The $200.01 penny adventure

December 14th                                                                                       December 31st

I just wish we could have found/kept the penny (along with a photo of the x-ray and a copy of the ER bill, lol!)  Plus, I shouldn’t complain about the $200 E.R. co-pay, I know it could be worse.

The hermit crabs

Santa Claus brought Lauren a pair of Hermit crabs for Christmas this year.  She named them Mr. Crabs and Mrs. Crabs.  Here we are cleaning out their cage, playing with them, and refreshing their water.

Another day at the pond

It was a nice warm day outside, so we couldn’t skate on the pond out of fear of completely ruining the surface.  Instead, we played a little boot hockey and let the kids slide around on the hills.

Thanks to Phil and his expertise, we were able to dig the hole and flood the rink fairly quickly.  Hopefully, we’ll have a beautiful smooth surface soon.

Lazy bones here was able to convince Daddy to tug him home instead of walking.

Here are Jack and Daddy playing with one of Jack’s Christmas gifts.  I suggested that my parents get him some imaginext stuff for a gift (it’s like the new little people for older kids.)  They ended up getting him this huge castle with smaller battering rams, catapults and a giant fire breathing dragon.  What we didn’t know when they bought it was that they all take batteries and are interconnected.  So, when you start to attack the castle with the dragon or battering ram the castle talks back (it’s super cute with thing like “man your battle stations” “dragon!” etc. etc.)  It was definitely a hit.

At “our” pond

Today, Lauren and I went over to “our” little pond to try out the fresh ice.  It was a little bumpy, but it was still a good time.  Here is Lauren in the “penalty box” (which is in reality, is where we will dig the hole to flood the rink later.)

Dress up time

This year, even Jack got in on the awesome dress up clothes as Christmas gifts tradition (thanks 75% off clearance racks!) Who doesn’t love a good game of dress up?

Merry Christmas

Yaaay, nobody was sick (ok I wasn’t feeling great on Christmas, but I rallied.)

Merry Christmas Eve

Here are Jack and Lauren hiding behind the enormous stack of gifts my parents brought with them today.  Good gravy!

Here we are with a new Christmas tradition.  Decorating our own plates.  If it were a contest I’m pretty sure I would have voted for Kevin’s flawless grumpy cat plate.

FLAWLESS!

GaGa and PaPa even made plates.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a goodnight!

Ice skating fun

 

Lauren’s a pretty good skater already from the past month of hockey.  Jack, however, had never been on skates before.  He wasn’t a fan, but stuck with it.

Christmas Shopping

Grandma Georgie sent money for the kids to pick out a Christmas gift themselves (which was very fun for them.)  Jack chose a star wars light sabre and Lauren picked a chalk board art project for her room.  She colored and decorated the outside of it and then wrote “Lauren’s room, no Jack allowed” on the chalkboard.

Jack’s Christmas program

Here is the ‘icus at his pre-school Christmas program.  It was a cute show.

Bustin’ a move…

With our Godson Mark after the show.

With Grandpa & Grandma

Christmas with Grandma & Grandpa

Today, we were able to celebrate Christmas with Grandma & Grandpa Thompson.  They just got back from an awesome trip to Hawaii with Auntie Jen & Uncle Craig.  They brought back some fun festive clothes from the island (which will be super adorable without their winter clothes on underneath, hahahha!)

Lauren was making the rounds dancing.

Here is Lauren with the dolly bed that Grandpa handmade for her American Girl dollies.

Here are the kids with the surprise hit of Christmas.  Their very own unique to them hand turned magic wands.  They both really into Harry Potter right now (we’re reading the first 4 books of the series to Lauren so they’ve seen a couple of the movies as we’ve finished the books.)  “Expelliarmus”

Making cookies

They even helped to decorate a few.

Then, I did the rest.