Happy New Year!

To celebrate New Years Eve we got together with Craig's brother Jason and his wife Rachel and their kids.  We took the kids to Imagine Eve downtown and they had a blast!  Imagine Eve is a free family friendly event and there were tons of families there.

They had about a million bouncy slides and jumping houses, all crawling with germs I'm sure!  This will be the last ones he goes on before his surgery!  I figure, he's got to have a little fun once in a while, right?  And I actually mentioned that everything looked really clean!  It was set up so neat and organized and the equipment didn't look too gross and dirty like they sometimes do!  Ha!  (It made me feel better anyway!)

I'd like to imagine what was going through his head.  He just ran through the bouncy houses and came flying down each slide at the end, yelling "again!" every time.

Craig with Jayden and Andrew

He actually did really good waiting in lines.  The event was very well organized and there were so many slides, etc, that the lines didn't seem so bad.

Waiting in line on daddy's shoulders and poking his eyes!  Ha!  Doesn't he look like such a stinker here?

This picture cracks me up, Craig getting blinded and Andrew getting impatient!  Ha!

The kids just went from one slide to the next and could have gone all night long I think!

Evie and Andrew heading into a tunnel!

They had clowns to entertain the kids in line!  It worked great!

After the fun ended, we all headed down the skywalk to see the fireworks!

Waiting for the fireworks to start...

We had perfect seats inside the skywalk so we didn't have to watch in the freezing cold!

Andrew and all the kids were just fascinated by them!  They were really neat!

After the fireworks we headed back to our house for some more celebrating.  I made delicious cake balls and we had sparkling wine.  This picture cracks me up.  Aunt Rachel was reading a story to the kids and Andrew decided to put this little bag on his head!  Ha!  He looked so funny.  He was so serious and listened to the whole story like that.  The kids all stayed up super late!  We were all having so much fun we hardly noticed it was 11:30pm!  They almost made it to midnight, but Evie and Jayden had to head home.  It was a very fun New Years Eve.

On New Years Day we did something else very special that I had been wanting to do all season.  We took Andrew to the IMAX theater at the Science Center to see the Polar Express.  It has become one of his very favorite movies.  I think I can safely estimate he's seen it about 100 times! (That is Craig, Andrew and Ga Ga at the top!)

We sat in the very back row.  (IMAX tip: the back row are the best seats because you don't have to look up- the movie is at eye level and you can see it so much better.)  Andrew was totally mesmerized by the whole thing.

He loved every second of it.  Especially the parts where you really feel like you were flying down the train track!  It was so cool.  He smiled and stared at the screen the whole time.  Eating popcorn of course.  It was so funny, a boy near us started crying because he was scared, and he was much older than Andrew!  Andrew just isn't scared of anything, and he loves all the experiences he's been given.  He is so fun to take places because he enjoys everything so much.  And he remembers it, too.  He likes to look at pictures of things we've done and he talks about his memories a lot.  It is so sweet.

Sometime soon we want to take him back to the Science Center.  He didn't get to see much of it, but he did play with a couple of things they had out front.  I know he'd love the whole thing.  It would be fun to get season passes to go during the cold winter months when there's nothing else to do!

After the movie we came back and Papa had made us all spaghetti so we ate dinner and the boys watched football.  It has been a fun New Years.  I can't believe it is 2011 already.  Craig and I were talking about how it was 10 years ago that we met.  We met on New Years Eve at a party for one of our mutual friends.  It was pretty much love at first sight and I always joke and say it was all downhill from there!  Ha!  Can't believe it's been ten years.  And what a precious little boy we have to show for it!  Ha!

I hope all of you had a Happy New Year too, and that you will receive many blessings in 2011!

Christmas Day Memories

We just had the best Christmas Day I can remember.  We got to be at home, and it was wonderful.  My mom and Jim spent the night so they were there for Santa in the morning, which was really fun.

Andrew had a blast opening his presents from Santa.  Except I think he was done in 10 minutes!  Ha!  This year he went from one to the next and ripped into all of them, then he spent the morning playing with everything.  Last year, he wanted to open one thing at a time and play with each thing before he opened another.  It is funny how they change so much in a year.

