (oh and yummy steaks too). Daddy helps us to play with the dry ice - it's always so much fun!

Christmas eve - we had a nice quiet evening with just our little family. The day was spent running around with all the other crazy people trying to finish up last minute things. But the evening was nice. Here we are putting our last ornament on mom's advent calendar. We did lots of different kinds of advents this year - that is a really fun thing that keeps us busy and entertained all month.We had a great Christmas day! Here is a picture of our living room just as we came down the stairs.Santa always puts our stockings with our pile of presents so that we know which presents are ours. Here's my pile. He brought me some great things - cars that run on roads and a construction site are the two things I asked for this year. He brought that and more. Sam asked for cars and trains and he got both of those, along with plenty of other stuff. Santa must have been pleased with us this year!Here I am with my construction site. And here's Sam playing with some of his cars and trucks.And a fire truck! It makes lots of noise and everything!Mom and dad gave me this cool dinosaur book. It tells all about T-Rex's from the inside out.We got great gifts from everyone . . . thank you all so very much! Aunt Jen Jen and Uncle Michael surprised us with pillow pets - I got this dalmatian (now named Black Spot).
And Sam got this brown puppy.
We got fun dinos that move and make real dinosaur sounds from Aunt Fran and Uncle Carl.Here we are playing with toys after all the unwrapping was over. Thanks again to everyone! You were very generous and we are definitely spoiled!Dad and mom made us have "nap time" for a little while - which really turned in to quiet time for about 30 minutes. Good thing we had our pillow pets to "be quiet" on!Then in the afternoon we went over to Uncle Noley's house for dinner and to play with our cousins and aunts and uncle. They had a train at their house and of course, we enjoyed watching it go around and around. There wasn't even a tree in the middle of it so we could just turn ourselves in circles to see it go all the way around the track.We played games . . . and more games . . . and more games.
Here we are with our cousins Rian and Hayden.

Merry Christmas everyone - we hope your Christmas was great!Sam Alert: Howdy - may I be among the first to wish you all Happy New Year. And let me also repeat a huge thank you to everyone for all the wonderful gifts! We even got oranges from the North Pole Orchard in our stockings - I'm wearing one of the stickers on my forehead.
I loved, loved, loved having cousins and family around to play with/entertain me! It was great.And here I am modeling the present that Mason gave me this year - a new Thomas the train backpack. It's great! I'm putting all sorts of treasures in it to carry around - including a water purifier from Grandpa and Grandma G. Daddy said we could use it when we go camping so I'm headed out to go camping any day now. Have a great week everyone!

The Final Countdown

Do you remember when you were a kid and it seemed like the days just dragged on before your birthday . . . or Christmas? Well that's how this last week has been . . . very, very slow. Mom and dad have been busy trying to get caught up on work so we can have some time together for the holidays. It's been rainy and overcast.

So - just as any good boys who love trains would do, we've spent our week on our stomachs watching our Christmas train. Over and over . . . round and round.

This train entertains us for hours! We especially love it when it whistles.

Mommy brought home this reindeer balloon from a Christmas party she was at. Aren't we the cutest reindeer! Ok all, we're at the final countdown. Merry Christmas everyone! Sam Alert: So seven stitches in . . . and four stitches out. Do the math - that means three stitches still in (hopefully re-absorbing in to my little head). And not a single tear. The doctors were so impressed. I just laid on the table and let them put the stitches in and take them right out while carrying on a conversation with the staff. Now to keeping the sun off of it for the next few months so that you can't see a scar. Our friend Zelf, the elf, is back again this year. This particular morning he was hiding out in Mason's stocking. I wanted to introduce my friend Frosty to Zelf. I think Zelf felt a little more at home after meeting Frosty.
And finally, I love, love, love computers. I always have even from when I was a little, little boy. I absolutely love playing the educational games on mommy's iPad. She says that I can run the iPad better than she can (she's right!). Hum - maybe I ought to let Santa know that I could use my very own iPad for Christmas. It's hard sharing with mom and Mason! Sam out - see you after Christmas.

Catching Up!

We've had a busy last two weeks and are excited to get you all caught up on things. Sorry for not posting last weekend, but time just got away from us. We've put a lot of our pictures in collages for you on this post so that you can see lots without taking up too much space. Seat belts on - - - this is going to be a long post!

We've had a great winter so far, even though it's technically not winter yet. The snow has been excellent and finally the timing of a huge storm was perfect to allow us to be able to enjoy it all. We did a little sledding in our circle and made snow angels. It was super deep but incredibly light and fluffy. The warm weather has come back the last few days and we only have just a little snow left now. It was definitely fun while it lasted! We're sure there will be more.

And, as always, we've had a lot of fun just playing around the house.

We went down to Thanksgiving Point to see the Christmas lights and the reindeer. This one is Prancer - and we got to pet him. Super soft - surprisingly soft!
Our Aunt Jen Jen flew up and got to spend a week with us while daddy was in Atlanta for a conference. The first thing we did with her was go to the Festival of Trees. Aunt Lu and Bart went with us as well. It was so much fun - we love good holiday traditions! We had been looking forward to visiting with the Big Guy to tell him what we were thinking about by way of Christmas presents. Sam was brave but still wasn't too excited about seeing him.
We looked at beautifully decorated Christmas trees, ate yummy food, saw gingerbread houses, and played in the Kids Corner. We shopped - - as if we had a chance when Aunt Jen Jen and mommy get together! We crafted and read books. So much fun!

Before daddy left town, they also surprised us with a trip to the North Pole on the North Pole Express (Heber Valley Railroad). It was super great!
Do the smiles on our faces give you any idea of how excited we were?We had hot cocoa and cookies. We sang songs. And we spent time with Mrs. Claus and then Santa himself.

And just a cute picture of us for fun!We also got some sad news that our Aunt Mary Isabell died and so Grandma and Grandpa G. flew up to go with us to Wyoming for her funeral. She was one of our most favorite relatives! It was great to see her kids (mommy's cousins) and make some new friends. We stayed in our favorite condos in Star Valley while we were there and let everyone watch "The Polar Express" movie with us - they hadn't ever seen it before . . . can you believe it?Here I am in my little nest up in the loft. This condo had an elk on the loft instead of the moose at the one next door that we stayed in last time. Daddy got back in town a few days ago and then this past weekend we treated mommy to a late birthday dinner at our favorite restaurant. Sam and I got to ride the saddle since she wouldn't do it. (Our server was incredibly patient and nice!)This weekend we also went Christmas tree hunting and came home (from a local tree lot) with a beauty. We got it all decorated and love sitting in front of it . . . just to look at it!And of course, we put up our train. Daddy had to do some serious surgery on it to get it running but it's been chugging well since the surgery. We love this train!We'll try not to let another week go by without posting - our fingers are tired from typing so much. Thanks for reading all the way through . . . now here's Sam.

Sam Alert: Hey there everyone . . . here are some cute pictures of me from the last two weeks. Enjoy!

On the North Pole ExpressIn Star Valley at the condo - I would rather be outside!

At home riding Dash
In my room reading books - I can't get enough of books lately. Daddy and mommy are so happy about this!Sam out - take care everyone!

P.S. In a late Sunday development . . . I just got back from the Urgent Care Center with 7 (yes, count them . . . SEVEN) stitches in my forehead. I fell off one of our bar stools this afternoon and cracked my head open. It wasn't a long cut, but it sure was deep. My fat lip and bonked head agree that it didn't feel very good. But let it be known that I didn't cry a single tear at the doctor's... not even as they were putting stitches in! I'm one tough cookie! All is well!