Trip to NH

A few days after Christmas we headed to my parents' house in New Hampshire. We were fortunate enough to be able to stay almost a whole week, and got lots of great visiting time in with my parents, my brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew, as well as several aunts, an uncle, some cousins, and my best friend from high school. There was plenty of snow all week, so there was some sledding and lots of just playing in the backyard in the snow. Quincy loved the sledding at the bigger hills of the golf course. Miles loved being pulled around the back yard.

I didn't manage to take very many pictures, but I did have fun playing and visiting with everyone. Here are a couple pictures of the kids playing with their cousins.

Ski goggles

Sometime last week I was digging through my old ski gear bag, and the kids just thought it was a big bag of toys for them to play with. Quincy kept trying to put on my ski hat. Miles liked wearing my face muffler. And they both thought the ski goggles were just the best thing ever.

Even Rocky got to get in on the fun. Although I'm not sure how much fun he was having, but he was a good sport for quite a while.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all our family and friends. I hope that you are all having a wonderful, blessed day with the people you love. Mike and I were actually the first ones up this morning, I think we were just as excited as the kids. Miles was just in awe that Santa actually came to his house, and brought him what he asked for, a fire station with a fire truck and fire fighters. Quincy also really liked Miles's new fire truck. Quincy took a few minutes to finish waking up and realize that there were lots of toys in front of him. Then he still wanted Miles's fire truck. Eventually he saw Elmo and then his own toolbench. Of course, the chocolates were gotten into very early. In fact, I asked Miles for a morning/Christmas hug and kiss and was told "Okay, but not until I am done eating the chocolate." Priorities. The post chocolate face: Miles got a hulk mask, that he prefers to see other people wearing. Quincy got a steering wheel that he was so excited to play with he didn't want to finish unwrapping. And Rocky wasn't forgotten either, now if Quincy will just let him keep and eat his treat.

Fire Station tour

This morning Miles, Quincy and I joined some other Moms & kids from my Mom's Group for a tour of a local fire station. The firefighters were very nice, and patient, the tour was a huge hit with the kids.

They got to climb into a fire truck, and play with some of the equipment:

Sit in the fire truck:

Go through a training maze:

And they all got fireman hats at the end:

And here is a picture of our whole group:

Sledding

Yesterday we went out sledding with some friends. It was the first time for Quincy, and he loved it. Miles was apprehensive, it seemes he remembered getting snow in his face at some time, so he didn't want to sled. I was a mean Mommy and held him, crying, and down we went, the tears and protests mixed with laughter and smiles by the bottom of the hill. He even chose to go down with his friend the next trip down.

And a short video clip of Quincy's first time sledding, not that you can see Quincy all that well, but here it is:

Christmas cookies

This weekend we made our christmas cutout cookies. It was messy as usual, but fun for all.


Rolling and cutting out the dough. Quincy did get to try this, one try. Then he got to watch and play with the cookie cutters.


Then came the decorating. Both boys got to decorate the cookies. Here is a picture when they are doing their first cookies. See how clean it is.


Quincy quickly realized how yummy the frosting was.


He was good though and mostly tried to frost the cookies.


Some family frosting fun:



And Miles putting entirely too much frosting on a cookie:


Quincy was made to take a break from decorating:


Here is one of Miles's decorating jobs. There is actually a cookie under this pile of frosting and sprinkles:
Here it is:

You can see the candy cane outline in the frosting still left on the placemat:

Quincy got another cookie to decorate, but I looked away for a moment and turned back to this:
In his defense, he was still decorating, he put a bit of frosting on before each bite.

More snow

It snowed again last night, with no rain after it stopped snowing, so we woke up to nice fluffy snow all over the place this morning.

Miles making a snow angel:

Quincy playing in the 'snow cottage':

Miles eating more snow:

And the snow mustache: