Merry Christmas!

Snow Day...

After a few days of bitter cold and disappointing "dustings" of snow, the real deal finally arrived overnight. Thursday morning we headed out for some fun in the snow. Here's some pictures of our fun.

Sledding is pure joy for Peter...

Natalie came out for a few minutes.  No sledding for this girl...she'll have to wait until next year.

Luke wanted to go FAST!

Even in the snow, the boys love what they love.  Here's Peter with a truck, and Luke is below on the swings.  Although, these pictures below were from Monday, when we didn't have very much snow.

Christmas Pageant...

I adore the preschool Christmas Pageant.  It's hard to imagine anything better than small children getting their chance to shine!  Peter did a great job shaking his jingle bell...well, until he started trying to sword fight with the most adorable little girl next to him...of course it culminated in him hitting her with the bells.  Luckily she didn't cry, or I might have too.  I didn't include the "incident" in the video below...you'll just have to use your imagination!  He was positively adorable!  

Luke loved being on stage.  I think he may have thought this was his break-out opportunity for broadway.  Dramatic is an understatement...you can see for yourself in the video below.  He was very expressive and had a lot of fun.   Check out the videos and pictures below.  

Peter singing Jingle Bells...

Luke singing Baby Jesus We Love You

Here are a few pictures as well....

Here's Peter having a great time ringing his bell.  What a smile!

Luke singing "Go Tell It On The Mountain"

Aaron's sister, Sara, joined us for the evening.  Here is a beautiful picture of her with Natalie.  

Luke with two of his good friends, Gavin and Bella.

Here's Luke and Bella.  We have always joked with Bella's parents that we would like an arranged marriage of these two.  Bella's mom forwarded this picture to me and asked if we should use this as their official engagement picture.  Too funny.  These two are good buddies and have a lot of fun playing together!

Here's Peter and Lily (Bella's little sister).   She's such a love and had no problem planting a kiss on Pete's cheek...

Me First....

Here's what I've realized about 4 year olds....it's all about the order of life...more specifically who goes FIRST! Luke is obsessed with who is the line leader at school, who is the special helper, who is 4 vs. 4 1/2 yrs old, etc. Everything is a race in our house right now. Whether we're getting dressed, getting in car seats, eating dinner, or anything else. Not too long ago at preschool they discussed the concept of the first shall be last, and the last shall be first...this was translated into the saying, "first is the worst, second is the best." So, as you can imagine, when Luke happens to lose a race with Peter, he starts chanting his saying, and then in his own little mind, he has in fact "won." The culmination of his obsession of being first happened during dinner-time prayer the other night when Luke said, "and God, thank you for making me before you made Peter." Oh my, oh my, oh my. Later, I attempted to talk with Luke about how God has a perfect plan and a perfect time for everything...including when people are born. Luke looked at me and said, "still, God made me first." Okay, I officially give up!!!

Visit with Santa....

We braved the mall today so the boys could make a "build-a-bear" for Natalie for Christmas! What awesome brothers they are. They picked out a very cute, very girlie bunny for her.

While we were there, we stopped in to see Santa. Surprisingly, no one was terrified this year. Below is the picture...

Luke's Drawing

Before surgery, Luke was feeling pretty nervous. My friend, Kristin, had a great idea to draw a "comic strip" of what the day would be like so he could follow along and know what was coming next. Brilliant! So, when we got to the hospital yesterday, Luke spent about 1/2 hour drawing this out. (You can click on the picture to enlarge it, just use the "back" button on your browser to return to the blog.) Below are descriptions of what each picture is...


1. This is Luke waking up early. (we had to be at the hospital at 6am)
2. This is Luke putting on the gown...or special jammies as we called them.
3. This is the hospital bed where Luke waited.
4. This is Luke in surgery.
5. This is Luke after surgery...it was suppose to be a picture of him getting a popsicle, but he said he messed up and so it turned into a picture of him as a turtle. Too funny.
6. This is us driving home in our car.

I just had to share because I absolutely adore 4 year old art!

Hip hip hooray for Mary Bridge Children's Hospital...

I know that people have surgery everyday, and it always seems so removed...until it's your kid.  Back in October Luke smashed his thumb and in the process "triggered" his trigger thumb.  (see the pic below).  After a few trips to the hand surgeon we decided just to get it fixed so he would regain movement of his thumb. (Vital to his future in football and baseball)  

So, here we are today at Mary Bridge getting it fixed.  Let me just say that we are so blessed in Tacoma to have Mary Bridge Children's Hospital...the staff is awesome and just made the process so much easier.   Luke was pretty nervous coming today, but between the coloring, cartoons, popsicles and video games his nurses provided, we're pretty sure he's going to be asking to come back for more.  Luke is Luke and that means that he had everyone laughing.  The comedy really hit a high point when they gave Luke Versed to "calm" him before surgery.  He turned into "fun-Luke" and had Aaron and I and the surgeon laughing to the point of tears with his slurred speech and inebriated-like behavior.  Even when we prayed for him....he giggled uncontrollably.  

He came back from surgery a little sad, but they said he did great.  The nurse gave him juice and a popsicle, which made everything much better.   

Below are some pictures of our day.

Here's the thumb before surgery....

Just after surgery...hooray for apple juice!

Snuggle bear went into surgery with Luke, and came out with his paw wrapped too.

Popsicle time...it's all worth it when you get a popsicle.