Happy New Year!

Mommy is ready to kick off the new year!  We enjoyed a super-fun celebration with our friends while Gramma snuggled the boys into bed for their last sleep of 2014.  It was a great, great year--the highlight being the addition of sweet William to our family--but we welcome 2015 with enthusiasm!  1/1/2015.

William's First Christmas

Did I mention that this was William's first Christmas?  Did I need to?  This adorable hedgehog ornament was a gift to Will from the Dorr family.  12/26/2014.

Mantel

One of my favorite parts of the holidays is getting cards from our lovely friends and family.  I love to see their pictures and how their families are growing!  12/26/2014.

Um, Hi?

Little guy just hanging out in his sleep sack.  Also, his eyes look grey here.  They kind of alternate between looking blue and looking grey.  Still not sure if the color is going to stick, or if they are going to turn brown like the rest of the family's.  Only time will tell.  (Supposedly they will stop changing by six months.)  12/26/2014.

Gramma's Helper

Cole helped Gramma shovel the walks ... with gardening tools.  So, yeah, he helped a ton.  12/26/2014.

Cousin Christmas Picture

Another exercise in futility.  12/25/2014.  

Family Christmas Photo

This is about as good as we could get.  Really.  12/25/2014.

Auntie and Her Boys

Auntie Chelsey with her nephews.  Lots of love right here.  12/25/2014.

Roly Poly

He's on the move!  (And got his legs wound up in the curtains before we noticed how far he'd rolled!)  12/25/2014.

Gift from Auntie

Unwrapping his gift from Auntie Chelsey.  (It was a Lego structure--totally an excuse for Chelsey to play with his Lego gift before gifting it to Cole.  But who can blame her?)  12/25/2014.  

Race Car!

You guys!  Cole must have been (at least mostly) good this year, because he totally got the race car AND the dragon he asked for in his letter to Santa!  He is so pumped!  12/25/2014.  

Little Saint Nick and his Elf

Our sweet cuddle boys on Christmas.  I can't get enough of William's expressive little face.  12/25/2014.

Elf Baby

Look who woke up and decided to join us!  Little Will the Christmas Elf!  Cole's Santa jammies and Will's elf jammies were gifts from Nana and Opa.  Cousins Colin and Lila received identical jammies, so all of Nana and Opa's grandbabies were ready to be festively comfy all Christmas day.  12/25/2014.

Found!

Cole is delighted that he (finally--this took a long while, folks) spotted the pickle.  (It was in Santa's hat by the television!)  Time to find out if Cole stayed on Santa's good list!  12/25/2014.

The Pickle

Cole and his classmates learned about traditions this month.  Cole's teacher, Katie W., and her family have a tradition where the parents (or Santa) hide a pickle on Christmas Eve.  The first to find the pickle gets to open the first gift.  Katie gave the kids paper pickles to color and hide with their families, so we enjoyed this fun new tradition this year.  Can you find the pickle?  12/25/2014.

Santa's cookies

It's Christmas morning and Santa delivered!  He seemed to enjoy his cookies, and the reindeer gobbled their carrots as well!  12/25/2014.

Gramma

William and Gramma at Nana and Opa's for the annual Christmas Eve celebration, complete with the traditional beef stroganoff and gift-opening extravaganza.  12/24/2014.

Jammies

Christmas Eve jammy cuddles.  There were many, many outtakes of this only so-so picture, due to a certain three-year-old's cheesey cheese smile and inability to stop hugging (squeezing) his little brother.  12/24/2014.

Books with Gramma

The boys get some nice cuddle and book time with Gramma!  12/23/2014.

Dreidel dreidel dreidel

Cole is learning about different religions and traditions at preschool.  He decided he wanted to convert to Judaism after being introduced to the dreidel.  He's actually a natural at spinning it.  12/22/2014.

Date Night!

While Gramma was in town, she gave Mommy and Daddy a much-needed date night out.  We went to Mercantile at the new Union Station, and it was delicious.  12/20/2014.

Smiles for Gramma

Will was so excited to see Gramma Lily!  12/19/2014.

Snickerdoodles

Gramma is here visiting for the holidays!  Yippee!  Soon after her arrival, Gramma helped Cole make Mommy's favorite cookies--Snickerdoodles!  Cole is so good at cutting, mixing, and rolling.  Also, he  really wanted to line up the cookie balls in straight, close-together lines, but decided it would be ok for us to spread out the cookies before baking them.  12/16/2014.

Yummy

It's on.  Everything is going in the mouth.  12/14/2014.

Speed Racer

Ok, not quite yet.  12/14/2014.

