Christmas Celebrations

Prior to traveling for the larger family Christmas, the three of us had our own little celebration.

Putting together one of the new Lego minifigures

One of his new Toy Story books
I love that in the middle of the celebration, he stopped to
read his new book. He even asked if he could.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has
become a bit of an obsession this year

For the big family gathering we met in St. Louis this year. The last time we had Christmas outside of Mt. Carmel was when I was Alex's age when we went to visit my grandparents in Florida.

Dad's played this game with all of the grandkids

This year, Alex got him back

Mom opening the annual calendar

Patiently waiting

Alex got to pass out the gifts,
an honor going to the youngest in the family
(Forrest and I had the longest stints in that position)

A Tale of Two Hanukkahs

We had our first Hanukkah of the year over Thanksgiving with Dave's family, and we had our own celebration starting tonight. Both were very fun and festive, although there were fewer silly hats at tonight's celebration.

Lighting the menorah.

Hot Wheels! Not sure who is more excited about this.

A new book from Aunt Laura!

Joshua lighting the menorahs.

Looking at this year's calendar with Grandpa Diamond.

Two silly boys in silly hats!

Self Portrait

Alex's class has been hard at work making self portraits. Last night, he came home with a carefully wrapped package, and it was his portrait framed. I love that it's such a happy picture and am pleasantly surprised at how much detail he put into it.

The artist with his self portrait

Decorating

This weekend we put up our tree and a few other Christmas decorations. Here are some shots to share the fun.

He loved putting on the ornaments.

Mommy got to help too.

So proud of the tree, which includes
a popsicle stick creation of his that he asked to add.

I didn't get a good picture of him setting up the snowmen,
but here's one of him standing with the snowman family.

In front of the stockings.

He wanted to put these jingle bells on his door as a doorbell.

Soccer Class

I am woefully behind on posts and have lots to catch up on, but that will have to wait for another day. Today, however, we have video and a picture to share from Alex's first soccer lesson. He had a great time but complained on the way home that it wasn't really soccer because they didn't play a game. He kept watching the older kids on the field next to us and wanting to play with them.

In his uniform, getting the hang of being on the field.

Click here to see him doing a jumping drill.

Click here to see them working with the ball, freezing, and then kicking and running when the "avalanche" comes. Alex is on the left of the screen.

Back Seat Driving

Alex often likes to help point out parking spaces, but yesterday he went in to full-on back seat driver mode. We were in heavy traffic on the expressway when I hear this from the back seat: "Mommy, we need to be in a different lane." Then, a few minutes later, when I hadn't moved I hear: "Why haven't we changed lanes? That lane is moving faster."

Happy Halloween

Traffic conspired against us, but we made it home in time to do some Trick-or-Treating. Or, as Alex likes to call it, Happy Trick or Treat!

We weren't quite sure what costume Alex would wear tonight. For the last two years he was a monkey. That costume is a bit too small for him, but when we went to the Zoo's Halloween festivities, he wanted to wear it. He and Dave also built a robot costume a month or so ago that we thought would make a great Halloween costume.  They labeled it the XF-17 after a Curious George episode called "Robot Monkey." (I think you can see where this story is going...) So, on the big night, he decided to go full-on George and dress as the Robot Monkey. Even though he regularly took off the robot part of the costume to make it easier to navigate candy collection, he loved being a robot monkey and was a big hit in the neighborhood.

At the start of our night

Trick or Treat!

Robot Monkey

Enjoying the spoils