Going Out With a Bang

Wow, another year over and a new one is about to begin. I can't believe it. This year just flew by. Now it's time to start a new year and with it the annual wishing it was already spring fever has begun. Seriously, in our house, the clock chimes midnight on New Year's Day and we are counting down until spring. Part of it is we just are not cold weather people. Part of it is we hate wearing so many clothes. And another part is, in order for me to sell the outgrown clothes on ebay, I have to start washing, steaming and photographing the summer clothes mid January. Yikes. Not looking forward to that.

Thankfully mother nature blessed us with a very nice and warm last day of the year. We pretty much spent all day outside in pleasant, if a bit windy, 68 degree weather. Loved it. Here are few pics of our evening, with more to come. I am taking a break and nursing a non alcohol related headache, but in a few minutes we will be having the Woodard Wii Winter Olympics. Nicholas used his Toysrus gift card (thank you Aunt Margie) to buy Mario & Sonic's Vancouver Winter Olympics for our Wii. And the games will begin shortly. After that it is a night of board games, movies and ringing in the new year. The boys think they will make it to midnight and we are going to let them, but my money is on them crashing within 5 minutes of Legends of the Guardian movie. We'll see. For now, here are a few pics from earlier.

Nicholas strapping his helmet on for a bit of Rip Rider Racing.

Greyson decided he had rather race his old scooter, rather than the Rip Rider or his new scooter.

The Rip Rider in case anyone was wondering what the heck I was talking about. It is like a big wheel, only it has caster wheels and spins like crazy. Both boys have one and they give me numerous moments of severe heart palpitations but the boys love them.

Staking out the site for the fireworks display.

My little rednecks, finding their seats (many many yards away) to watch the show.

The show!

These were actually incredible fireworks for shooting off in the back yard, or in our case, the front yard. And to all our neighbors...you're welcome for the redneck display, we were happy to provide it, along with the extremely loud booms that accompanied them. Sorry we only shot of 12 of them, lol.

White and Semi-Blue Christmas

Despite the great stomach bug of 2010, we had a wonderful Christmas. We deviated away from tradition a bit this year in an effort to keep from spreading our germs. Sad that we missed Christmas Eve at Cranmama's house, we always look forward to that. but it has been rescheduled for this week and now the boys have something else to look forward to. We missed Mimi coming up and spending the night with us on Christmas Eve, she was still willing but I wouldn't wish this on anyone, let alone my little mother. So we talked to her several times on the phone. Santa was kind to us and the boys really enjoyed themselves despite our quarantine.

Oh and we were well enough to go over the boys' great grandmother's house by then, so we still got to experience one of our special traditions and spend time with our family. Here are a few pics from Christmas Day, completely out of order but I have limited time to move them around tonight.

White Christmas! First time in 17 years. This was taken right after the boys woke up, at about 6:30 in the am! I think we ended up with 2-3 inches by the time the day was done.

Just love those dimples and blue eyes, which sometimes, I could swear, are turning green like his Daddy's beautiful eyes.

Quick snapshot after Santa left but before the boys stormed the room. It was a very crowded room and there are plenty of better spots for the tree (and the black recliner, ugh) but I like it here (the tree, not the recliner) where I can see it whenever I am going across the house.

Little Drummer Boy. Santa, in all his infinite wisdom, brought Nicholas a set of drums.

We finally caved and bought the boys handheld video games. Nicholas loves his and Greyson likes his ok, but he had rather have the "Nintendo gps" as he says.

Greyson and his Great Aunt Brenda. She is a great Aunt and he adores her. No that is not Greyson's little recliner, it is a Christmas present for Great Grandmama Eloise's dog.

Nicholas with his very favorite person in the entire world. Look at his cheesy smile. He has the sweetest smile right until you point a camera at him, then he makes these weird faces. That is why many pics of him are true candid snapshots.

Buzz, the silly face, Lightyear. Grey loves superhero and Toy Story costumes. Loves.

