White Christmas

We woke up on Christmas morning to snow on the ground. After opening presents at home and then opening presents at Eric's parents' house, we eventually headed out to go sledding.

From the beginning Felix was not really crazy about the idea. Mostly he was just upset that we made him wear a snow suit. After the first ride together when he got snow in his face he always opted to face me as we rode down.

 Eventually he had just had enough. Eric took him back to Grandma and Grandpa's house for a nap while I stayed and sledded with Ike.

We had a great time together.

He enjoyed riding by himself, but mostly he loved to ride with me. I let him ride on my back a couple of times, which was fairly amusing.

 

Grandma and Grandpa came to join us just as we were calling it a day.

Meeting Santa Claus

The boys got to meet Santa Claus a few weeks ago. It went about as expected. Ike was eager to sit on his lap, tell him that he's 4 now, and request some dinosaurs for Christmas. Felix was reluctant to meet him, and even more reluctant to sit on his lap. I did manage to get him to say, "toys, please" before we left.

On a similar note, on Saturday we had a choir practice before our Christmas program that was held on Sunday. Felix sat and stood in the last pew the entire hour. He didn't play with any other children or seek out Eric or me to hold him. Near the end of the rehearsal Ike informed Eric that he needed to use the bathroom, so off he went, and he didn't come back. Soon we were looking for him. I didn't realize that another ward* was having a Christmas brunch while our rehearsal was going on. One of the men from the other ward approached Eric and asked him if he was looking for a little blonde boy in a red hoodie. When Eric told him that he was, the man said that Ike had sat down at a table and eaten a plate of food (probably one that was set out for some other child who then abandoned it), and then went to go see Santa Claus. Eric found him in line, eager to talk to Santa Claus again.  And that story, in a nutshell, is how my boys are different.

*A ward is a name for a Mormon congregation. It's sort of like a parish. Usually multiple wards share one church building and stagger their meeting times for efficiency.

Shepherds' Dinner

I've heard of a few families who have a shepherds' dinner as an annual Christmas tradition. We decided to do one this year. I used this blog post as a format for our evening. One of the small humans didn't want to wear his shepherd attire, but aside from that, it was a great success. I loved talking about the birth of Christ with our sons, especially with Ike who has a much better understanding than Felix. We talked about what shepherds do and what it must have been like for an angel to come to visit the shepherds. We also talked about what it would have been like to see Jesus when he was a brand new baby. It was about as spiritual as we get with our two little monsters whose rambunctiousness can make reverence rather illusory.

We are all looking forward to doing it again next year; the boys can't wait to have a picnic of cheese and crackers on the living room floor again, and I can't wait to have a good excuse to buy and eat goat cheese. (In fact, It's unlikely that I will wait for a good excuse to do that.)

An Eventful 30 Days

On November 7 I became a Certified Genealogist. It's a big deal in the genealogy world. I started my portfolio last October, worked on it, fretted over it, dealt with insomnia because of it, and finally submitted it in May. The results took longer than I expected, and I was certain that it had been sent to a fourth judge who would decide my fate when I got an email with the great news on November 7.

Within the next couple of weeks things got shored up at work for me to be promoted (sort of), and I made my first renewal sale with a client (which meant a commission). Some of these things were supposed to happen back in May, so I've been waiting a while for them. So that was awesome.

Then I turned 30 and went skydiving.

On December 6, my older boy turned 4, and I attended my annual company holiday party. It's always a fun party, but this year was especially so since I won two airfare tickets to Hawaii. For real. We had been planning to go since Eric has an aunt and uncle there for a few more years, so we have a free place to stay. The biggest expense is the airfare, but our tenth anniversary is coming up at the end of April, so we were planning to celebrate in a great way. There were lots of other awesome prizes at the party, and there always are. We get tickets based on our length of time with the company. This year I put all six in the Hawaii airfare drawing, and I'm very glad I did.

Now I have all winter and spring to daydream about our trip.

Ike is 4

This adorable little boy turned 4 on Saturday. A few things about him:

• He is in pre-school one day a week, and he really likes it. He usually refuses to tell me much about what goes on over there, but I know he has fun because he asks me pretty much every day if it's Friday and if he's going to school that day. He loves to take the same favorite toys to show and tell over and over again. When show and tell has a theme I have a hard time convincing him to take something along that theme. (The pic on the left was taken after his field trip to the fire station.)
• He is a (mostly) fun big brother. He loves to wrestle and "teach" his little brother the right ways to play things. He also can get pretty frustrated if Felix doesn't do things his way.
• Ike is such a cuddly kid. It's so nice because he wasn't much of a cuddly baby.
• He's really social and is constantly on the lookout for other kids to play with.
• He loves to watch shows and movies. 
• Ike is an early riser and is usually up between 6:30 and 7.
• His favorite color is yellow.
• He loves dinosaurs.
• Ike loves being read to, but he doesn't often sit down with books by himself. This is surprising to me because when he was about 2 he'd sit down with books by himself for up to about half an hour.
• His chores include putting away the silverware and other dishes that he can reach, picking up his toys, and helping with his laundry. It usually takes a lot of coaxing (and bribery) to get him to help with these things.
• Ike frequently wears the same shirts for as many days in a row as he can get away with. His favorites are his dinosaur shirts, his cougar shirt, his fireman shirt, his Cars hoodie, and a few others. I will let him wear them as long as he'd like, as long as they are not visibly dirty and they do not smell. This is what I call choosing my battles.
• He's very independent when it comes to choosing his clothes and going outside to play with his friends. But when it comes to taking his shoes off or putting them on, or going to the bathroom, he acts totally helpless. We're working on that.

For his birthday we went to the Bean Museum with his grandparents. Then we went to McDonald's for lunch. He had a great day but was a little disappointed to wake up and learn that he was still the same size as he was the day before.