Christmas!

Christmas was wonderful this year. James is at at such a great age where the whole season is full of magic for him and it makes it so special for all of us. My parents got here a few days before Christmas just in time for a big snow storm. It made for a beautiful White Christmas and was the perfect weather for staying inside making cookies and gingerbread houses.

We did not put any presents under our tree until Christmas Eve, assuming that Mac would try to tear into them. It was a good move on our part-as soon as there were packages out, Mac started dragging them around, sitting on them, drumming on them and ripping off the ribbons. His damage was limited to one day only, so the presents were still in fairly good shape for Christmas morning.

We spent Christmas Eve up in Ft Collins. The cousins got to play and open a few presents from each other and Mimi and Papa. It was a nice, relaxing evening filled with family, food and fun.

The only way to get 4 excited Nichols' kids to sit still in their Christmas jammies was to bribe them with giant lollipops.

 Next year there will be one more red haired little Nichols girl joining in on the matching jammie picture-Amberly and Steve found out Christmas morning they are having a 3rd little girl in April-hooray!

 We went home late on Christmas Eve night and James had just enough time to set out cookies for Santa before he went to bed. The next morning he woke up, peeked out his door and said, "I think Santa came!" Mac was still asleep, but James got to run out and see what Santa left-a Lego harbor set. "Just what I wanted!!!"

James insisted on putting together the boat immediately, so that distracted him until Mac woke up and we all got to dig into our stockings. James got some Lego underwear, candy and a transformer. Mac got a flashlight, bath toys and new bowls and spoons.

Macky's Santa present was a Rody Horse. It is inflatable and bounces up and down but also came with a rocking base so he can use it as a rocking horse until his feet reach the ground.

James' present from us was a Lego fire station, so there was a lot of Lego building going on on Christmas day. This is James' complete Lego city, which has already provided countless hours of entertainment since Christmas.

The boys love having my parents here-my dad left the day after Christmas and my mom is still here. James loves having an audience as he plays with his Legos, and I enjoy having someone else help to hold Mac 75% of his waking hours and keep him from hurting himself the other 25%.

 James could not be dragged away from his Legos on Christmas Day (or for days afterward), so my dad and I took Mac for a walk in the new sled that Santa left for both of them and tested it out at the golf course. Mac was a fan!

The whole month of December was so much fun this year. We had a great time celebrating the season with our friends, family and most of all, our two boys. 2011 was a great year for us, and we are expecting to be 2012 to be just as great. We are looking forward to Mac turning into a walking and talking toddler, James enjoying another year of preschool, activities and friends,Tim's new dental practice opening in Denver in just a couple of weeks, and taking several family vacations together! Happy New Year!

Cookie Playdate

Lacey typically hosts our annual cookie making playdate, but Drina and Auggie have been sick so they had to pass this year. I still wanted the kids to get together, so we hosted at the condo so nobody had to drive all the way up to the Mont. We had a great time, but missed the Abote portion of the party! Alec and James did everything together-they are so cute. Even though they haven't seen each other since the summer, it took less than 5 minutes at the Santa Party to warm up to each other again and start acting like BFF's who have never been apart.

The kids really stepped it up from last year and actually made some pretty good looking cookies yesterday. They were also much more sanitary this year and the adults were more than willing to eat some of the finished products-unlike in year's past when I think more germs than decorations made it onto the cookies.

 Notice the frosting is being carefully applied to the cookies and not being immediately ingested.

 A little sampling went on, but only after the cookies were all decorated. Even little Kellen (Tonia's son) got in on the action this year. He was so cute sitting up with all of the big kids.

Kellen especialy liked the tasting portion of the party :-)

 Just how many toddlers can fit in a toddler bed?

This is the 3rd year in a row that the kids have decorated cookies together (all us moms went to elementary school together). Hopefully it is a tradition that we can keep up for a long time!

