Gift exchange 2015

Since we were to be in Florida on Christmas itself, we did our family gift exchange a few days before we left town. The boys were generally patient waiting for Sean to be done helping with a move. They put all the gifts in their separate piles and then just sort of stared.


But when we finally began opening, they were all smiles!


I was smart and got Dash and Liam each the same dot to dot books so no sharing or jealousy necessary.


This poor girl was just so pitifully sick. Grey, Dash, and Liam were on the upswing but Wren, Sean, and I were all at our peak of blegh-ness.


Mimi and Pompa gave Liam a Darth Vader dress up and Dash a Kylo Ren dress up. They've never been big on costumes. UNTIL NOW. They love them. And they generally keep the "light sabers only touch other light sabers" rule. And Grey's totally jealous. (Although he got a super cool quad tunnel system)


Other fun things: a teaching clock (in which Liam and Dash learned to tell analog time immediately), more trains and tracks, legos, and their own bean bags! When it came time to have the annual wrapping paper fight, they were all "whatever mom, we have toys." Waa waa. Maybe next year.

Science Fair

Liam and Dash participated in their school's science fair. Be still my heart. We tried to leave as much up to them as we could. After listing off topic ideas, Dash narrowed in on researching the squid while Liam wanted to explore how fish live in the water. We read some books and I asked them if they wanted to include certain facts as we came across them. I grouped facts together to make sense when presented. Then they wrote out the facts and drew their graphics and glued it all together. Then the family admired all the posters at the science fair.

So proud of his work.

Dash got to explain his poster to the principal and it was just so adorable.

Wren hung out, literally, while we visited the different posters and displays, like homemade batteries and tornado makers.

And here's Grey after the fortieth time I reminded him not to mess with someone's delicate display. Scientific finesse is a bit lost on a three-year-old. 

Final Hop

I shared this on other social media but not yet here- Sean has signed a contract with a pediatric clinic in Colorado Springs! There's a salary! And regular hours! And no working on the weekend! But it also means we move away (in the summer) from all the incredible people here and all the fun things we love to do in the Twin Cities area. Sigh.

Thus I present to you a few glimpses of our last Holiday Hop.

Black and white baby

This is the story of how I took this photo. We have black and white photos of the boys at about this age in this same pose hung on our wall. Wren's turn.


I took lots and lots of photos of Wren in which she looked ridiculously cute.


She was a very patient subject.


Mayhaps she even enjoyed the process?


Interested, if nothing else.


Once sure I had some winners to choose from, I let Liam and Dash loose, who had been chomping at the bit to join the photo. I took one shot, thought, this is crazy cute, I must get Grey in on this too, and went to get Grey.


Unfortunately, Grey was still in his two month stage of insane three-year-old-ness. In this stage, I could hardly speak to the child without a meltdown. It has since improved- he is often reasonable and his meltdown count is much lower. But on this day, Grey was still in the thick of it and my request to take a photo was met with loud screams and flailing. While I tried to reason and bribe the boy, Liam took a few photos, including this one, which I rather love.


Dash took a turn, but at this point, Wren was over her time in the spotlight. I was still coaxing Grey, determined to outdo his stubbornness. Because, this photo was going to be so cute! I must make this happen. It was growing in importance in my mind and I had to make it happen. Then Grey finally acquiesced! But Wren was crying and rubbing her face in the blanket. Maybe this wasn't to be. ... but wait! Wren's quiet. Agh, Grey, go back in the photo. Liam, get off Wren. Good, okay, everyone look at me. Ready, click!


And here it is. Sigh. It's kinda cute. They're all together, that's nice. But I'm not going to blow it up and hang it over my sofa. Oh well. We'll photograph another day. But I sure as heck got my cute one of Wrenny Pie. Atta girl.