High Five

A shot of Chris quickly passing by santa on his way out of the playhouse!



One "scary" santa and one sad Aiden



Aiden's fist pump for Santa



Chris and Dadda decorating their train.



Our friends, the Gould's decorating!



Aiden decorating solo while Mama is busy with the camera.



Is that Rudolf or Chris - dress up is always fun!



The boys! Mike with Chris and Uncle Andrew with Aiden.



Piggy backs for Chris.



Awesome piggy backs from Uncle Andrew.



Chris is busy on his phone saying his "I love you's"



The boys pre-nap today, refusing to get out of their cars and into their cribs.



Aiden and his chocolate milk face gotee.



The boys at Yankee Candle in the pirate ship. It was fun until Aiden tried to push Chris off of the barrel he was standing on to get a turn!





Can it really be? 5 days until Christmas? Holy Moly! Mike asked me a few days ago whether I was excited. While I am, I love this time... I love the preparations, decorations and most of all, I love the anticipation. If I could make the week before Christmas last through the entire winter, I might actually look forward to the winter for once! I can not believe that we are nearing the end of December.

So back to reality and the fact that there is less than one week until Christmas. We have been celebrating December in style and having a lot of fun! On Thursday the boys went to playschool (and so did Momma!) and later that afternoon, our friends the Goulds came over to play. We decorated gingerbread trains, which they all seemed to enjoy. Aiden was very into filling all of the frosting piles with candy and took his job seriously. After we played for a bit, we headed to the Suffield library for the boys first visit with Santa. As you might imagine, the idea sound better than the actual outcome. Chris was scared to death and Aiden seemed to brave it but when we encouraged him to actually sit with Santa for a picture the tears began to flow. I guess that's what being almost 2 is all about! Thursday actually marked the boys 22 month birthday. Where has time gone??? Although neither of the boys were interested in getting too close to the man in the big red suit, Aiden was daring enough to give Santa a "high five" and "knuckles/fist pump." I guess there is always next year. We had a fun visit and a great night of holiday festivities!

On Friday we headed for the boys first trip to the Holyoke Mall and Yankee Candle. The mall was quick.. super quick, but the boys did great. They actually loved it and were hamming it up for all of the attention that they were getting. We scooted into AC Moore and were back at our car within 20 minutes. It was a shopping success!

Afterward, we headed off to our next shopping adventure. It has been years since I had been to Yankee Candle which of course means the boys had never been. My friend Leeanne was a super sport and came along as my right hand man and Aidens personal assistant. He was such a flirt and loved being with her! I couldn't have done it with out her! If I had, I am pretty sure we would have owned half of Yankee Candle before we were done for all of the breakables that the boys could break! We met up with the Lacroix's and Chotkowski's and had a blast. The boys would have been happy staying for hours but I was a mean Momma and cut the visit short to get home for nap time. We will be returning though and hope to spend some more time with our friends as it was great to see everyone and so fun to see the kids light up at all of the sights and sounds.

After naps on Friday, Dziadzu came for a visit. Aiden and Chris were in heaven. It was quite a day of fun and they were spoiled the whole time through.... I was too as I had company all day long! What could be better?

Saturday we had a day of NOTHING! I headed out early for what was going to be a "quick" shopping trip. Mostly for groceries but somehow I returned 4 hours later. Tis the season I guess. Traffic, lines and more traffic....

This morning we went to an appreciation breakfast at church where the boys decided that they needed to try to be center stage. We had fun catching up with our friends Tanya and Gary and dropped the boys off at the nursery so that we could go to church. After naps and church, Uncle Andrew came for a visit. After warming up, the boys quickly realized that Uncle Andrew gives awesome piggy backs and is great at running around, tickling and playing. He and Daddy also brought the boys to the playground for a bit so that I could get dinner made. It was fun for all!

We are off to enjoy our last week of play school and our last week of Christmas anticipation.... ENJOY! oxo