Sunny Snow Day

Despite having about 10 more inches of snow dumped on us last night it was a gorgeous day out today. The sun was blaring and I sweat my butt off while clearing the snow off my car. Perfect day for playing outside! (So disappointed in myself with the first videos taken with my iPhone...had to download free video rotate software so these would be upright!!!)

She is standing on a big, metal box that is in front of our house. Something like an electrical transformer or something...in other words, something that a kid probably shouldn't be standing on!

King of the mountain

Nothing like a tissue box to warm up your cold head!

Annual trip to the NE Aquarium

Gotta love those free passes from Ryan's work!!! Another fun trip to the aquarium while Daddy had a week off between Christmas and New Year's. This year we hit the IMAX show too...gonna be another few years until we do that again!!! The kids were freaked out by the fish "swimming" up to their faces so they watched basically the whole show with no 3D glasses on. Hopefully their vision wasn't too damaged!

On the Red Line! Not sure what they liked best, riding the train or the escalators!

Hermit crabs and starfish

I always get freaked out that the sharks are going to choose the day that we go to start eating the other fish in the big tank and the kids will be scarred for life!

Comfy?

I hope that she retains this ability to sleep in any position with minimal comforts surrounding her and is not like her mother who needs her 4 pillows exactly positioned for maximum comfort...

Santa who?

This is what the kids were doing 3 days after Christmas. "Sword-fighting with their heads" in a plastic storage bin. Oh the stories that George (our elf on the shelf) would tell Santa if he was still around!!! ("Sword-fighting" is what Nick calls the fencing game on Wii).

Let it snow!

The snow is coming down again right now. Not going to be as much as the blizzard we had on December 26th & 27th though!!! These pics and video are from some sledding we did in the blizzard snow at Borderland State Park. The kids had fun and Nick will stay outside in the snow for hours but I think that they are beach kids at heart....Nick keeps asking me when it's going to get warm again so we can go to the beach. That's my boy!

Christmas 2010!!

This year it felt like A LOT was done leading up to this day. Santa spent a lot of time looking for great gifts (and then returning them and buying the same thing back when they were cheaper than they were on Black Friday!) And all of that hard work was rewarded when the looks of joy came upon the kids' faces and the immediate possesion of certain gifts ensued. Nick was very sweet, not greedy at all; happy to give presents to others when he did not find his name on them. Chelsea laid eyes on her Dora trike and did not get off of it for about half an hour. Gotta love it....until the present wrapping was over and these were the words out of their mouths...Nick: "Can I play my new Toy Story 3 Wii game?" (this was a gift he received a week earlier). Chelsea: "Watch a show?" WHAT ABOUT THE 30 NEW TOYS/GAMES/BOOKS YOU JUST GOT???????? Santa was a little disappointed at first but then we prodded a little and they fell into step with diving into their new booty.

New Mr. Books!!!! Mommy: "Nick, which ones did you get?" Nick (without missing a beat and without knowing how to read): "Mr. Funny and Mr. Tickle". Correct!!!

Chelsea opened all of her presents while sitting on her new bike. She put each present into the basket for about 10 seconds before she opened it. So cute.

Jessie!!! I would like to give my own interpretation of some lines of Woody when I saw, "Jessie is NOT a doll, she's an action figure!!!" Jessie and Criss Cross Crash were the only specific items that Nick requested from Santa this year. We have the opening of CCC on the "big" video camera. Priceless. He screamed, "CRISS CROSS CRASH" when he only had about half the wrapping paper off. Still not sure how he knew what it was since he only asked for it because his friend Mikey told him he was asking for it. Nick had never even laid eyes on it before!

Poor Tommy. Santa forgot about him. He was very happy with this box though.

On to Uncle Pete & Auntie Tara's for a yummy Christmas dinner...

The Yankee Swap was a classic this year. One of our additions was a nice frame with a TERRIBLE picture of Papa in it. Quite a hit. Auntie Karen put in a man thong and the laughs went on and on and on.

The beautiful Stone brood (some of them)

Great Nana, Leah and Papa (there were many more people there (including 96 year old Uncle Abbot) but I didn't get to get a picture of everyone)

Uncle Matt the Mountain

Two peas in a pod

Brothers....or something more??!!