Post Christmas Let Down

This is an older photo, but it reminds me of playing in the snow, so I'll use it until I get some snow pictures developed. It's Walker and Audrey "painting" with shaving cream. It was back in July. So cute.

Well that happened fast. All the hype, work, fun and now it's over. Maybe we should move the holiday to once every OTHER year. Wouldn't that make more sense? Our beautiful tree is shedding needles all over the carpet every time anyone even looks at it. I am rarely motivated to take down all the decorations and put them all away. It's so much fun to put it all up, but I wish I had a maid to take it all back down. That'll probably be our project today.

Walker got tons of gifts. His favorite is still the XBox 360. He and Scott play Halo every day. They are on Halo 3 of course (for 360) but they have also been playing Halo 1 and 2 since we found out you can use all the original XBox games on 360. That is a good thing! I also found out yesterday that 360 has the original Pac Man pre-loaded on it. Cool! I used to love that game in the 80's. It's different playing with a tiny toggle than a big, sturdy joy stick, but I think I can get used to it. Other gifts included a boxed set of season 3 of Melrose Place (for me), a magic kit, toy shooting gallery, pin-ball machine, tons of Ben 10, Pokemon, Power Rangers and Transformers (for Walker) and Bioshock and a new baseball glove (for Scott).

Walker has been busy with play dates every day. Yesterday we had his friend Danny sleep over. We wanted to help Dan celebrate his 13th birthday! He's an awesome kid and really great with Walker. We tried to get into Chunky's Cinama Pub (where you can get a whole meal served to you while watching a movie) but they had sold out of Alvin and the Chipmunks. So we ended up at another theater. Yikes, $60 for 4 of us to get admission and popcorn and drinks! Oh well, it's only money. We don't go to the movies that often (now we know why). Alvin was a fun movie. Nice and short for the young set. It was PACKED. Why doesnt' anyone work on Friday at noon?

Vacation has been fun. We've been playing and eating and drinking for over a week now. It's almost like summer. Well, the goal today is to get at least some of the decorations put away. Maybe I'll just do the tree and leave the rest for another day.

The Patriots play at 8:15 tonight. Could they possibly win again? It'll be their last regular season game of the year. It'd be awesome!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Happy Holidays!

It's snowing here again. We get about 6 inches every other day. Children all over town are loving this. Fresh, new snow to stomp around in all the time. It hasn't been good snowman snow yet, though. It's been too cold so the snow is fluffy, except for a thin layer of ice about a foot down.

Anyway, we're ready for Christmas. Presents mostly wrapped, Christmas books and movies scattered about.

I finally got around to scanning some more pictures in. They are a bit out of date, back to Halloween, but still cute.

Audrey and Walker. Audrey dressed up for Walker that night. She loves to dress up in her pretty dresses. Being a 5 year old boy, Walker didn't even know what to say except for his usual response, "Whatever." I think she looks beautiful. Love the boots!

Walker in his new Cars "bunnysuit."

1st part of our Halloween night. We went to Grammie's neighborhood and met up with these friends. From left: Audrey, Walker, Gage, Alex, Kyle.

Later we met up with our Danville friends for more trick-or-treating. From left: Walker, Tommy, Owen (on Amanda's lap), Lilly.

Ed (Scott's brother) and Scott singing in Scott's studio. Let the good times roll!

Happy Holidays

Wow! It's been a very long time since I've written anything here. Things have been pretty busy. Fall has just flown by.

The Christmas show is taking up extra time on the weekends. It's very fun, but something else to get ready for, get dressed, get to on time. Tomorrow is the dress-rehearsal and Sunday the show. If you live in the area, the show is "A Merry Littel Christmas" at Pinkerton Academy in Derry at 2PM on Sunday, December 9.

This picture is Walker's first day of Kindergarten. We wait for the bus in our driveway. We usually play catch with the basketball. Now we don't because of the all the snow and ice in the driveway. We stand out there as short a time as possible. Notice Walker's first day of school outfit: name tag, back pack and "manpris."

I just got 3 rolls of film developed. Some were from August and the final camping trip of the season. I miss camping. Only 6 more months and we'll be back in the camper.

It's so easy to buy presents for little boys who watch TV. Every commercial that comes on we hear, "I want that!" Every time I walk into a store that sells any type of toy I could spend $200. Each year we say we'll cut back. We do, but for the OTHER people. Not the boy. He still gets a great Christmas. Lots and lots of things from Santa Claus.

We've been using Scott's music room a lot for Karaoke parties. People are funny. They say they won't sing. Then give them a couple of drinks and suddenly they're unstoppable. It's very fun. We love playing "rock star." Apparently, everyone who comes over also does. Scott is thinking that maybe we'll have to move the equipment into another room. Make another room for it actually. His room houses a lot of antiques and valuable collections, as well as his music stuff. It'd be terrible if someone fell over and wrecked the room. Maybe we'll end up finishing the attic area over the garage. Eventually. Then Scott will feel comfortable actually inviting more than 2 people at a time into that room. However, the fewer people that come, the more mic time we each get, so...

Last weekend we had a game/karaoke night with 2 other couples. That was fun. I want to do it again. We played Taboo. When we paired up and played as couples none of us did very well. When we switched it up and did girls against guys the girls kicked butt!

Let the games begin. This picture is when Walker first started to get into video games. We were still using the old X-Box. Here they are using the even older Nintendo-64 (still my favorite!). We just got X-Box 360 for our big family present.

Walker with his friend Gage at the Kindergarten open-house. They got to ride the bus and check that all out. They don't ride the same bus now, though. Walker is sad about that. Gage lives in North Kingston and we are in South Kingston.

I think this was the last day we used the pool. Walker wore this "swimmy" every time he went in the pool. It works very well. We feel comfortable with him going in even if we don't - as long as we are right there on the deck.

Walker at soccer practice back in October when it was beautiful outside. He's in the red pants.

Walker, styling his hair after a tubby. He hates having wet hair and won't put on a pull over pj top until it's dry. He also likes to style it like Zac Efron where it's pulled forward from the back (if that makes sense).

We live at the end of the rainbow!