Christmas Cookies

 I don't think the Food Network will be featuring our Christmas cookies any time soon, but the boys had fun making them!  (They used the recipe from Big Bird's Busy Book, the same one we used when we were kids.)

Home for the Holidays

Merry Christmas Eve! We have all been enjoying cousin and grandparents time. :)

(Auntie Nora is very brave -- she was holding the stake for the Christmas lights while Daniel was wielding the mallet!)

Go South, Young Men

 We stopped at South of the Border on our way down to Florida.  The boys had fun playing on the animal statues!  We also took the elevator up to the top of Pedro's hat.  :)  We had it all to ourselves -- South of the Border has clearly seen better days.  But we enjoyed ourselves!

Caroling

 The boys' preschool had the Family Sing-a-Long this morning.  It was really nice.  This year the boys actually sang a bit and behaved well!  (Some of the two year olds did not, which made me feel better about last year!)

As you can see, they were each lucky enough to get to hold their favorite color bell for Jingle Bells.  :)

Animal Room

 Mattie has been wanting to go back to Marbles for several weeks now, because he wanted to show me the "room with the animals."  It's a room oriented toward toddlers, and it's super-cool -- painted like a forest with a hollow tree, a log, and other related toys.  That was our first stop at the museum, and then we moved on to Jamesie's favorite (the room with the balls).

The boys also enjoyed dog-washing ("I'm putting all the dogs," said James, piling them up), and surfing. 

The museum wasn't as crowded this time as it has been on our previous visits, which made it a much more pleasant experience.

Puppynap

Poor Stanley -- the boys have taken over his bed!

Saving their Pennies

The boys' babysitter N got them piggybanks for Christmas.  They love them, and are now very excited about getting coins for their piggies!

Bouncy Sunday

 We had big plans to go to Maymont (a park/farm) on Sunday at Daniel's house, but nature did not cooperate -- it was cold and misty.  So while Mike and Uncle Adrian went out the Guitar exhibit, Auntie Nora and I took the boys to an indoor inflatable place.  It was awesome, partially because we had the place almost to ourselves.  (And they had the lights on and weren't blasting music, unlike at the birthday party -- much less sensory overload!)

Mattie and James had a blast -- they didn't stop running and bouncing the whole time we were there! Mattie isn't afraid of the slides any more, either -- he went right up without any hesitation. 

Daniel was a bit under the weather, so he had a good time at first and then slowed down.  He perked up when we went to the yogurt shop afterwards, though! 

Conversation from the back seat:

Daniel (to me):  "I bet you don't know the name of the yogurt shop!"
Mattie:  "It's Sweet Frog."
Daniel: "No, it's a surprise!"
(repeat the above exchange 5 or 10 times)
Mattie:  "When are you going to tell her?"