Bump Ball Soccer

So, Cole made up this amazing (and amazingly fun!) game called "Bump Ball Soccer."  It is quite involved, and Cole added more and more rules as we played the game, as follows:
1. The goalie (incidentally, ALWAYS Cole) stands in front of the net with a ball at his/her feet. The kicker stands approximately twelve feet away from the net with a ball at his/her feet.
2. The game starts by the goalie saying "ready, set, go," and then the goalie (again, always Cole) counts to seven.
3. After the goalie reaches the number seven, both players are to kick their respective balls (pictured above), the goalie at the kicker and the kicker at the goalie.  The kicker's objective is to try and score at least one goal, though scoring both is more valuable.  The goalie's objective is to try and save at least one ball, though saving both is more valuable.
4. When both balls hit, it's called a "slap" or a "bonker." Both terms are equally acceptable; usage depends on personal preference.
5. A goal is called a Mighty Blast.
6. When you get a goal or a save, you get a star. All stars go on your shirt. The stars are invisible.
7. When the kicker scores both balls, it's called a Sky Blast. You get seven stars for a Sky Blast.
8. When the goalie saves both balls, it's called a Ball Bumper. You get seven stars for a Ball Bumper.
9. Games last seven minutes (have I mentioned that Cole's favorite number is seven?), or until a player reaches the necessary number of stars to win. The goalie must get seven stars to win, while the kicker must get fifty stars to win. Thus, the goalie can win a game with a single Ball Bumper, while the kicker would need seven Sky Blasts and another star to win. [Note: this may seem unfairly tilted toward allowing the goalie to win, but Cole is always the goalie, and he's only three and a half, so we're just a touch better at this than he is.]
11. If the goalie doesn't win, he will be sad.
12. If the kicker get three Sky Blasts in a row, the kicker has to hold the Special Baseball for the remainder of the game.
13 (REPEALED). The game can be played with three people, two kickers and one goalie. The game starts in the same manner. Scoring is the same, with one exception: if one person scores all three balls, the goalie does a Fire Blast (see Rule 16). [Note: Rule 13 was repealed soon after being enacted. No game was ever played under Rule 13.]
14. If you fall down, it's called Breaking your Bones.
15. If the two players are Superstars, the game starts "Ready, Set, Go, Superstar! Ready, Set, Go, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7!" The goalie has sole discretion to award the title of Superstar.
16. At any point in the game, the goalie can call for a Fire Blast, where both players show their belly buttons and pretend they are shooting fire out of their belly buttons. (Have we mentioned that Cole also LOVES belly buttons?) A Fire Blast, once called, lasts until the goalie decides the game should be resumed, or one minute, whichever is sooner.
17.The winner of the game gets to hold the Super Winner Trophy (a small piece off Cole's Lightning McQueen race car ramp).

Seriously, these rules were 100% Cole, with very, very little input from Mom and Dad.  We have some videos of Mom and Cole playing, but sadly they are too long to post here.  We've had some serious fun playing this game.  Also, thanks to Dad for taking careful notes during the creation of Bump Ball Soccer.  Oh, and as a side note, the colorful soccer ball pictured above and used to play the game is called "Beautiful Ball," and came from Nana's fifth grade classroom.  The kids in the class used to pass it around a circle, and the holder of the ball took his or her turn saying something nice about a friend.  One of her classes aptly named the ball Beautiful Ball, and we are lucky to have inherited it.  12/13/2014. 

Drool and Stuff

12/14/2014.

Finished Product

Cole and Nana's gingerbread train!  12/13/2014.

Will and Opa

William and Opa bonded in the living room while Nana and Cole made their train.  12/13/2014.

Gingerbread Train

 Cole and Nana made a neat gingerbread train!  12/13/2014.

Awesome Dance

Cole's awesome dance.  It's awesome.  12/12/2014.

Kinetic Sand

Where has this stuff been all my life?  It's awesome!  12/12/2014.

Cheeks + Kisses = Giggles

Camera angle is a little off, but you get the point.  12/11/2014.

Cole's Holiday Program

This evening, we attended Cole's holiday program at Family Flex.  His preschool class, dressed with snowman hats and felt buttons down their shirts, performed "The Chubby Little Snowman," "I'm a Little Snowman" (to the tune of "I'm a Little Teapot") and "All the World's a Rainbow."  Unfortunately, my recordings of the songs were too long for uploading here, so you get a dark little video of Cole lining up before the show.  Anyhow, Cole was lined up and ready to take the stage when we arrived, so he didn't see us take our seats in the "balcony" (really just the loft level of the school where the offices are located, which happens to overlook the Mountain classroom where the program was held).  He spent all of "The Chubby Little Snowman" and the first part of "I'm a Little Snowman" looking for us and not participating.  I felt so sad and terrible that he couldn't find us and continued to wave frantically from the balcony hoping he'd look up and see me.  Finally, he did.  He got the hugest, most adorable, full-face smile and loudly whispered, "Mommy!" from his spot on stage when he found me.  I was so relieved--maybe more than he was.  He stood there for a few seconds just beaming and whispering, "Mommy!"  And then he started singing and dancing along with his friends (in typical, over-the-top, three-year-old-boy fashion).  12/10/2014.