Christmas in Tiona

We spent Christmas in Pennsylvania this year. We got to see Cole play Santa Clause in his school Christmas program. He was a great Santa!

Mathew enjoyed the program from Grandma's lap.

Christmas morning in Tiona was crazy! Kids, presents, and paper everywhere! Here's a pic of Nathan and Mathew with cousins Cole and Carter. In matching pajamas, its hard to tell where one kid stops and another starts!

With a little experience under his belt now, Mathew knew what to do when we set a present in front of him.

Nathan, a gift opening pro, had no problems tearing into his gifts. Getting presents out of their boxes was another story. But Grandpa had a knife, pliers, and wire cutters ready, so Nathan got to enjoy his guitar right away.

Mathew hanging out with Grandpa...

Mathew got pretty comfortable in this big, yellow inflatable duck. It was pretty popular with all the kids.

Christmas in Sugar Grove

We headed to Sugar Grove to celebrate Christmas with the Harveys. We got a nice picture of the "men" all together, but I could only get two of them to wear matching shirts!

After dinner, the boys got a bath and into clean pajamas. This is the only picture I got where all their "parts" are covered.

Then it was time to open presents! Mathew was very into the pile of gifts right next to him.

He wanted the one at the very top...

Nathan enjoyed the Cars bean bag toss game that he got. Here's a shot of him making a great toss into the top right hole. Of course, he's only about 19 inches away!

Holiday Travels

Chris and Nathan drove to Pennsylvania for our Christmas visit. Nathan was a trooper for the 16-17 hour journey. He and Chris had a great time "road tripping".

Mathew and I flew on frequent flyer miles. Our journey was supposed to be 4 hours and two flights, but ended up being 16 hours, 1 successful flight, 2 failed attempted flights, and a chartered bus ride. To make a long story short there was a good flight, a delayed flight due to quirky avionics, a redirected flight due to bad weather, an airport closing due to blizzard, a two hour "what's going to happen to us?" period, and finally a chartered bus ride. By the time we arrived in Erie, I had been carrying Mathew (16 lbs) in my arms for 16 hours. And there was that giant backpack crammed with diapers, wipes, formula, babyfood, etc. My back ached the rest of the week. Mathew was a superb traveler. He ate, he slept, he giggled, laughed, and made funny noises. He played peek-a-boo with our fellow travelers, and he hokey pokey'd his little heart out (at 8 months old, I had to help him a little with the hokey pokey). Here are a few snapshots of him on the first flight, the second try at the second flight, and the bus ride (which he thought was a blast).

Fortunately, our return trip was completely uneventful!

Merry Christmas

Santa came to our house early this year since we were headed to Pennsylvania for Christmas. Nathan dutifully left a plate of cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve (12/19). He picked each cookie himself from holiday tray that Karen gave us.

Then, without any fuss, he put on his PJ's, brushed his teeth, and went to bed. The next morning when he woke, he came into our room to ask us if Santa came. We told him to go and check. He went to the end of the hallway and saw this...

We heard him saying something about a dumptruck and a scoop before coming back to wake up Mathew.

Mathew worked on opening one gift the entire morning. Nathan helped him open the rest of his presents.

Nathan went straight to the dumptruck...

...and then to the wheel loader, which he used to scoop small packages into the dumptruck.

The scooping and dumping went on for most of the morning. Mei Li was very intrigued by all this action and stayed rooted to one spot under the tree to watch it all.

Mr. Mathew

These pictures are a little late. They were supposed to be his 6 month pictures, but they didn't get taken until he was 7 months. And now that he is nearly 8 months old, I have them! They were worth the wait. He has grown a lot! And his head is no longer striped (see earlier blog posts August and September 2008). I just love the last picture.