What a wonderful Christmas we had this year. Josh and I were sick, and unfortunately managed to get Mom and Rich sick, too, but we still all enjoyed each other's company. Greg brought his girlfriend, Jenni with him. It was nice to have all of us together again. It is fun to see how each year, the children's understanding and ideas about Christmas changes. When Max was two, he wasn't all that interested in any of it, and it was hard to get him to open his gifts. Lauren was like that this year. Last year, Max was excited, but as soon as he opened a gift that interested him, he just wanted to go off and play with it. 
Uncle Greg is still like this. This year, he was all about the opening, and flew through them so quickly, no matter how we tried to slow him down, that not only did I not manage to write down who gave what to whom for all thank you note gifts, but he was done way before everyone else and proceeded to pout about it. Oh well. Once we finished opening gifts, he was happy.
The time went by too quickly as always and everyone headed home too soon. The kids love having Josh home and his time off was too short for their liking. It was lovely, though. It was such
a relaxed holiday.
What a year it has been. I can't believe it is over. Happy New Year everyone.
We got another big storm today. It was beautiful snow, the kind that clings to the trees (and makes them fall and take out power lines, but luckily that didnt' happen to us). We spent much of the day indoors, just watching it come down. Usually, Max is dragging me out to play the minute he discovers it is snowing, but not today. He must be getting used to it. Instead, we built a volcano. The kids and I had made playdough and dyed it green, red, brown and blue (Max's idea) for my volcano class at work. Because there was no school today, I didn't need it today, so we used it instead. Max built a really nice volcano, and we had a blast watching it errupt. Then, I finally managed to drag them outdoors. As usually, Max had a blast. The dogs did, too. They are happiest when they are either swimming or playing in the snow. Lauren was the surprise, though. The snow was quite deep and for the first time, she really walked in it, not just on the packed areas. She really seemed to enjoy it. I am sure it helped that there was little wind and it 
was just shy of freezing, but she played for quite a while (it helped that she kept her gloves on). 
The kids love music, playing it, dancing to it, singing with it. They often fight over the piano, but here is a rare moment where they are sharing and getting along.
snowshoeing.
Why pick out a Christmas tree in the summer or on a warm fall day when you can wait for it to be bitterly cold and windy to do it?
A friend sent the kids supercapes.Max and Lauren put them on and Max announced that he was "SuperMax, with the power not to run into things" and that Lauren was "SuperLauren, with the power to take things off!" As Lauren tends to remove every item of clothing, diaper included, that we put on her, we thought her title was pretty accurate. Max's, on the other hand, is a bit suspect. 
Lauren and Max loved Halloween this year. We had to bypass it altogether last year because of Max's illness, and it was Lauren's first trickortreat. Max had decided months ago that he wanted to be Spiderman. We have no idea where his Spiderman obsession came from as he has never really seen the movie, but he was adament so I broke down and allowed him to be a "character." I was too cheap to buy a good Spiderman costume and couldn't stand the cheap ones (actually, most that I saw were the worst of both worlds) so I made one. It was pretty cheesey, but he loved it. He and Lauren both looked pretty cute. Lauren loved the trickortreating thing, especially when she realized she was getting to keep the candy. She was especially thrilled about MnMs. We used them as treats for Max after his medicine (3 MnMs after he took them) and never let Lauren have them. She called them "Max Candy" and that was all she really wanted to eat.
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