Dashing Through December

Christmastime is one of my favorite times of year! Everyone tries to be a little nicer, a little more patient and more thoughtful. It's also one of the busiest times of year which can make being nicer, more patient and more thoughtful really hard! But after all the end of semester projects and dance programs were done it was nice to have some time with my family to just BE.

Among the many Christmas happenings we took the kids into my Dad's office (he's my OB-GYN) for the ultrasound to find out what kind of baby we were having. The boys were very anxious for a sister. Blake made it very clear that we had enough boys in the family and that he wanted to name the baby Emily (after a friend at school). When the ultrasound tech confirmed undeniably it was a boy, Blake and Bryson both said "Noooo!" Blake followed that with telling the tech and my dad that we should name the baby Emily anyway because that would be funny! After we got home and the news settled for the boys Blake came to me and said we should name the baby Rockstar. I told him that was fine but we might have to change his name after he was born. We even put Rockstar on his Christmas stocking!

But back to Christmas. Here are my cute boys all dressed up after Christmas Sunday.


Bradley


Bryson


Blake


Brock fell asleep on the way home from church so here we are sort of still in Sunday clothes after his nap.


Boys and Penguins


So cute and sleepy Christmas morning!


Let the unwrapping begin!

After all the Christmas Festivities were over we still had a week left of vacation and a fun visit from the California cousins--Jake, Regan and Alli with Aunt Flower and Gene. We spent one night at Amazing Jake's playing around and eating tons of food!


Chase took Brock on this little teacup ride. He loved it! Head banging and swirling and all!


Blake, Bryson and Bradley on the train. It's cute and goes around in circles a million times. They love it!


Jake and Alli in one car and Katelyn and Regan in another go on a really fun and fast--forward backward spinning thing. I clearly have no idea what the real name of this ride is but it looked intense!


Although it might sound crazy to buy snowballs, this was one of the funnest activities I've done with my kids. We had a giant snowball fight courtesy of Bahama Bucks and their ability to make really good snowballs! Here is the girls team ready to aim and throw.


The boys team was equally confident in their abilities!


Bryson and Jake


Regan (running in the back) with Katelyn and Alli.


Brock was the smart one gathering up more ammo!


At some point the boys decided to use the lids from the coolers as shields. Nice engineering boys!


Blake is just having a good time. This was taken before he got pelted in the head by a snowball!


Megan running to attack some unsuspecting target!


Kaley trying to show off her mad skillz!


Brock and Adam were totally content picking up all the snowballs on the ground and putting them into whatever container we would give them. Sooo Cute!


Apparently at some point Brock got hungry.


Adam is trying to decide if Brock is an Evil Genius or completely Insane!


Guess I was a little hungry too! I blame the hormones.


Brock with a mouth full of snow. I think he ate more than he threw!


Now he's concentrating on building instead of eating.


Two of my cute boys and their little pile of snow. Life's simple pleasures!