The holidays!

The long-delayed holiday post! Too many pictures... :)

We started off the celebration with Hanukah, using the wonders of technology to light candles via the internet on Skype each night - once with Grandma Gerri, once with Aunt Jen, Jaden, Talia and Arielle, and once with Aunt Alli. It's definitely not the same as being together, but you get the fun of seeing each other and watching the kids open their presents, so it's a close second. If you look closely in the last picture, you can see Jen's family on the ipad.

Next up was the trip to NJ to celebrate Christmas with the Anderson side of the family. We had a wonderful week of delicious food, family time, and lots of playing. Christmas Eve was wonderful (as always) and the kids stayed up long enough to hang out with everyone, eat, open (A LOT OF) presents, and leave cookies and carrots for Santa and the reindeer.

After Christmas, we did lots of fun stuff around the house - including making a gingerbread house. Isaac and Caitlin loved this activity - and it was especially impressive that the house stood up given the fact that they ate into the foundation!

The rest of the week was full of lots of fun -- baking cookies, eating delicious meals, doing messy art projects (like the volcano Aunt Adrienne and Uncle Evan got Isaac), and lots of cuddling. Isaac and Caitlin were both in heaven being spoiled rotten with all the attention and treats. They broke in all their new toys, but nothing matched the excitement of the Polar Express train that lives at Grandma and Grandpa's - although after fixing the tracks 1000 times, I'm sure they were ready to pack it up and send it back with us :)

And we can't forget all the wet willies - Bill had a great time trying to surprise people with Isaac's new skill - except toddlers are not good at sublety and Isaac tipped each victim off right before he tried it, so they had plenty of time to put up a good defense.

Last, but not least, New Year's Eve. We had a fun NYE dinner and toast with Lusa's family. The kids loved the "fizzy-bubbley" apple cider, while the grown-ups had fun with the real stuff. Having learned our lesson on the Fourth of July, we didn't even try to keep the kids up for the ball dropping, instead they went to sleep after the 8:00 fireworks (which we found on youtube from Times Square last year and played on the computer).

Getting into the holiday spirit

As they always do, the holidays came and went in a flash this year. As always, I have too many pictures, so I'll split this up into pre-holiday and holiday pictures.

We managed to get in several trips to the botanical gardens to see the holiday train exhibits. Isaac and Caitlin both love to chase the trains all over the gardens which is a lot more fun when Bill and I took them, and less so when I took them by myself! Let's just say we befriended the security guard...

We diverged from the cut your own tree tradition again and took the easy (Home Depot) route this year. Definitely not as romantic, but a lot easier than schlepping two toddlers all the way to the farm to play with saws. We'll probably go back to it next year though. No complaints about the Home Depot route, Isaac and Bill checked them all out and picked the biggest one they could find. Isaac was in awe as they used the machine to saw off the end and wrap it up so we could take it home. Caitlin and I were not as impressed.

We all had fun listening to holiday music and decorating the tree. This is the first year Isaac could really help and it was a lot of fun to watch his excitement as we set everything up and turned on the lights.

Isaac and Caitlin were great little elves and walked all over the neighborhood with me to drop off the local holiday cards. Most of them seemed to have soggy corners by the time they were delivered because these elves decided they needed to carry the cards in their mouths!

We had a fun holiday dinner with friends that included decorating holiday cookies. True to form, Isaac ate more of the dough and decorations than he actually made, but the few that made it to the oven were delicious.

In our quest to make sure Isaac is exposed to everything, Bill and I spent storytime at Isaac's school introducing his class to Hanukkah. He showed off his choo-choo train menorah, we read a few really cute books, gave each of the kids Hanukkah gelt (chocolate candy), and taught them to play dreidels. I think he enjoyed having us there, and we were really happy to do it. We also became acutely aware of how chatty our little man is. We read him the books the few nights leading up to this, so when we read to his class, he was telling the other kids what was coming next and finishing our sentences before we could turn the page. I think he's going to be a "gunner" like his dad :) These are pictures his teacher took.

