Boys at Work

More Christmas '11- Gran and Grandpa's House

Yay!  More construction equipment.  He's been playing with this all week.

A ride-on excavator!  This has racked up hours of play this week, too. 

The entire time we were opening presents Milo happily walked around with his gyro bowl and snacks.  For those who have not seen one, a gyro bowl is a space age snack holder that cannot be spilled.  Seriously, if the kid holds it upside down, the inner bowl rotates to remain upright.  It cannot be spilled, that is, unless your blonde toddler studies it methodically, then carefully and precisely inserts his finger to jam the rotaters on purpose and turns it upside down, thus spilling his teddy grahams all over the floor.

One of the presents from Gran and Grandpa was a toy air compressor.  It's awesome and came with an impact hammer and paint gun.

He's holding up a walkie-talkie on one ear and a container of bubbles to the other. "ALOO??"

hard at work, just like Daddy!

new jammies!  size 3T, dogs riding in cars. 

new jammies- size 5T- that combine his love of camo and dinosaurs.

They are just so cute when they're asleep!  We hope your holiday was relaxing- ours was!

More Christmas

Lately, to relax, I've been crocheting. Also, I'm really into cowl scarves.  The above picture shows the result of these two things.  Are you related to me and a female?  THERE IS A COWL SCARF IN YOUR FUTURE!

two blonde cuties sharing a rocking chair.  you are welcome.

trying to play Grandma Dickson's organ

come on, Mama, let's fire this thing up! 

sweet cheeks

opening stockings stuffed by Gran and Grandpa

I wish he kept these on for more than 2 seconds at a time because that is some funniness right there.

playing happily, wearing one of the wristbands from his stocking

Dickson Christmas 2011

Family Picture- Christmas Eve

We attended Christmas Eve service with the whole family and ended the evening singing Silent Night by candlelight.   We've had a lovely holiday weekend and hope you all did, too.

The Family Picture Out-takes

Grandpa making faces to get Milo to smile, makes Luke laugh as well.  Levi is enthralled with his battery operated candle.

cheeeeeeese.  Milo still trying to escape.

this is my personal favorite.

Levi's little face amuses me greatly here, tho obviously I'm not thrilled in the photo *grits teeth*

Christmas Baby

Today we spent lots of time visiting with Corrine, cuddling on Kosse, and eating all kinds of goodies. The boys had a ball running around Gran and Grandpa's house. 
How cute is this baby?????

napping on Grandpa

Levi and Milo both are quite taken with Kosse.

Surprised Kosse

Contemplative Kosse

Bedimpled Kosse

Milo loves his Grandma D.  Look how giant he looks compared to the baby!

Gingerbread Night

We enjoyed a holiday evening with Joel, Kelly, and the kids last night. As usual, hanging out with them was a blast.

We exchanged a few gifts.  Luke received a gift certificate from Joel entitling him to a free week's worth of deydrated camping food for their camping trip this summer.  They always give such good gifts. 

CUTE NEPHEW ALERT!

Milo taking un-wrapping very seriously.

Uncle Joel took care of Milo's house.  All Milo really was interested in was sneaking chocolate kisses into his mouth.

He worked very hard peeling off the little pieces of foil.  By the time he got it unwrapped, it was a soft melted mess.

It's been awhile since I was a practicing structural engineer and it showed on my house.

Here is Levi and Luke's house.

Levi helping tile the roof.

Ruby's adorable house.

MORE CHOCOLATE!

There was much coaster car riding.  Kelly won this particular race but to be honest, she threw some pretty vicious elbows.

another race

Milo loves cousin time.

sweet dreams, everybody!

Advent

Gran and Grandpa have kept a family tradition going- they present to us in December a big box of advent gifts. There is one to open every day of the month. We all enjoy this and it's so fun to see the boys excitedly picking out a gift for the night. Levi asks several times a day, "Is it time to open the present yet??"

Milo takes present opening seriously.

"I can't seem to get this box open."

"Daddy, will you do it for me?"

"Aha!  It's a new phone!"  It wasn't a new phone, actually, but a cool glasses/contacts hardshell case for travelling.  Milo still held it up to his ear and said, "ALO?  ALO?"