Christmas 2020

 We celebrated Christmas at Nathan and Stacy's, eating too much, opening presents.

Gavin playing with Kaiden's binoculars - Kaiden playing with Gavin's top.

We played Crazy Bunco.  Everyone except Gavin and Stacy had to put their gifts back, some of us more than once.

The gift of 2020.  Trevin wasn't too impressed.

Gavin really enjoyed the game and ended up with the most gifts.  I wonder if he would have been so happy if he had to put his gifts back!

Merry Christmas

 A visit to Santa was different this year.  Santa was behind plexiglass and masks were required.

Mr. and Mrs. Elf on the Shelf

 The boys elf, Elfie, got married this year and brought his wife Elsa to help watch the boys for Santa Claus.  And of course they wore their masks.

Christmas Cookies

 Last week we baked and decorated cookies as is our tradition.

The boys even wore their Christmas sweaters for the event.

Tito even got into the fun.  After dinner we went and looked at Christmas lights and ate a few cookies.  The rest are saved for Christmas day.

Braces

 Kaiden got his braces on today - just in time for Christmas!

Christmas Baking

 Gavin has been helping me with baking.  He likes to pour the "gredients" into the bowl and turning the mixer on and off.  But I think the part he likes best is licking the bowl.  Rylan likes it too.

Thanksgiving

We had a small rather quiet Thanksgiving this year.  We had more people than we should have.  We were only supposed to have 5 people from 2 households, but we see each other quite often so we went for it. 

The boys spent the night so after everyone else left they went outside and had a snowball fight.

I'm not sure who one, but they sure got into it and had fun.

It tired them out and were in their sleeping bags on the living room floor asleep by 8:30. 

The next day they helped me decorate the house.  

Costumes

I dressed as a witch and David was a pirate.  He wanted a parrot on his shoulder but the closest thing I had was a turkey.  So he went with a parrot dressed in a turkey costume.

Carrie came as a fairy, Porkchop as a ladybug and Dave as Bond, James Bond.  I thought it was ironic that he was Bond on the day that Sean Connery died.  I also got to hug James Bond.  😉

 Nathan came as Bob Ross and Stacy as his painting.  

I think we were all pretty creative.

Halloween in Pandemic Times

During this pandemic trick or treating going door to door was discouraged.  The boys are doing remote learning so there was no school party.  But I wanted to make it special for them.

So when a Dementor, a famous Norwegian painting, Batman and a cute postman walked into our house a party began.

 We did go across the street because Ellie wanted to see the boys in their costumes and got treats there in the driveway.  Treats were safely packages and put outside for the taking.  While we were there Kathleen and her grandkids came by and she gave the boys a treat bag.

The trick at our house was the treats were hidden and the boys went on a hunt to find them.

We then made halloween monsters instead of carving pumpkins.

After that we had dinner and then celebrated Nathan and Stacy's October birthdays

The boys said it was the best Halloween ever especially after last year's cold and snowy one.

I'm the Boss

 My Dad would pound his fist down on the table in front of us kids and the grandkids and laughingly say I'm the Boss.  All of us would giggle and do the same back to him.  I played it with Nathan when he was little and have carried on the tradition with all the boys.  Rylan really hasn't starting talking too much but he has the slapping down his hand and giggling down!

Happy Face

The remote is mine!

Not Quite

He's not quite walking but pulls himself up on the furniture all the time.  Here he is standing on his tippy-toes.

 For awhile he would pull himself up and not move around anywhere.  When he got tired of standing in one spot he would start to fuse.  He is now starting to walk around the furniture.  He does go up the stairs at a pretty good speed.

Chefs in Training

Over Labor Day Weekend we watched the boys while their parents went to New Hampshire for a funeral.  We did all the fun things we usually do, took walks, visited the playground, played games, made up games.  We also did a few unusual things such as catch the ashes falling from the sky from the horrible wildfires burning here.  We also covered the plants in my garden and their garden as an early freeze and snow came in a day after we set a record 100 in September.

We also cooked.  We made zucchini bread and muffins.  The boys all helped with the cooking.  One morning we went to the garden and picked Anaheim peppers to put in our hot dog eggies - one of their favorite dishes.  That morning Trevin did all the cooking and it was good.

 One night we made sloppy joes.  Kaiden was getting the ingredients ready while Trevin read the directions on the can.  Gavin was running around saying we are sloppy joe rangers.  The sloppy joes were very good.

Our Day With Gavin

We have been spending a day with each grandson to celebrate their birthday and last week it was Gavin's turn.

The train from our area to downtown opened up last week, so we took the ride downtown with Gavin.

We took the mall shuttle and looked around at all the sights and then went to lunch.  I don't remember exactly what we started laughing at but he was laughing so hard it was so much silly fun.

We found this display at Union Station and Gavin was enthralled about it looking at all the different jack-o-lanterns.

He saw this lego man advertising the exhibit at the Museum of Nature and Science which we had gone to last month.  He sat down and said "I saw you before".

On our way back home he fell asleep.

Gavin is Four

Gavin turned 4 today.

He was so excited.

 The party wore him out, he fell asleep talking with his grandfather.

First Hair Cut

 Rylan's first haircut.  He didn't cry or fuss like the other 3 did.  He still has curls in the back!

All My Boys

 

Happy Chef

 All ready to help Mom make banana muffins.

Birthday Cake

He was ready to get his hands on that cake!

And he enjoyed it.  He had blue frosting from head to toe by the time he was finished.
 

School Fall 2020

Today is the first day of school for Kaiden and Trevin but it is very different from all their other first days.  They are learning remotely in the bedrooms until at least after the Christmas holidays.

Trevin - 3rd grade

 Kaiden - 6th grade - first year of middle school.

Happy Birthday Rylan!

 Rylan turns one today.  

Same Place Next Year

Same Boys

2019

 2020

Mountain Picnic

The boys have been wanting to go to the mountains for a picnic and we finally made it to Eldorado Springs on Friday.

We hiked

We social distanced

We hiked some more

We put our feet in the water

 

We skipped rocks and made big splashes with others.

We balanced on rocks and didn't want to leave.