Christmas in Rockport!

We are in Rockport (the town where my parents live) enjoying Christmas with the entire Farrell clan. Very fun trip so far. Most everyone staying in the beach house, with the Simmons staying at my parents house. Boys are having a great time playing dart gun banaza with Uncle David and the older boys. Weather not great, hoping to squeeze in a beach trip.

 Beckett cuddling up with Uncle David for some good ol Mercer Meyer One Monster After Another....

 Grant wrapping a LEGO creation for Uncle David.

 I cannot express enough gratitude to Ryan and Conor. They had the boys out throwing rocks into the water for at least an hour. 

 Conor handing the next rock to Grant.

 Ryan and Grant loading up.

 Then we moved onto the dock. Check out the boulders Ryan found!

 The boys - left to right - Conor, Beckett, Grant and Ryan.

 Grant has discovered paper snowflakes. Thank you Aileen!

 See the concentration!

 Beckett joining in on the fun.

 I love this one of Megan and Beckett.

 Uncle Randy and Beckett trying to catch some fish.

Megan did a great job teaching Grant to cast with complicated fishing rods and here is the latest attempt!

 Aunt Amy and Beckett - check out that snowflake! :-)

 Sunset our first night.

 Another sunset photo.

 Uncle Pete and Randy taking the boys out for a spin on Randy's boat.

 And there they go!

 Grant and Beckett ready for Santa!

 BIG BOOTS! Thanks Uncle Dave!

 Christmas morning reindeer pancakes. Sorry it's facing the wrong way. Thanks for the great plates Grandma!

 Conor checking out Beckett's game.

 Beckett's position for the battle - up on the balcony shooting down. :-)

 Watch out! Uncle David is coming around the corner!

 "The men" on their portable devices.

 Grant and Beckett ready for battle - ties and all. :-)

 Grant tossing the football with Conor - complete with the infra-red glasses to wear at night.

 Aileen and Beckett

 Me and Grant complete with our Christmas cracker hats.

 Megan fully enjoying the dart gun battle

 Man down!

 Beckett ready for the M&M game.

 Roger moving the M&Ms to make a smiley face.

Beckett concentrating on his smiley face.

Video so far - Grant playing football as well as Grant and Beckett showing off their cup stacking skills.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL! Will post some more later in the week.

The Star of the Show

Last night was Beckett's Christmas program. He was so excited to be up on stage and at the end he told me he felt like he was the star of the show. :-) Not really sure why...but love the confidence!

Grant was very excited to be Beckett's big brother. Everyone at school knows all about him, so it was fun to see him realize that we talk about him all the time. Grant also loved being my helper. He fully enjoyed being a 6 year old in a world of 4 year olds. :-)

Here are our handsome boys before we left. :-) 

And here is a video of the performance. The little girl in the flower dress is Penelope. She's the little girl that asked them if they could be married. :-) The little girl in the grey is Hannah. I am pretty sure he's married to her too. :-)

 

Also want to apologize for the shaking and singing on my part. I was trying to help the kids remember the sign language that goes with the song and was so used to singing the song with the kids during rehearsal that I didn't even realize I was doing it. :-) You will also hear Beckett's teacher singing next to me. Oh well.

 

The 2 little boys in the last song that are causing so much trouble are in the 3s class that I used to be an aide. They are such a handful and apparently being on stage didn't change that. At one point they used their candles as light sabers and were dueling each other during Little Drummer Boy.

 

 

 

We are in the full swing of Christmas. 6 days and counting! The boys are very excited. I am looking forward to some down time - the past month has been crazy!

The Tree is Up!

We pulled out the Christmas decorations on Sunday. Unfortunately the outside took longer than we anticipated and then putting the tree together took longer...so the kids each picked 5 ornaments to hang after dinner. As you can see, they put them all on the same side because they both wanted to use the step stool. :-) I will have to do some moving around after dinner...or balance it out with all our other ornaments.

Aunt Amy sent us the LEGO Star Wars advent calendar. Yes, it does exsist! Each day the kids pull out something new to build.  So far the pattern seems to be figure one day, ship the next. Each day we work on sharing and bargaining. :-) Thanks Amy! You rock!

Thanksgiving Weekend

I can't believe December is here and Christmas is right around the corner! Nuts I tell ya...Nuts!

We had a very nice visit with Angi and Roger over Thanksgiving. They left Alaska and are wintering over in Vegas (smart I tell ya!) So they braved our big arctic front and drove down for the weekend. We had a nice time hanging with the kids, reading books, playing games, cooking, cooking and then cooking some more. :-) The kids never did get a grasp on why everyone was making such a big deal about Thanksgiving, but I guess after all the hype, turkey and stuffing isn't too exciting...bring on Christmas!

 Beckett and Roger reading his favorite book - not sure the title but it's alphabetized list of every truck you can imagine. As he says, I LOVE TRUCKS!

 Now it's time for the funnies.

Beckett helping out with the stuffing. I have very fond memories of doing this with Nana at the farmhouse. :-)

We took advantage of Angi and Roger being here and went to a park to get some pictures of everyone. I am saving some of the best for Christmas cards (out soon...) but here are a few others. We really got some cute ones of the boys.