3 Days, 3 Parties!

The holidays are in full swing for us and we had a fun and BUSY weekend! It started with Party#1 with our Mont friends on Friday night. I made Merry Christmas Margaritas, hands down the best holiday drink ever, there was a ton of holiday snacks, the children all behaved perfectly, and the adults got to hang out and relax. Definitely the makings of a great party! Here are Mac and Em sporting matching Grinchy shirts-love them!

And Mac with his #1 BFF, Seth. Anyone who attempts to take him from Seth gets an aggresive head shake no and swatting away of the hand.

 The kids chowing down on all the holiday treats.

 The babies-Cam, Mac, Carter and Em.

 James enjoying his creation from the hot chocolate bar.

 The biggest kids-James, Longmont Riley, John and Mallory.

Seriously, the kids were SO good, we had to check on them multiple times only because it was so quiet, we feared the worst. This is what we found at one check in-just reading together!

Tim's partner, Kelsey, made these amazing cake pops on Thursday and she left us with a few that we took to the party for the big kids. They were way impressed!

 Party #2 was in Denver on Saturday at Hammonds Candy Factory! It was for our friends Paula and Todd's daughter Lucia. James was pretty excited about the prospect of a candy factory party, and it did not disappoint!

We got a private tour of the factory where hard candies, lollipops, ribbon candy and candy canes are all made by hand! It was really impressive and the candy is beautiful!

 Mac got his first taste of candy-he was a fan!

 We spent the night in Denver on Saturday and took James and Mac to the Spaghetti Factory for dinner and then drove around and looked at the city's holiday lights. It was James' first trip to the Spaghetti Factory and we got seated in the trolley car-he loved every second of it.

 Party #3 was the Nelson's annual Santa Party. James had been looking forward to this all month, and we all had a great time. Here are the boys all dressed up for the party.

What a little old man!!

Santa snuck in the house and this is James' reaction when he came running around the corner and saw him.

 Thinking about which Lego set he is going to ask Santa for.

 James and Alec with an early present from Santa!

Don't worry, I did not torture Mac and kept him away from Santa during the party. Although, Mac saw Santa leaving from across the room and started waving like crazy to him, so I walked him over and he did high five him before he left. So he was clearly not scarred for life from his initial Santa encounter at brunch the other week. And 2 awkward group shots to end the post with. The Sungy and Nichols boys:

 And the first of what I am sure will be many photos of the Nichols boys and Nelson girls:

We have one more party this week before the real festivities begin next weekend! We are so lucky to be able to celebrate the season with such wonderful friends!

Holiday Program

James' preschool holiday program was last night. After last year's major case of stage fright at his stage debut, we were not sure what to expect. James was super excited for it and wanted Mac to sit in the front row and clap and dance and he invited Mimi and Taylor to come and watch.

 The kids sang 4 songs, one of them was Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. During the performance, Tim and wondered why all the kids had stars except for James, who had what appeared to be a lime. When we asked him today what he held during the song he explained, "I made a real star, all the other kids made pretend stars. Real stars look like circles and don't have points." Apparently we were not giving him enough credit.

James only solo speaking part was during, May There Always Be Sunshine. The kids all sang, "May there always be.....," and then each kid took turns filling in the blank. There were a lot of sweet sentiments like: love, family, my mom, etc. James contribution was, "May there always be hotwheels." It tied as my favorite line with his best buddy Cyrus', "May there always be fiddles."

 James' favorite song and the one he sang the most enthusiastically was, 7 Continents. He is holding up 7 fingers in this picture.

James was a little overwhelmed by all of the jingling during Jingle Bells. He attempted some half-hearted jingling while trying to clamp his hands over his ears the whole song. His face in this picture is awesome.

James with his entourage-Mimi and Taylor. There was a party after the performance featuring vegan fare. I think Taylor was fairly unimpressed with the food options.

On an entirely unrelated note, Mac's favorite thing to do is crawl up into the console table with all of the holiday stuffed animals. It is pretty cute, except every time he is under there, he tries to stand up and hits his head. Every.Single.Time. He still hasn't figured out the table is above him when he is under there. At least he is cute.

Santa Baby

My Christmas photoshoot with Macky-inspired by Pinterest :-)