A Christmas to Remember!

This was definitely a wonderful Christmas and one to remember. It was our last Christmas in beautiful Colorado (for awhile at least :), it was a white Christmas, and my entire family was here to enjoy it with us! Read below for all of the fun we had....and with Christmas now comes Peyton's birthday as well!

Polar Express Train with Santa

So, in the spirit of trying to experience as many neat things as Colorado has to offer before we leave, I scheduled us to go on the Royal Gorge Polar Express train to the North Pole! We went the weekend before Christmas, and it was perfect...boys were healthy and no blizzards for the trip down! We put them in their PJs, got on the train, and had a great time! Lawson was pumped to be on a real passenger train, however Peyton was a bit restless :) But it was fine...we ate dinner, got cookies and hot chocolate, sang Christmas carols, and the elves read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas to all the kiddos. Then we picked up Santa at the "North Pole" and he came through our car to say hello on the way back! He spent a bit of time with Peyton & Lawson which was neat and gave them silver jingle bells. Then once we got back we got a picture with him, and good thing we were first in line because we were all a little tired by then!

Fantasy Flight

I don't have a picture, unfortunately, but I was able to participate in a really cool charity event put on by SkyWest called Fantasy Flight. Since I'm a part of the Junior League here, we partner with SkyWest to put this on every year, and basically 50 kids get randomly chosen from an underprivileged school here to go to the North Pole on a plane to see Santa! So many people work so hard to put this on, and I just had a small part, as I was able to be a chaperone for some of the families. It was so fun to see the excitement and the looks on the kids' faces when they got to board the plane, many for the first time, and go see Santa!

Christmas Eve

Playing with daddy in all the snow we got the day before!

Here is a picture of us at church Christmas Eve night...such a special time with our boys :) And Lawson participated with the candle lighting this year which he thought was really neat. We will miss going to our church next Christmas :(

Christmas Morning

We spent Christmas morning at home with just our family since my family didn't get in till later Christmas day. It was so fun to see Peyton open his stocking this year with Lawson and get into opening up his "presents" as he calls them. We took our time, had some yummy cinnamon rolls, and had a great time celebrating Jesus' birthday!

Lawson giving Peyton a sweet hug while Peyton's trying to feed his baby with the new baby bottle Santa gave him!

Lawson's new (& long awaited!) crane truck from Santa....this was definitely his favorite gift, as he's only been talking about it for at least 6 months!

Lawson playing the new guitar Santa gave him...and the mic really works which even surprised mommy and daddy!

Lawson with his new suitcase from Grammie....he can't wait to go to Texas soon!

With his new snow shovel....now he can really help daddy shovel the driveway :)

Christmas with the Family

So my family (Cici, Papa, Aunt Ashley, & Jason) got here later Christmas day and we did our Christmas the next day. It's always more interesting (and fun!) with little kiddos but we managed to get all of the gift opening done before lunch!

Blessed to be with family!

Had to show my new Joy to the World napkins...thanks CiCi & Papa!

Pretty tree and pretty gifts!

Look what we saw out our windows while we were opening gifts...beautiful!

Peyton loves his new chair from Cici & Papa...now he has one just like Big Bro!

And finally, the big hit was Cici & Papa's big gift to Lawson....the roller coaster! The boys played with this NONSTOP for days! Here is a glance of what that was like....

Peyton's 2nd Birthday

We had just a small get together at our house for Peyton's Birthday and it was perfect for him...he actually had lots of fun! It was a "Ball" theme so we had the ball pit out, as well as a couple other ball toys and plenty of just balls! So that along with the boys' new roller coaster and rocking horse, it was a fun time. Peyton also said his age and his name that day for the first time, as well as "cake"! We had no idea how much he liked cake since he's really never had any, but he ate the whole cupcake and continues to ask every day for a "cupcake" since we are still have frozen ones leftover....let's just say we had way too much dessert!

Party invite and Party menu....since it was a "ball" theme we had a cheese ball, watermelon balls, meatballs, and chocolate balls!

Thanks to Aunt Ash for decorating these cute cupcakes!

Peyton was ready to eat his cake! I don't think he's ever had cake before, but it was as if he knew what it was...he said "cake" right then for the first time and ate the whole thing!

Yummy mom...I love cake just so you know :)

The boys playing in the ball pit!

Peyton got a really neat rocking horse named Blaze for Christmas, and here he is teaching his party guests how to ride!

Thanks for coming everyone!

The "Party Planners"....so glad you were here Mom and Sis!

Fun party favors full of....you guessed it, all sorts of balls!

Chillin' out after the party watching some football with the guys...so cute :)

Skiing in Breckenridge

Before Ashley and Jason headed back home, we spent a day in Breckenridge skiing and having fun. The temperature was perfect, but it was incredibly windy...even so, we had a great time skiing and hanging out all day! Pics to come soon :)

New Year's Eve

Since my mom and dad were still in town, Steven and I got to go out for New Year's Eve again this year! We didn't do anything too fancy (and don't think we even stayed up till midnight :) but we went out to eat at a really good restaurant here called Nosh and had a great time!

See you next year!!!! Here's to a wonderful and joyous 2012!!!

First Half of December!