A little glimpse of what Andrew really wanted from Santa!

It was a Geotrax Christmas!  He got one from us, Santa and my mom.  They all hook together and he has had a blast with them.  He loves running the remote control!

Andrew opened more presents from Ga Ga and Papa after Santa's gifts.  This was another favorite gift from Papa.  A Toy Story race track!  He has had a blast playing with it.

I made a yummy brunch for us, egg casserole and monkey bread!  Mmmm, it was all so good!  I wish I could do this every morning and just relax and eat and not be in a rush to get off to work.  Ha!

Andrew was so excited to get Jessie to go with Bullseye and Woody!  He also scored new Woody pj's (now we just trade them with the Buzz ones.  When one is in the wash, he wears the others!)  He had to put on his hat and boots to complete the outfit!  We've been hanging out in our jammies so much this week, it has been so wonderful!

After our yummy brunch, playing with toys and a nice long morning nap (which I never get to do!) we decided to head out and play in the snow!

Andrew had the best time- he loved being in the snow!

Which led us to sledding!  There is a hill very close to our house so we went for a little while and it was so fun.

Even Ga Ga got in on the fun!

We decided to let Andrew go down by himself, and he loved it!

He liked pretending to tip the sled over!  Silly boy!

Heading back up for more fun!

We had to head home for some hot chocolate!  I love his face here.  He was grinning because he loved the hot chocolate mommy made!  I made it extra chocolatey!

He has just started realizing he likes marshmallows too.  At first he didn't want any in his hot chocolate, but then he realized they were pretty good!  He kept putting a ton of them in!

Chocolate moustache!

After that we made a birthday cake for Jesus.

Andrew is old enough to understand when it is someone's birthday, so I knew he would make the connection with this.  I want to make this a tradition to do every year, I think it is so important to recognize why we are celebrating and opening gifts on Christmas Day.  I want Andrew to remember the real reason why.

While the cake was in the oven, daddy and Andrew took a nap. When we woke up we had soup for dinner and went out to drive around and look at Christmas lights.  There are a couple of well known streets we wanted to check out, and it was so worth it!  While we were out we took Andrew to a movie! We went to Yogi Bear.  It was such a fun thing to do as a family.  And I had no idea how many people went to movies on Christmas Day!  There was a huge line!

After the movie we came home and celebrated Jesus' birthday.  Andrew helped put sprinkles on the cake.

Then we sang Happy Birthday and Andrew blew out 4 candles (for his 4th Christmas).

It was one of the most special days I can remember.  Just being home together as a family and making some special memories.  It was really a day that we slowed down and paid attention to the little things, which I wish I could do more often.  Life seems so rushed and busy all the time, with work and day care and I feel like my time is so limited.  This has been such a nice break, taking time to relax and spend time with one another.  It made me try to think of ways I can continue to do it once the craziness of life starts back up again next week.  

The day after Christmas we celebrated at my grandma's and Andrew got to open more presents!  He must think Christmas is every day!  Ha!  He was excited because he found his name on the tag!  See how he's pointing to it?  

With his 2nd cousins, Kelsie, Kolton and Kendra.

Yay!  A remote control train to add to his Geotrax!

Acting silly!

Looking at his name on the tag again!  It is so nice because he can read his name now and knows if it is the right present or not!  Ha!

Another favorite gift was a box full of dinosaurs!  He has become obsessed with dinosaurs lately too, including the movie Dinosaur, which was in his stocking and I think we have watched 100 times over break already!  It was so funny, when we left my grandmas I apparently forgot to pack up a couple of the dinosaurs (there are 18 in the box) and he knew they were missing when we got home.  He was very upset and knew which ones were gone!  How could he possibly figure that out with so many to keep track of??  I was amazed.

  Thank you again for all the prayers and support regarding Andrew's upcoming cath and surgery.  It's been tough news to swallow, but we know God will take care of our Andrew and he'll be healthier than ever once it's over!  (Scroll down if you missed the surgery update).

I hope you all had time to enjoy the little things this Christmas!  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!