In writing these blogs I'm kind of organizing our pictures and stories for myself so pardon all the dates as titles, all the days seem to be blurred together now and this seems to appeal to my organizational side.
So Christmas morning at last. Of course we had no real tree and no scent of pine, so we made due with what the house came with. I have no idea what kind of a tree this is, but Mack taped on a few scraps of wrapping paper and it actually looks okay in a Charlie Brown sort of way.
Isaac (still with no concept of ripping paper off of the gifts) was happy just to carry them around. Taylor's dad has the job every year of sitting by the tree and passing out presents. Ethan helped this year by being the delivery boy.
Mack, Sam, Arty, Taylor, Sonia (Taylor's mom)
So these aren't even Isaac's presents- they're Ethan's, but you can tell who fell in love with them. They even have little buttons that make real dinosaur sounds or make them kick their legs or arms. I just love the one on the left. If this picture had sound effects, it would say "rrarr".
Barb, Ethan, and Sonia putting together Ethan's dinosaur puzzle. Anyone see a theme?
And for breakfast Christmas morning, Mack whipped us up some amazing crepes. I must admit one of my short-falls as a mother. I give in to Ethan on his food requests too much. He refuses to eat anything but pancakes for breakfast- EVERY DAY. Isaac doesn't mind so we've been going with this for the past 6 months or so. When we got to Portugal we couldn't find pancake mix anywhere in the store so we settled for Crepe mix (how European to have crepe mix but not pancake mix). Bizarrely enough, Ethan was fooled and very happy to have "pancakes" every morning.
How can you beat this view?
Arty may have gained a lot of ground in "favorite uncle/aunt" status, but I think Barb still owns that title. She's been in Utah almost every summer we've been there and she's at school in West Virginia so she has come and visited a lot more often. Here she is "golfing" with Ethan and Isaac.
And baseball of course.
And though the temperatures were only in the 60's the boys went swimming. Ethan only lasted 20 minutes (since he literally has 0% body fat) but Taylor and his brothers and dad played Marco Polo for an hour.
Mack and Sam gave Ethan and Isaac a kit for making a gingerbread train.
Barb, Ethan, and Sonia putting together Ethan's dinosaur puzzle. Anyone see a theme?
And for breakfast Christmas morning, Mack whipped us up some amazing crepes. I must admit one of my short-falls as a mother. I give in to Ethan on his food requests too much. He refuses to eat anything but pancakes for breakfast- EVERY DAY. Isaac doesn't mind so we've been going with this for the past 6 months or so. When we got to Portugal we couldn't find pancake mix anywhere in the store so we settled for Crepe mix (how European to have crepe mix but not pancake mix). Bizarrely enough, Ethan was fooled and very happy to have "pancakes" every morning.
How can you beat this view?
Isaac trying to get at the pool and Grandpa playing defense. The picture on the right cracks me up. When we got to Portugal, Taylor's brother Arty was there but his brother Mack didn't come for a few days. Ethan hadn't seen Arty for a full year but had seen Mack several times even over the past few months. So for the first day Ethan called Arty "Mack" or sometimes even "the other Mack". But by the end of the trip I think Arty had won out. He carried Ethan around, played with him, fed him, and generally spoiled him. Mack may have to watch out now, he might be "the other Arty". Anyways, Ethan started following Arty around and Christmas morning I walked onto the back deck to see this: 2 boys, no shirts. Apparently Arty was trying to get a little sun (working 100 hour weeks indoors and living in London will make you a bit white) and when Ethan asked what he was doing, Ethan decided that he needed to do the same. So they unzipped his feety pajamas half way and gave him a book to read and voila, hilarious picture.
Arty may have gained a lot of ground in "favorite uncle/aunt" status, but I think Barb still owns that title. She's been in Utah almost every summer we've been there and she's at school in West Virginia so she has come and visited a lot more often. Here she is "golfing" with Ethan and Isaac.
And baseball of course.
And though the temperatures were only in the 60's the boys went swimming. Ethan only lasted 20 minutes (since he literally has 0% body fat) but Taylor and his brothers and dad played Marco Polo for an hour.
Mack and Sam gave Ethan and Isaac a kit for making a gingerbread train.
Yeah, we're working on Ethan's "say cheese" smile. He was pretty excited to be decorating gingerbread men and trains. It was a cute bonding activity for all of them and actually turned out really cute.
A few rounds of ping-pong finishedup the night. Poor Tay, it looks like Arty won.
A few rounds of ping-pong finishedup the night. Poor Tay, it looks like Arty won.
1 comment:
We each won one game thank you very much.
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