Finally, what holiday season would be complete without a trip to NYC to see the tree in Rockefeller Center? It was a very quick trip -- we took the train in in the morning, and the kids were in heaven. We probably could have just taken the train and turned around, and that would have been all they needed! We were a little nervous about the crowds, but everything worked out perfectly. We saw the tree, went on a Lego Store shopping spree (thanks Papa Rich!), met Elmo, and had a nice lunch and then headed back on the train. We have a picture of Isaac with Elmo in NYC a few years ago, and he was hysterical crying in fear. This time he walked right up to Elmo, gave him a handshake, and asked him why he wasn't on Sesame Street :)

Last, but not least, the obligatory Santa picture. Isaac had no fear -- I think he figured Santa already knew he had been (relatively) good because his "Elf on the Shelf" had been reporting back to the North Pole every night for weeks. Isaac sat right down and started chatting Santa up (are you sensing a theme here?) and had to be bribed with cookies to let the next kid have his turn. Caitlin, on the other hand, had no interest in sitting on this strange man's lap. Can't really blame her...

Thanksgiving in Colorado

We travelled to Colorado for our annual Thanksgiving trip and spent the whole week there. The trip west was easy since we bought seats for Isaac and Caitlin and they both slept for a good part of the flight. Isaac is so excited at the prospect of all the modes of transportation -- taxi, plane, train, and then usually bus to the rental car -- that he considers the travel the best part of the trip. Here's Isaac on the airport train. Caitlin just goes with the flow, but picks the most inopportune times to poop (usually during takeoff or landing). In any event, choosing a naptime flight was a great idea and Bill and I actually had some time to relax and read! We got to Colorado and headed straight to Boulder for a couple of days with Alli and Chad, which were great. Isaac especially loved playing with Uncle Chad's guitar and painting on his easel. Because Alli and Chad were gracious enough to lend us their car for the week, Isaac did not get to ride the rental car bus from the airport -- much to his dismay. So to make it up to him, we hopped on the city bus in Boulder and headed down to Pearl Street to walk around. He was appeased. Unfortunately we didn't take any good pics at Aunt Alli and Uncle Chad's house (we were generally awful about pics this trip -- the only ones we have are from my phone!).

This is the first big trip where Isaac didn't sleep in a pack-n-play, but we didn't bring his toddler air mattress because Grandma had a sleeping bag/air mattress for him. Well, since it didn't have the raised sides, we spent most of the first night picking Isaac up off the floor from wherever he rolled -- including all the way under the bed so only his feet were sticking out! Needless to say, the rest of the nights we blocked him in with pillows and whatever else we could find :)
Since we were on east coast time, our family was up earlier than our hosts, so we headed out early in the morning the first few days, to breakfast and to the local library. Let's just say the Boulder library is a LOT nicer than DC's. We even stuck around for story-time, which both kids loved. Here are some pics at the library -- Isaac and Caitlin walking around like they own the place and Alli helping Cate pick out a book.

Next stop was Uncle Evan and Aunt Adrienne's house (also in Boulder) where we had a great time making a feast, playing at the park with the dogs, making "milk-shakers", and banging on the piano keys to make great music.

Finally, we headed to Denver for the remainder of the trip so the kids could play with their cousins and Grandma, and we could prepare for the Thanksgiving feast. Aunt Jen's house is nirvana for kids with a gazillion toys, lots of soft carpet, and the ability to play out front without the fear of getting run over by a garbage truck. The kids had a great time together over the next few days eating together, playing at the park, having "sleep-overs" in each other's rooms, and getting spoiled by Grandma. We all had fun watching them too, and even got some cute pictures of all of them together. Since we had more time than usual in Denver (normally we head to Vail for Thanksgiving) we explored lots of kid activities and had a great time at the awesome Denver Kids Museum and at Monkey Business where the kids get to jump and play until they are exhausted.

I don't have any pictures of the actual Thanksgiving feast, but here are the kids all dressed up and ready to chow at Jen's sister-in-law's house. The food was amazing and the kids did great, even though we kept them up super-late.

Now, the most exciting part of the trip -- Isaac went skiing!! Bill, Evan and Adrienne took Isaac up to Loveland, got him all geared up, and hit the Green Slopes with him (and a very handy harness). They were prepared to get him all suited up and have to head back if he was scared, but he was a total trooper and did AWESOME! Because they had a harness, they could grab him for the chair lift and help guide him on the skis, which totally prevented a LOT of falls. Bill and Evan took turns skiing backwards in front of him, and by the end, he was totally doing it on his own. They were so proud of him and they all had a great day.

This video is long, but we have no clue how to edit it. If you skip ahead to about 45 seconds in, you see Isaac skiing on his own.

Overall, a hectic but wonderful trip. We also got in good QT with Aunt Kristin and the Kruse family, but unfortunately I have no pictures :(

Of course the kids were totally adjusted to Colorado time by the time we headed back east, which made for some rough mornings getting us all up and out the door, but it was worth it!