This is turning out to be a very full month, so I thought I'd go ahead and post mid-month to avoid an overload of pics at the end! It's been a very fun and "typical" December...sending out cards, decorating, doing some shopping, having and going to some Christmas parties, running my annual Arbonne sale, etc....but we have also been blessed by some new Christmas activities! I don't think I've "officially" announced this news yet, but we are moving to Virginia this summer! Therefore, we are doing our best to enjoy everything we can here in Colorado before we leave. Here is what we've done so far this month....

O' Christmas Tree!

We were able to get our decorations up earlier this year, which is great by me so we can enjoy them longer! I always love looking at our tree :) And so far, the boys haven't messed with it at all...not sure why, but I'll take it!

Ski Trip to Vail!

This was a surprise last minute trip, but we are SO glad we were able to go and that my mom could go with us! She had a great time and it allowed us to do more since she was there to help :) We had 2 full days there, and the weather was cold but great for skiing & sledding! Lawson had his first ski school lesson and it was Peyton's first time to really play in the snow. We were so proud of Lawson for going to ski school all by himself and he loved it! We also went sledding both evenings we were there...we had a blast sledding down a nearby hill and then just walking around the neighborhood pulling Lawson along. Here are some pics from that fun weekend....

Eating out at The Red Lion the first night

We took Peyton to the "Pirate Ship" while Lawson went to ski school so he could run around in the snow...he loved it!

He's such a cutie all bundled up :)

In the picture above, Lawson was excited and smiling at me as the lady put his ski badge on. Below are pics of him that we secretly got while he was in "school"...it was so fun watching him

Sledding with our boys! After Peyton would go home, we would take Lawson around the neighborhood as the sun was going down. He would just sit there and put his gloves out in the snow as we walked along...he had the best time making "tunnels" in the snow

Relaxing by the fire after a cold day

CiCi reading Elf on the Shelf to her 2 favorite boys!

Steven and I went skiing the next day....super cold but lots of fun!

More Playing Indoors

This picture of Peyton cracks me up!

The Madrigal Banquet at Glen Eyrie

The Glen Eyrie Castle is a very beautiful and historical place right down the street from us right near Garden of the Gods. It is a hidden castle that was originally owned by General Palmer, the founder of Colorado Springs, and is now owned by The Navigators, a christian organization. This is where we took the pictures on our Christmas card :) They have an annual Christmas dinner that is like no other...it's so neat that it is hard to explain, but it is basically a dinner show where singers and dancers all play the parts of Renaissance era characters. From the King and Queen to the Page to the servants, it is all fantastic. It was a 5 course meal that lasted 4 hours and then we got to spend the night in the Castle! Such a treat :)

It's like the room was meant for me...how did they know what my maiden name was?!

Reading in our lovely room!

How we were greeted at the front door of the Castle

The beginning of the Madrigal before we went up to eat dinner

View from the dinner table....I think the servants were bringing in the salad to the King and Queen at this point :)

Updates on the Boys

Peyton

-Continues to do amazingly well! He is running around all of the time trying to keep up with his "Big Bro" and his speech is coming along great! Some of his favorite things to say right now are "milk peese" and "ho, ho, ho" He is picking up new words every day and is starting to put 2 words together here and there.

-He is getting RSV shots again this year, but once again, he has been super healthy so far this winter and we pray it continues. He's only gotten the sniffles once and that is it!

-We saw the eye doctor again, and it was a mixture of good and bad news. The good news is that his left eye hasn't gotten that much worse since the last 2 visits, but the bad news is that he expects it to get much worse in the future than we were anticipating. There are a couple options we have when he is a kid and even more when he is an adult and technology continues to improve in the optical world, so all we can do is pray and trust God that He will continue to provide for Peyton like he always has. We will also be patching him even more now since patch time at this age is so valuable for his brain and forcing him to use his left eye, so that is why almost every picture for awhile he will probably be wearing one!

-He fell last week and hit his head so hard on the coffee table that he got a "goose egg" on his head....it scared us since we had never seen one before and since it literally got huge within a matter of seconds. Although you can really tell how big it was by this picture, here it is....poor guy :(

-Here are some pictures of Peyton at Gymboree.....!

This is him about to jump!

Playing with his good friend, Hope, after class :)

Just being cute and waiting for someone to pull him in the cart!

Lawson

-The main news with Lawson is that he continues to love his "school" and is doing really well there. We had our parent-teacher conference a few weeks ago, and it turns out that he knows way more than we thought! We are thinking we need to "up the anty" here at home! His favorite activities at school (besides running around outside, of course) are the ones involving numbers and maps. He is also starting to trace his name...here is a picture of his recent work as well as one with his teacher at the Christmas party....

He made a Gingerbread house and was pretty proud of it

-He is also still growing like a weed...he already wears a size 11 shoe and it seems like he is taller every day :) He loves his little brother...so much that he plays a little too rough with him sometimes. And he is super excited about Christmas this year! We have a calendar and he is diligent in counting down each day until Jesus' birthday....so sweet :)

Lots more to go for December! We visited Santa at the North Pole on a real passenger train, so we will tell you all about that in the next post, as well as all of the Christmas memories yet to come....AND Peyton is turning TWO on the 28th if you can believe it!!! Merry Christmas!