Merry Christmas!

Mmmm

Your right mummy, This Yuengling is pretty good!

Protector

Chippy, out elf, watching over our ginger bread house. Our elf used to be Harry, but he was renamed after the tv show elf!

Letters to Santa.

We mailed our letters to Santa last week!

And this week we received one in return! The boys were so excited :)

Santa.

Here are the photos of Harrison and Allister visiting Santa. 

Allister was not amused, and was happy to get off from Santas knee! Harrison was nervouse, like he was meeting someone super-duper famous. Well of course he was!

He did manage to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas too!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Santa baby.

We went to visit Santa at Daddy Matt's work Christmas party. 

We had a lot of fun. The boys got to tell Santa what they want for Christmas and we are hoping for a good Christmas photo. But we will have to wait and see!

Here are the boys looking so adorable waiting in line for Santa. 

And this has to be the cutest photo ever of the boys!

They are truly at the best ages right now and we are having so much fun. 

Harrison seems to be past his terrible two's (threes?) and has reached a whole new level of maturity. 

He is 90% fun fun fun. He asks questions 24/7 (more in another post!) and has such an understanding. He seems so intelligent for his  young years, I'm sure every parent feels like this if their little 3 1/2 year old. He learns so much every day! And Allister is at that cute cute age, he talks non stop just like his big brother. And they play together now so sweetly. You'll hear Harrison ask Allister "so are you the good guy  or the bad guy?" and Allister will answer in his adorable toddler voice. "bad guy!". Then they will sword fight, or chase each other. I giggle to myself 100 times a day watching them interact. 

Harrison and Allister both sat on Santa's knee this year, and there were no tears! We hope for a pretty good photos, Allister looked sheepish and unsure, but he did sit there and look at the camera. I'm. It sure we got a smile, but we will find out when we get the picture!

Harrison told Santa he wanted a pirate ship and some star wars toys. 

And presents and prizes!

Harrison will tell you he wants something different every day you ask him. A Darth Vadar  mask was top of his list for a while! But as Santa is all done with his shopping now he better not change his mind!

This is Harrison telling Santa what he wants. 

Harrison working at daddy's desk. 

Christmas face paints!

All in all we had a fun morning! And we have our tree up now too, it's starting to look a lot like Christmas :)

An announcement.

Harrison's was on the couch, watching a movie. And he announced out of nowhere...

"I want a girlfriend!"

Omgosh.

Claire

Sent from my iPhone

10 surprising things about NYC.

We're in NYC right now for our 5 year wedding anniversary. More on that later, right, now just this.

1. I love NYC and I feel at home there.......but...
2. I am allergic to NYC  cabs and can't ride in one without needed to throw up. They make me so nauseous!  Urgh. 
3. I'm also allergic to NYC air, allergies are crazy here. 
4. My hair Is also doesn't like NYC and is a frizzy, static-ee mess. 
5. I've realized that even though I love NYC It doesn't agree with most of me!
6. I miss the availability of good multi-cultural food. 
7. It's huge. Like humongous huge. 
8. Every second person is from England. No exaggeration. Like half the people are from England. 
9. There is a lot of money in NYC. 
10. There is a hot dog stand on every corner. And I mean  EVERY corner. And they don't just sell hotdogs. 

Bedtime.

Allister is not the great sleeper Harrison was. He's not a bad sleeper, just not great. And I'm a softie so I give in too easy and so it's mostly my own fault!

Allister has a tendency to fall asleep on the floor, behind the door, or basically anywhere but his bed. 

He loves to snuggle with a soft toy! It's so adorable, he has had this little zebra since he was born, he also likes his Pooh Bear and many other soft toys. 

Here he is snuggling Rex looking oh. So. Adorable. 

And sharing his bed with Harrison.

Note the super cute pirate outfit that was Harrison's when he was this age. 

A first.

Last week, for the first time I braved lunch on my own, in a Restaraunt, with both boys. 

This may not seem like much for many people out there, especially those who don't have kids. But it takes a lot of coordination to feed those small boys and yourself. Ina. Restaraunt! And not McDonald's. 

It's was fun, the bus were on their best behavior! 

I may even do it again someday!

Dinner time fun.

The boys have a new party trick. 

Thanksgiving.

We spent this Thanksgiving with the Blake's in Cincinnati. 

I was very bad at taking photos!

We had a great relaxing time. The turkey was tasty, the company was tastier ;)

Here we are visiting with Grand Mimi the day after Thanksgiving. 

We hope you all had a good Thanksgiving! 

The rest of Indianapolis.

I'm only now getting the chance to write about the rest of our weekend in indianapolis. 

After the Marathon Matt, the boys and I headed to The Indianapolis Childrens Museum. It's apparently the best in the country, and we thought it lived up to its expectation. We didn't get time to see the whole museum, but what we saw was fun, and the boys had a blast. We will go back some day for sure!

The hotel we stayed in was an old train station, trains still ran along side the hotel. Or is that Indside? They were very noisy  and rattle the room like an earthquake, fun in the middle of the night, if your a train  enthusiast maybe! They had converted these old carriages into rooms, but I bet these are super noisy. The working train track runs right behind that wall at the back!

Harrison at the museum pretending to scuba dive. 

This is Harrison standing next to the hat and whip from the  Indiana Jones films.  Starring his namesake Harrison Ford. 

This is Bumble from Transformers. Harrison was in awe of this huge robot! This is an actual model used in the filming. 

Allister riding the train. He was actualy having fun, he was just tired. This is he tired and grumpy look :)

The boys playing in the huge play area, they could have stayed here all day!

The boys in our hotel room in matching knight pj's (thanks Grammy Pooh-bah!)

Playing sweetly together is becoming more and more normal. 

The huge memorial in Indianapolis. The boys thought the "pirates" we're so cool! 

A rare cute photo of the 4 of us. 

Christmas list.

Today I asked the boys what they wanted for christmas.
Harrison "a cookie!!! Shaped like a Christmas tree!"
After pressing for more all I got was "presents and toy!"
Allister "treasure!"
I think Allister has the right idea. So smart for his age ;)

Claire

Sent from my iPhone

Quite the look!

It's fall y'all

Daddy took some cute photos this weekend.

Here is Harrison at the park.....

And the boys playing in the leaves with the neighborhood kids.

I'd love autumn a lot more if it wasn't followed by winter.

Marathon Matt.

We all travelled to Indianapolis recently so Marathon Matt could run his 14th Marathon! We had an great weekend and Matt's little support crowd was there to cheer him on. Matt ended up with a personal best of 2:40:37. Such a fast time and exactly what he was aiming for. What dedication and fitness it takes to run like that. Most people, including myself, could not even run a mile at that pace, let alone 26.2 of them!

Here he is ready for the off. Other than being a little too cold, the weather was great!

We loved the 8am start! Normally races start of 7am or earlier, so it was nice to be presentable enough to take. Decent photo!

Marathon Matt's support group!

One of them was not up to the job that morning...

The boys ready to cheer daddy on!

At least not until he'd had his Starbucks.

And the long awaited finish line!

Looking fresh as a daisy!