3 Christmases

We had a wonderful Christmas with our family this year. Lane's mom & Rich, Aly & Asher came over the day before Christmas Eve. It was a great evening. We made avocado bruchetta & onion dip for appetizers. And tomatillo chicken on cilantro lime rice for dinner. Then topped it off with Reese's peanut buttercup cheesecake. I'm telling you, Pinterest never lets you down.

 After dinner, Aly told a cute nativity story.

 Kiddos modeling their aprons. These 2 boys are so cute together!

 After presents, we walked around the block & looked at Christmas lights.

 Mimi, Peepaw & grandkids.

 Family shot.

Christmas Eve. Santa has come!

 Christmas Day 7am. Davis is still snoozing. Lane just got home from a night shift.

 Checking out their Santa gifts.

 Plastic packaging is way better than the actual present.

 Christmas at my parents. I only have 2 pictures. Just know that there was a wonderful breakfast followed by lots of presents.

Christmas night with Lane's dad & Brenda, Aly, Chris, Asher & Hunter. This is the only picture I got. Lots of food was had. Aly & Chris put on their annual concert that we love.

Great Wolf Lodge

I bought a Groupon a while back for the Great Wolf Lodge and we were finally able to go on the 16th. Elliot has been talking about it for 2 months. She was particularly excited about sleeping in a bunk bed. I have to say this place was awesome. I would have enjoyed it even without kids. Lane's sister Aly & her boy Asher were able to meet up with us as well.

 The Lobby was all decorated for Christmas. It "snows" 4 times a day, so we made sure to be there for one of them.

 Poor Elliot. She came down with a fever about this time.

 Davis & Asher tore it up jumping on the bed.

 On her bunk bed.

 Their bed was inside this tent. We stayed in the Kids Camp Suite.

Santa Pictures

Santa showed up at our church party & Elliot was able to tell him what she wanted for Christmas...a Barbie RV. Sadly I didn't get a picture of Elliot smiling. They all turned out blurry.

Poor Perry. I'm not sure if she would have cried anyway, but she was grumpy pre-Santa.

Coming Home

Well this is it. We are beyond thrilled to be heading home tomorrow. The kids are super excited. New Zealand has been great, but we are more than ready to get back to the norm at home. We've made some great friends that hopefully we'll keep in touch with. I already mentioned Brad & Dawn in a previous post. But we've also gotten pretty close to Emil & Leilani and their 2 girls, Poppy & Ruby. They are Elliot & Davis' age. We've had dinner at their house once, I had a play date with them once & we got together tonight for one last time & had dinner. The kids play so well together. I have to admit it was a little sad saying goodbye to them. 

 Lane & Emil. They worked at the hospital together.

Elliot & Ruby. They loved playing together. We're going to try to do the pen pal thing with them.

This Kid

It's been a while since I've done a little update on Davis. And I find myself constantly saying, "I need to write that down". So without further adue, here are some tidbits about Master Davis.

• He's talking up a storm. I can understand about 90%. His favorite phrases are "Where's insert name?" & "What's that?"
• He's a decent eater. There's definitely nights when I end up making him a pbj because he doesn't eat dinner, but it seem like he's always hungry. He loves bananas, oranges, applesauce, yogurt, hot dogs, sandwiches, chicken nuggets, hamburgers, etc. However, he won't eat vegetables. I guess that's normal. 
• For some reason he is really into garages. No idea why, but he points them out constantly. He also loves to play in the car (grandma's especially). He loves pressing buttons. Since we're on the 4th floor right now, we go on the elevator a lot & he insists on pushing that button. Heaven forbid anyone else do it. He will result in a melt down. He also likes to close his own car door, or any door for that matter. 
• When it's time to brush teeth, he runs away. He used to come right in, but now thinks it's a game. We have to chase him all over the house. It's exhausting. 
• He loves baths, but HATES getting out of them. He screams every time. 
• He can sing Twinkle Twinkle, ABC song & tries to sing others. He counts to 10.
• He can be a little stinker sometimes (not that you're surprised) & push Perry. This results in her crying & him taking off to hide. Although, sometimes Perry will just fall & when I ask him what happened, he'll reply "I push Perry" when he didn't. So he's also a scapegoat. Also, since we are in a tiny car right now, they all sit right next to each other. At first he was next to Elliot, but he would bother her way too much. He would reach over & pinch her or grab her hair. I would always tell him to put his hands in his lap & just watching him do that would crack me up. Then we moved Perry next to Davis. It's been a little better, but sometimes he will swing his leg up into her car seat just to be a pest.
• He still has his yum yum. Normally I would have gotten rid of it, but since we are in New Zealand, I was not going try to change things. We'll work on that when we get home.
• Davis will randomly snort like a pig. It's pretty hilarious & he thinks so too. 
• He likes to gargle his water. I hate it when he does this because water ends up running down his face, neck & clothes.
• My sweet boys still give me TONS of kisses without me even asking him. He's come up to me all the time & plant one one me.
• He also has the sweetest hug. When he does it right, he'll wrap his arms around you & then scrunch his fingers up back & forth. It's the cutest thing ever!
• He likes to say "Yes Sir!" very enthusiastically. 
• Since he & Elliot are sharing a room right now, he always runs to get in her bed. When he does finally fall asleep in his own bed, he always has a pillow or blanket over his face. I don't know how he can breathe. 

Train World

We checked out Train World the other day. Basically a bunch of model trains. The kids enjoyed it.We have officially run out of things to do here. We've already gone on all the little day trips that are 2-3 hours away. We really can't travel any further with the kids.

Fishing

We are always seeing people fishing off the docks around town so we decided to "do as the locals do". We went out & bought a fishing pole. As soon as Lane put it together, Elliot immediately broke it by running into the back of the couch, breaking off the tip. Ugh. Lane repaired it & off we went. We didn't catch anything but that's ok. We lasted about 30 minutes. Elliot did well. Davis had no interest. He was much happier throwing rocks into the water which gave me a heart attack because we were up on a tall pier without a rail. I was so afraid that he would fall over. Because of that I had to put an end to the fishing.

The Strawberry Patch

I have always wanted to pick my own fruit and really wish I had the time, space and know how to have my own garden. But I don't. We found this place through a friend and had a great time picking strawberries. After we all got fresh fruit ice cream.