(belated) Merry Christmas!

Well, I'm only 6 days behind...not too bad considering the whirlwind our house looked like after a house with a 3 year old celebrating Christmas! But here they are...a few action shots...and a few shots by the youngest photographer in the house himself! Santa was quite good to us all this year...perhaps best of all for mom and dad who get to take a little vacation in February! (Thanks in advance to all the grandparents for helping with that!) But A had a pretty darn good one too! Here's a quick recap...

First Santa came, bringing instruments and Jake gear!

But the Jake gear needed some more Jake stuff to go with it...

and of course a Lego/train table! (the picture of the car and man are courtesy of said young photographer)

So from our merry family to yours...hope you had a fabulous holiday season! Bring on 2015!

The Giving Season

I like to give back and I think it's an important way to connect with the community. But I don't want my time with the community to take time away from me and A, and so it just happens that taking him along provides that connection on multiple levels. 

The last few years I've just done an angel tree (or 3) gifts. But this year I decided it was time to step it up a notch. (We still did 3 angel tree gifts too, don't worry!)

Enter Meals on Wheels - Charlottesville, just after Thanksgiving. 

And then packing boxes of food in Rockbridge County with DD and DaDoc. 

It doesn't take much, but I'm hoping he eventually remembers these times. It's so important to keep us all humble and remind us of the reason for the season

Oh and sometimes it even pays off quicker than you expect. Here he is just after receiving a special fireman hat just after doing Meals on Wheels. He was ecstatic. 

We followed up with a thank you note of course :)

Here comes Santa Clause!

We're getting ready for Christmas time here. The tree is trimmed and cookies baked, so that means we're waiting for the big day. 

We have been doing an Advent calendar every night which is fun, though Christopher the elf is providing more antics of course. 

He's checking to make sure we're all behaving of course. Last weekend we had breakfast with the big guy, at which point A reminded him expects a xylophone for Christmas. Let's hope the elves are musically inclined!

 

Day out with Thomas

With the holiday season in full swing, I have been neglecting the blog! And I have such good pictures and post ideas! Clearly I need to reevaluate my priorities :) 

For A's birthday he received tickets to go see Thomas the Train. Awesome right? So we booked a hotel in Lancaster PA and headed up for the weekend. I enjoyed showing Kyle and A around a place I remember visiting as a child. The chocolate at Wilbur, the huge Central Market...even better than I recalled! 

Here we are in Lititz. Love this shot!

But the real reason for the visit was Thomas. Who doesn't love that cheeky train?

And here's the video of it: http://www.youtube.com/attribution_link?a=Q5bhj3GXDdw&u=/watch%3Fv%3Dff70OLHqrz8%26feature%3Dem-upload_owner%23action%3Dshare 

The best part about this is that you not only see Thomas buy ride aboard! Look at A showing off his ticket :)

And Percy was there too! We took a short ride aboard as well. 

And they had fun games and stuff. Here is A rockin' his Thomas and Harold tattoos. 

So thanks for the tickets DD and DaDoc. We had a great time!! A told his teacher he was Thankful for Thomas after we returned. Not quite what we want him to aim for with that question, but I think the point was he liked it :)