Belated Christmas Break Post

I haven't done a post in a really long time! We had lots of fun up North playing with the Bowles clan for a couple of weeks and I have lots of pictures that I was going to post sooner. However when we got home, I found myself buried under a moutain of new toys to put away, a truck-bed full of our stuff that my parents brought down for us, and for some reason tons and tons of dirty laundry eventhough I had gotten most of the stuff from the trip clean before we came home. We have been spending many a day rearranging, organizine, washing, folding, and trying to find a place to fit everything. So anyway. Here's some more pictures from our fun up North. It was Grandma Bowles' idea to fold only one side of this table down and turn it into a slide. The boys thought it was spectacular that all of a sudden there was a slide! Cool Grandma, huh?
After sliding a few times, the took to running down it....one right after the other. We quickly had to implament turns to ensure safety. The had a ball playing on this thing!

We visited Great Grandma and Grandpa Bowles. Grandpa showed the boys his train. The were blown away by it!

Ollie especially loves trains right now, but they both like them and thought that a small, real moving train was the most amazing thing ever.

Great Grandma Bowles even showed them how to get down on the floor and take a closer look.

After all the excitement, Dexy had to chillax in this old fashioned rocking chair. I feel like this picture should be in black and white and in some really large, old world frame.

Then Great Grandpa Bowles took us to the near by parking lot where hundreds of birds wait for him to come and feed them everyday. And yes. That is a gianormous bucket of bird seed that he is carrying over to random parking lot pigeons. Odd? Of course......

.....but the boys had their brains wrinkled once again by something that they have never seen before. Again, they were fascinated. We love playing with the Bowles side of the family!

Then on the 30th of December, we went to the fabulous, new home of Brian's MTC companion, John Forsythe. Johny 5, as we call him, and his sweet wife Hailey and their little boy Landon, are good friends of ours. We had a great time. We did some catching up, ate delicious dinner, they boys had great fun playing with their long last friend (it's been a while since we've seen the 5s) and even got to take a bath together.

After bath time, they were all cozied and clean in their jammies, Hailey made them popcorn and got them all drinks and they got to watch some Shrek 4 and stay up late while we had some grown-up friend time, too. We had a sleep over, even! The boys did a great job sleeping there. I was so well pleased in them. And it was so nice for Brian and I to have real beds to sleep on, even 2 twin beds, rather than the bean bags and air mattress that we had been sleeping on for 2 weeks.

The next morning, we got up to Johny 5 and Hailey making us pancakes and hasbrowns. Then we bundled the kids up and attempted to take them sledding. There was a big hill really close to their house, so we just went there. And it was a good thing. It was sooooooooo cold!! Oliver basically hated the whole experience.

Dexy found a little joy in the sledding, but mostly just sat motionless and expressionless. I think he was trying to perserve his energy so that more could go to warming himself.
Our boys had more fun sliding down the cold, icey slide than sledding. Even that didn't last very long though. After only about 10 minutes, all the babies were totally finished with the freezing, winter wonderland experience.

Dexy and Landon let Johny 5 give them one last ride from the playground back up the hill to the car. Mental note to self: I took this sled down the hill once. It was wicked fast and totally awesome. