New Years and Hockey

We went over to Mckay's sister's house for New Years Eve. She made a super cute "photo booth" with props for taking fun pictures.

Judd and Dallin

I love this one of Connor.

And this next one of Dallin:

The hosts: Annie (Mckay's sister) and Tommy

 We played a tournament of games (among the games: air hockey, arcade basketball, Jenga, Farkle). Mckay was assigned to tally up our individual scores from each game and normalize them to determine the winner.

And while Mckay did that, I got comfy on the couch and waited for the ball to drop.

I'm not sure what my face is doing here, but I used this picture because I wanted to show Trixie, the little dog that also got a lot tormenting attention from Connor.

Drinking sparkling apple cider and cheering to the New Year.

I'm pretty sure that clock is wrong. It was most definitely midnight.

One of the activities we planned before our visit was for all the adults to attend an Avalanche Hockey Game. On Jan. 2, we found babysitters for all the kids (no small feat) and went to the Pepsi Center for my first NHL game. I've watched more than I can count on TV (being married to a hockey fan will do that to you) but I'd never seen a game in person before.

The boys all sat together.

Mckay was too into the game to look away for a picture.

Here's all the girls... and Dad Easton.

I've decided that sporting events are a lot more fun watching them in person. I've always enjoyed going to baseball games and this hockey game was really fun too. It will definitely not be my last.

Oh, and the Avs won.

There was a..... 

...well you all know what this kind of things is, but I don't know a word for it. We'll just say there was a fill-in-your-own-face-photo-op-statue.

Garrett, Mckay, Evan. The brothers.

Notice that awesome "Easton" hockey stick? We were meant to be hockey fans.

Adventures in Denver

The day after Christmas, we got really sick. I hardly moved from the couch for 4 days. Some other Eastons had been sick earlier in the week and it made it's way through our family too. Mckay was sick for 3 days at the same time I was. Mom and Dad Easton started their sickness a few days before we did, so they were sort of on the mend as we got sicker. We all just laid around the house resting for 4 days. Dallin and Connor somehow escaped getting sick for any longer than half a day, so the 4 adults in the house took turns taking care of and entertaining the boys. One person would feed them breakfast while everyone else rested. Then someone else would get them lunch. Then someone else would play legos with them. We let the boys watch waaaay too many movies during the sick days, but you gotta do what you gotta do to get better. Even if that involves watching "Star Wars: A New Hope" several times each day. I thought about taking pictures to document our sick days for the blog, but that would have required enough energy to leave the couch and find the camera.

When we were finally feeling better, we had to get out of the house and do fun things. Our first stop was the Butterfly Pavilion with the cousins.

This butterfly landed on Graham and he was pretty excited about it.

Besides a walk-through butterfly garden, they had lots of caged insects and animals to see.

I know the glare makes it hard, but can you spot the tarantula in this cage?

There it is!

There was a tarantula that they let people hold. We all took a turn.

The kids were pretty fearless.

 Dallin and Connor had a fun time playing with their cousins.

Charlotte and Dallin

 ***

We went bowling one day.

I played the best game I've ever played and scored about 150 (if I remember correctly)! Yes, we had bumpers up for the kids, but I only benefited from them once. Those strikes were all mine.

***

 We went to the Denver Zoo. It was a warm but still cold day, so we enjoyed a lot of the indoor exhibits.

 Connor couldn't take his eyes off the Komodo dragons.

We have a book about Komodo dragons that he loves so I think he was really excited to see them in person.

 ***

We had to make sure that we spent a day at the Train Museum for Connor's sake.

He was in heaven. He loved the indoor miniature train display.

And we saw the real trains outside.

And there was an outdoor mini train display.

Connor could hardly take his eyes off the trains.

Being sick was no fun, but we made up for it by going to fun places.

Christmas

For Christmas this year, we went to Denver to be with our Easton family. In the past, we've flown on an airplane to visit family since everyone is so far away, but the cost of 4 planes tickets (since Connor is now 2 years old) was ridiculously expensive. So we drove to Denver instead.

Dallin found our snack stash very quickly and began asking for cheetos.

 We divided the 16 hour drive into two days. Day 1: four hours from Indiana to St. Louis. We stayed with Grace and David, my childhood best friend and her husband. Dallin and Connor loved playing with Hannah, their daughter.

We left early the next morning to drive the rest of the 12 hours to Denver. Dallin and Connor had a blast playing with cousins for two weeks.

Judd (seen below, center of the picture) just turned three so he is right between Dallin and Connor. These three had so much fun together and caused so much trouble.

They played xbox and ate all the chex mix.

They jumped on the trampoline on the warm days.

 They played the piano.

Connor loved Grandma and Grandpa's dog, Sammy.

He followed that poor dog everywhere and wore him out daily.

 On Christmas Eve, we played with all the cousins and watched some movies.

Before bed, the boys got to open a special present:

 pajamas that I made just for them!

I sewed some easy flannel pants. For the shirts, I used a freezer paper stencil and fabric paint on a plain t-shirt. Super easy, but the boys were so excited! And I let them choose the pants fabric themselves, hence the trains on Connor's pants.

 Now to explain the boxes of fruit snacks in the picture above (and below): we filled their stockings with some cookies, assorted fruits and a box of fruit snacks, which happened to be at the very top of the stocking. The boys woke up on Christmas morning and I showed them their stockings while we waited for everyone to get ready and gather by the tree. They reached into the stockings and pulled out the first thing: fruit snacks. They both got so excited and started jumping and cheering, "Yay!!! Fruits snacks!!!!!!" And then they marched around the house, still cheering and showing off their fruit snacks.

I think we could have taken back all their other presents and they would have been fine with getting only fruit snacks.

They eventually discovered the other goodies in the stockings. 

Then the present opening began.

This Lego wrapping paper (from my parents) was a big hit.

Connor got more train tracks.

He's saying, "Choo choo!"

 Dallin got Star Wars pancake molds.

He thought these were so cool and carried them around with him all day. We waited until we got home from Denver to make some pancakes with them, but the wait was worth it. The pancakes looked awesome!

 Dallin got a lot of Star Wars themed presents. And he loves all of them.

He got a Darth Vader t-shirt and a Darth Vader Lego alarm clock. He carries it everywhere with him, wants to sleep with it like a doll, and has no idea what the numbers on Darth Vader's belly mean.

Another favorite of Connor's presents was a dump truck.

He has a lot of love for this truck.

We all had a really fun Christmas and loved all the family time. Dallin and Connor were happy about the constant supply of cutie oranges at Grandma and Grandpa Easton's house.

I was happy that they learned how to peel the oranges by themselves and that Dallin's orange eating foray wasn't just a one-time thing.

More posts to come on our adventures in Denver and our epic journey home through Snowmageddon!