Fun to Play!

I find it hard to believe the end of January is upon us already! It seems we were just ringing in the New Year and putting away the Christmas decorations and now February is looming. The days are sliding by so quickly so I'll try to update year so far - it's been a busy one!

The kids kept busy imagining all sorts of things and creating new games and play scenarios with their time off from school. They even put on a magic/talent show for us one night. Very original and cute ;)

That's our boy!
Pretending to fly like a bird...
Always out to make the crowd laugh with his antics!

We were so excited to have visitors the first of January - our sister-in-law Stacey was in the Twin Cities for work for a whole week! Even better, she brought our niece Ellie along and they stayed with us. We had so much fun with them and the boys loved having their little cousin here to play. Ellie is a doll! Poor Brendan had to head back to school during the day so he missed a lot of the play, but the kids were always so excited to see him when he came home from school and they would play until dinner.
Ellie loved going on the kids beds to play - here she is up in Aiden's.


Such a good eater :)
Another good eater!
Our little student just a working away!
On Stacey's last day she was able to drop Brendan off at school on her way to work - a huge treat for him!

And speaking of school, here are the kids pictures from preschool and first grade. They are getting so big! Both are doing very well in their respective classes. Brendan was selected to participate in the Talent Development class again this session. This time the focus is on math - we're so proud of him! Aiden keeps his teachers in stitches with all the funny things he says; he acts so much older than an almost 4 year old!



In case you hadn't heard, our kids really like Legos so imagine how excited they were to hear that Cartoon Network was going to have a new Lego Atlantis movie! We decided to make a real night of it and invited a bunch of boys over from school and preschool for pizza, play, the movie, popcorn and some more play. There were a total of 8 boys and 1 girl - lots of fun! The kids were all so excited and they had such a great time, well worth the effort!
Aiden and his buddy Ryan.
Having some fun before the movie - boys are great ;)
The next morning Brendan went to a Mad Science class through the city parks and rec. They have been talking about science at school so it was perfect timing for him. A few weeks before he had told me he wanted to be a scientist when he grew up so he could 'have those test-tubie things and make little explosions in them'... yeah, that will have to wait! ;) The highlight of the class was taking a rocket outside and launching it!

Meanwhile Aiden and I headed south for a birthday party. Our friends Brian and Jess celebrated their littlest one turning 2! Aiden had a good time and we brought Logan along for the party too. His favorite parts were the Elmo cupcakes with the Elmo ring on top and the cool butterfly tattoo he got. Doesn't take much to make him happy.

The boys had a long weekend for Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. I couldn't have imagined a better day to spend with them. We met Wellyn for lunch at his office, a huge treat for us all. They have a great cafeteria there and the kids loved ordering lunch and eating with Dad. We were able to see his cubicle, meet some co-workers and tour one of the labs. This was Brendan's favorite part! The workers in the lab were extremely kid-friendly and let the boys look through their microscope and see a real catheter, an awesome tour! Afterwards I took the boys for haircuts and then we came home to play. The weather was in the 30s and sunny so it was perfect for going outside and building on the snow fort in the yard. Actually, I built on the snow fort and they played on the sled! ;) They had such a good time sliding backwards down the hill and rolling down it - priceless day!

Christmas Recap

Christmas is always so much for us and this year was no exception. As always, it involves a lot of planning, packing, early shopping and days on the road, but the time spent with family makes it all worth it. Obviously, I have tons of photos so I'm going to try my best to just put 'some' of them on here ;) We left the Saturday before Christmas and headed to Iron Mountain, MI, for a family gathering on Wellyn's moms side of the family. We stopped in Rhinelander, WI, for the night to relax and let the kids play in the pool. They had a great time in the water and we're tired out by bedtime. Sunday we arrived in Iron Mountain and were able to visit with some of the extended family we don't always get to see. After that we headed to St. Jaques to catch Wellyns' dads Chirstmas concert with the church choir. The kids were so proud to see their Grandpa up there singing and loved clapping after every song and making the audience laugh. Brendans favorite part was when Grandpa let him talk into the microphone at the end. The next morning we were on the road again for Gulliver. There we relaxed, helped my mom decorate and had a little fun outside. The boys always like going there, mostly because they have dogs ;) The weather was nice enough we were able to get out some and enjoy the snow. I can't tell you how many times I knocked icicles down as a kid! One afternoon we took the kids out in the woods by the house where I spent hours playing as a kid. Brendan absolutely loved it; Aiden, well, I think once his legs get longer he'll enjoy it more too. After our walk in the woods we pulled the kids around on the snow tube. Lots of fun for them, lots of exercise for us! And this is what it looks like after falling off the tube face first! ;)























Christmas Eve brought our usual tradition of dinner followed by gift opening. My sister, Katherine, and her family made it the festivites. The kids were super anxious to open gifts and were thrilled when we finally gave them the 'green light' to starting passing out the gifts. The family photo before the wrapping paper started to fly:







Christmas Day we loaded up and went to the Pomeroys to celebrate. We had a great suprise waiting for us - Wellyns brother Ashley had taken leave from the Air Force and was home for the holiday! Brendan just clung to him; he always worries about Ashley being stationed in Pakistan and says special prayers for him to be safe.



The kids putting on the first puppet show with the puppet theater made by Grandpa Herb and Grandma Donna. I wish we would have had the first ones on video - too funny!
The boys love holding their little cousins; thankfully Emmit didn't mind :)
The Saturday after Christmas was the Alumni basketball game at Big Bay de Noc High School. With all four of the Pomeroy boys home it was 'game on'! Ellie having some snacks - way more fun than anything else going on... although she did yell 'HI DADDY!' to cheer Colin on.

Ellie and Max kept Lindsey and Stacey busy finding things for them to do and eat - whatever one cousin was eating, the other one wanted too!

The guys after the game.

Sunday morning we needed to head out for MN. It was a crazy holiday with all the kids running around and all the different nap schedules so we missed a full family photo at Christmas but we did manage to get on of Ashley with the next generation before we left.

Our trip back was uneventful with the exception of trying out several bathrooms all across Wisconsin... kids always have to go; even after they just went! It took a while to get them settled, but finially they were asleep for the night and Santa made his stop.

The kids before the opening started...

Unfortunately, the rest of our winter break was frigid so the kids weren't able to go out and play much in the huge snowbanks that accumulated while we were gone. I'm still hoping for a little bit of a thaw - at least double digits???