Speaking of superhero. I took each boy out shopping for the other, and Nicholas bought Greyson some PaperJamz drums and this Spiderman piggy bank. Pretty cool. My youngest is nuts for superheros.

The boys and two of their cousins. Notice how sad my two look? It is because they do not have any food, Daddy was slow making their plates and Mommy was apparently too busy taking pics to care that they were "starving to def".

This is the Hot Dog Stand that Greyson saw in the Young Explorer's catalog. I am not sure why but he kept asking for this for weeks before Christmas. And that is Nicholas with his play knife. it came with this army guy set that Santa brought him.

And is similar to the knife that Greyson got with his Police Officer set. I have no idea if Policemen really carry knives like this but it works for Greyson. Although I will admit that they have been using it to cut the "food" they sell at their hot dog stand instead of actually stabbing each other. Still, it is never a good idea to arm Greyson.

Lost and found and perspective

Have you seen my Christmas spirit? Cause I have completely lost it right now. Since before Thanksgiving, I have been thinking about what a great Christmas this would be, the boys are just the perfect age plus Nicholas is 6.5 years old (almost) and I know these magical times are limited to a couple of more years. Oh, we'll still celebrate the true meaning of Christmas but once the gig is up on Santa, the commercialism and hoopla will lose some of its sparkle. I shouldn't complain, however I love the commercialism and hoopla!

So this year, I had all these plans and traditions that we follow, and now, thanks to a very very nasty stomach virus, they are completely out the window. This SUX! The boys missed going with their "Cranmama" and cousins to cut down a tree, make special gifts for their parents, and spend the day decorating Cranmama's tree. They were so looking forward to it. Instead the spent the watching movies and sleeping in their rooms, unable to keep much of anything down. We did not get our picture made with Santa this year. I shouldn't have waited until the last minute, but the boys get so excited that if we had gone a couple of weeks ago, they would have driven me crazy with the whole Santa thing. So no Santa picture this year. Today (Christmas Eve) it is our tradition to bake cookies for Santa and decorate them, then spend the afternoon getting ready for the big visitor that night, checking in on Noradsanta.org every so often. Instead we are spending the day in our rooms or on the couch just laying around, drugged on zofran or phenegren. I was so sick last night and this morning that just the thought of smelling baking cookies makes me run for my porcelain friend. I have and attic anc closet full of presents that either need to be wrapped or need to be put together. Not sure how that is going to happen unless the elves show up and take care of it for me.

So I am feeling mighty sorry for myself. Then I clicked on a friend's blog. She had posted a link to another blog, written by a Mom who's young son has relapsed Neuroblastoma. There is no cure for relapsed Neuroblastoma. She made a quick post of thanks for all the prayers, glad she has one more Christmas with her son (that will put things in perspective for you) even if it is spent in the hospital receiving chemo and then she had to cut it short because the nurses were there to give her son some Zofran 30 minutes before his chemo. The same Zofran that my boys are taking for their stomach virus. And I thank God that it is a stomach virus.

Merry Christmas! Much love and wishes for a happy, and healthy, new year!

New Look for the New Year

So I have had my blog for over a year and have decided to give it a little reconstructive surgery. Which means you will see some changes in layout and colors over the next couple of weeks. This will change almost daily, so if the blog looks different 3 days in a row, don't think you are crazy. I am doing it myself, so I will change it around and if I don't like it, I will change it around some more. If any of you have an opinion on a certain style or color I am using, please let me know. My goal is to have something fresh, something that I am comfortable working with, but also something that is easy and pleasing to read. So once again, opinions are welcome.

If the snow does not cancel school tomorrow, Greyson will have his Christmas program at school and I will post those pictures and a few others once I get them uploaded.

Vanessa

Snow Great!

Snow Days! We love 'em! Ok so it wasn't a lot of snow and it didn't hang around long. Hey this is Tennessee. But it was just enough for us and

our snow angels!

And lots of fun!

"I made a snow man and it was this big"

Smooth snow moves

"I can't get enough of this snow"

Inverted snow angel. I told him this wouldn't work but he didn't believe me until he had a face full of snow.