Mr. Adventure!

What to do when it's 16 degrees outside?  Why, try out the new sled, of course!  Both O and Daddy enjoyed going down the little hill in our neighborhood.  

I don't think we've been above freezing in about a week, so our Christmas snow is still around.  The sound of walking across the street reminds me of walking in to the lodge at the base of the ski hill.  Crunch, crunch.  Single digits next week!  Brrr!!

I also wanted to include a couple of other snippets of Owen's sense of adventure.  He loved riding his bike this fall, so here's a couple of videos filmed by my better half.  The first is O riding down a hill, and the second is O riding on the elementary school's USA map learning his states (both frequent requests by O during bike rides).

And lastly, we took swim lessons at the gym.  O really seems to like the water, and he actually tried to pay attention to the instructor.  We might do these lessons again when they come up, since we only made 2 of 4 this last go-around due to illness and travel.  And it was nice that it was pretty much a 2-on-1 lesson with Carson.  (Owen's in the green shorts.)

Apparently the way you teach toddler boys to swim is "airplane, soldier, chicken..."  I liked their enthusiasm for that and also how Owen helps Carson do the chicken by poking him in the armpit. 

Not to be left out, Miss H is working on sitting up these days!

I liked how they were both sucking their fingers while sitting together.  :)

Merry Christmas!

Ah, a rare peaceful moment when both kids are napping, and what am I doing?  Blogging. Oh well.  I don't want to get behind!  :)

It got colder this week, so we bundled up and even got snow for a real White Christmas!

Other Christmas preparations:  seeing Santa twice in the same day (once at the library and once at the zoo) and more Christmas cookies.

This is usually a dripping grotto at the zoo.  It's very transformed by the cold with 3-4 foot long icicles!  It was pretty cold at the zoo, but lots of animals didn't seem to mind.

Okay - on to Christmas Day and sibling pictures!

Some of Owen's favorite gifts:

Some of Hadley's favorites:

Other news:
I decided, somewhat fittingly, to start Owen's potty-training on the supposed apocalypse (12-21-12), mostly because both parental units would be around the house for a solid week.  So far, pretty good.  We've had a few incidents, but that's to be expected.  Our bribery, er reward, system seems to be working for the most part!

And Hadley continues to roll on.  I put her down on the pink blanket and stepped into the kitchen for a few minutes only to find her way over by the couch.  On her tummy, she even scoots forward a few inches dragging her head along the floor.  Watch out world!

I call these her crazy eyes.  :)

G&G's December to Remember

We had visitors the first two weeks of December - Granna and Grandad!  They were here for H's baptism and O's birthday, and all the other bits in between.  I've addressed those two events, so here are the other bits:

Making cookies with a little "helper" who kept sneaking bits of dough into his mouth!

Although she looks innocent here, Hadley has become/continues to be a little high-maintenance.  Perhaps she was spoiled by the extra arms, but she nearly required constant movement and ushering around facing out so that she could see the goings-on.  Otherwise, she made our environment quite unpleasant!  I'm hoping this is teeth or just a random phase.  Not cool!

We got O a new car seat, but I think he has enjoyed the box just as much.  He and Granna were very creative making it a store, airplane, rocket, food trailer, etc.  And Owen liked to have Hadley partake in the box's magic, too.

We had a little family Christmas to exchange presents with G&G while they were here.  Owen was pretty excited to get to the presents, and he was most stoked about his new bike ramp!  (He got a lot of use of some boys' ramps down the street this summer.  I'm hoping we can use it in the garage to burn off some energy this winter.)

Another baby hat!  :)

Oh, and H's first venture into solid foods - rice cereal!  She tolerated it, but doesn't really request it.  :)  She's also apparently forgotten how to take a bottle, so that's a new challenge for us, should we ever want to hire a baby-sitter for an evening out.  Sigh...

We also saw lots of Christmas lights.  Owen is totally enamored with lights.  He informs us every night that the neighbors have/haven't turned on their house lights and inventories what he can see from each window.  Then he requests to go in the car and see more lights.  Although it can get old, it gives us a new, youthful perspective to the magic of the season!

Owen is 3!

Saturday was Owen's 3rd birthday!  We decided to host just a small group of his friends for a construction truck-themed party at the house.  Figuring out how long/if 2 and 3 year-olds would be interested in various activities is pretty much like herding cats, as they say.  But the boys had fun just playing together and didn't really need much structure in the end.

Owen was so excited, he was dancing around before everyone arrived.

I had the boys each decorate their own hard hat for the festivities.  We managed to get most of them together for a photo op: from left, Carson, Everest, Owen, Brady, and Jacob. (Quentin came later, but he got a hat, too.)

Then it was downstairs for the obstacle course, scavenger hunt, hot potato, and free play until pizza time.  I'd say hot potato was pretty much chaos, but the other activities were mild successes.  :)

Back upstairs for pizza and cake.  Yes, it was a homemade cake.  The "dirt" was crushed Oreos, complete with a front end loader full of dirt, and a rainbow road of sprinkles. Pretty fun to do!  And the boys seemed to enjoy eating it, too.

Check out Owen's candle-blowing face at the end!

Then it was gift time.  I decided to chance it and have him open gifts with his guests present, so we could thank them in person and share the excitement.  All in all, it went well.  We did have to set aside one or two of the more "desired" presents to avoid a fracas, but I was impressed with the sharing and cooperation.

And Oma and Grandpa joined us via Skype for part of the festivities.  I think Carson kept them entertained.  :)

Then after everyone went home and we all had naps, we had a quieter family gift exchange.  Hadley was unimpressed.

(I hope some teeth result from all of this gnawing and slobbering soon!)

Uncky Dan and Aunt Jenn joined us via FaceTime.

And Owen got a lot of cars!

Happy birthday little man!  Can't believe you are 3 now.  Here's to many more!