We started off this little session under the willow just saying smile at the camera. Well, the smiles were just horrible and staged. So I told them to start tickling each other (one of their favorite past times.) I just kept taking pictures. :-)

 I love this one. I can hear their laughter just looking at it. :-)

 Beckett staring off and pondering. Not sure what this one was all about. One of the perks of taking pictures non-stop. 

 We could not get Beckett too look at the camera or anywhere near it. The sun was right behind Angi so he refused to look that way. Oh well. Not too bad I guess.

Grandma and the boys.

The boys and their Papa.

 Running! Running! Running! - yes the title of the blog still fits our lives to a tee. :-)

 Gotta love the tongue action!

 I love this one of Roger and Beckett. :-)

 Pure joy. :-) He just loves being outside in the open fields.

For Thanksgiving we had a special breakfast - pumpkin pancakes with bacon - in the shape of a turkey of course. :-) I have to say, all I did was show Grant a picture and he did the rest. Good job Bub! He made everyone's plate up for me.

This video is a bit out of order, but it's already uploaded. :-)

Our internet and cable went out Monday night. It's been tough. :-) And then this particular night Roger was running late from work. Anyway, I popped in my new favorite cd - Luke Bryan Rocks! The kids love this song in particular and so they danced and danced and danced. I lost track how many times they hit rewind.  I think this video was probably made on about number 4 or 5. As Roger said, does Grant want to be a cheerleader? :-)

Holidays Are Here!

I love the holidays - baking, decorating, school craziness. :-)

This week, the kids and I went thru bins and found materials to decorate the dining area for Thanksgiving. Then today we hung up all their school projects and decorations. So fun.

I don't think I say this enough - I am so proud of my boys. They are both doing so well in school. Beckett had a rough start this year, but has definitely settled in. I love being in his school and seeing him learn and play with his friends. Just yesterday as we were driving up to his school he said, "Mom, I love my little school." :-)  His learning style is very different than Grant's. Sometimes I have to remind myself of that and remember, he that they are different in every other way, why not at school too? He loves his teachers and his friends. And I love it when, at dinner, he sits a little taller and says, Now let me tell you about my day. :-)

A little side note on Beckett. He has become quite the ladies man in his class. Last week we were in the car on the way to school and he announced that he is in love with someone in his class. When I asked about it he said that Penelope asked him to be in love with her, so he said yes. 2 more girls asked him after that. Then this week he told me they all asked him to marry them. And no worries - when I asked him what that means he told me they play tricks on each other and chase each other on the playground. This week those same girls were his Batgirls (he was the only Batman).

And apparently it's not just in his class. On Thursday Beck and I went up to his school to help on our day off, so I brought him into a class where he didn't know anyone. It was all girls. Before I knew it I heard girl giggles and saw a circle around him. Then on the playground I heard one of these girls say, "where's Beckett? Oh there he is" and they all ran after him. As i said to my mom - And so it begins......

Grant has an unending enthusiasm for learning. He is reading books on his own and loves to write notes to all of us during his down time in school. Yesterday he told me that in art class he was the only one that didn't get play time in class because he was still working on his 6 tiered cake drawing. He's enthusiastic about everything! Even library day. I love it. He's singing his songs in the shower, reading books to us every night and writing "I love you Mom and Dad" on tissues. :-)

Beckett and I go to have lunch with Grant once a week. Whenever we are up there, Grant proudly introduces us. And without fail, the aides tell me how wonderful he is. How he is kind to everyone and such a joy to be around. One of the aides in particular, Ms. Pat absolutely loves him. She always gives him a huge hug at lunch and gushes about how great he is.

My bucket overflows.

Anyway....today was our last day before Thanksgiving break. One whole week off! WOO-HOO! Beckett and I had a fun day in his preschool. My class ended up with only 4 students, so Beckett's teacher and I decided to merge our classes for part of the day. We made turkey hats and read Thanksgiving books. A massive cold front hit our area last night so we had indoor recess and then Beckett and I left early so we could go to Grant's Thanksgiving Feast.

Now for the pictures and video.....

Have I mentioned how different my kids personalities are? The next 2 pictures say it better than I ever could explain. I asked each of them to get dressed for school...pick out their clothes, brush teeth, etc. And here is the outcome.

 Grant looking as handsome as ever - "I want to look like Daddy." Sweetie - you look just like him!

And here's Beckett's outfit, complete with accessories - hard hat, tie dye superhero cape, dragon sunglasses and a Scooby Doo tag on the side. Classic! He kept the cape on all day and put the rest of the accessories back on after school. I love it! 

And here are the Thanksgiving pictures.

 Pilgrim day was Monday. So cute!

 Turkey hat donned for Grant's Thanksgiving Feast.

 Holy Moly! There are A LOT of kindergarteners!

Grant's class before the feast.

 Grant and his good friend AJ

 Grant, AJ and Max

Beckett was able to join the feast today. Good thing we wore the turkey hat!

Video of the kids entering the chaos and then their cute Thanksgiving song.

Angi and Roger are driving down from Vegas to join us for Thanksgiving. It will be good to see them again - it's been awhile. I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and I will post some more pictures as the week progresses!