We don’t usually plan a lot for Christmas Break – I like the boys to have downtime to play with their new stuff – but we do throw in a few extra special adventures. Some of those had to do with the end of the year coming and our Wanna Do List not being completed!
Ricky gave Billy this Harry Potter blanket for Christmas that they worked together on. They had to trim the edges and tie knots to finish it off. It was good brotherly bonding time!
Bobby just loves this cat! The cat is fairly patient with the boy!
Some Christmas presents required hammering and protective eye wear!
The boys got to dig up fossils and gems! Rusty was in heaven!
I bought this gingerbread house kit LAST year. We finally got to it … a few days after Christmas! It still worked, the boys just weren’t allowed to eat any of the candy!
Sometimes Bobby joins us on our dates…
One of our Wanna Do List items was to go ice skating. Our neighbors put in a backyard skating rink this winter and invited us to give it a try. Bobby was happiest making snow angels…
We didn’t bother to clear off the snow, but the boys thought it was perfect anyway!
They were surprisingly good at it even though it was their first time on ice skates.
I enjoyed that it was just a little rink with just our family … many less fears of fingers being skated over (why I have this fear, I don’t know, but it is REAL).
They WERE surprisingly good, but that didn’t mean biffs didn’t happen! I missed catching a fabulous one by Kevin on camera by mere seconds.
There were skates for everyone but Bobby and me. He and I were both okay with that. We slid around in our boots and I tried to capture the memories with pictures.
I am almost feeling brave enough to take them to a big rink. Maybe.
It was a pretty sweet evening!
I love when I wander into my boys rooms and, one, their bad is nicely made, and, two, one of the animals on the bed is not stuffed!
Another Wanna Do List activity was going to a basketball game. I’m still a bit of a stickler about bedtimes, so finding a daytime game was tricky. We ended up at a rival high school’s girls basketball game!
As a full family event, it was perfect! Girls’ games are a little shorter and less crowded. The boys made themselves at home and made it almost all the way to the end before repeatedly asking for snacks!
Sometimes Grandmama brings Duchess over. Bobby likes that little dog. Maybe too much.
I kind of like finding random selfies on my phone …
Go sledding somewhere new was also on our Wanna Do List. I decided it was time to introduce the boys to MY childhood sledding hill. My mom’s home is on “the bluff” which means there is an okay hill behind it. The city built a walking trail right through the middle of that hill several years ago, but I figured we could still go above or below the trail. Kevin decided we could just go right over the top of it!
It’s just a good size hill. Big enough to get some okay speed but not so big that you get tired walking back up to the top.
Especially if you can convince your big brother to drag you up instead …
The boys got some good practice learning how to sled. We just don’t go very often and so it was really nice to let them just go and learn. Sledding was something I did so much as a child that it comes second nature to me so it was fun watching them learn!
Hearing them giggle and enjoy it so much was pretty awesome, too!
When I was growing up, the challenge was the canal at the bottom of the hill. It was never very full, but it was wet enough to be super muddy. If you weren’t skilled enough, you would land in the muddy canal. Having been stuck in that mud more than once, I got pretty good at stopping before the canal.
Now there is a fence blocking the canal. For the most part, that was a good thing! The boys just kind of ran into the fence and bounced off. It was scary the time Tommy was heading down the hill head first (despite being told not to) and was heading towards a fence post. Thankfully, he missed it by inches! There may have been a stern reprimand and dangers of sledding talk to follow that!
It was a lot of fun!
Getting cocoa from Grandmama afterwards was pretty fun, too!
The final run of the afternoon was my favorite … the train! I had to teach the boys to hook feet and how to hang on …
But I should have focused on teaching Kevin how to not make them crash! Heehee
No boys were hurt in this train wreck!
See the joy on my boy’s face? That’s how much fun that afternoon was.
New Year’s Eve means junk food and games. We had a bit of a Phase 10 slap happy game going on as midnight crept near. My mom, sister, and brother-in-law were enjoying that night with us.
How better to start the new year than with a lap full of cats?! I was hungry, but hated to disturb them all.
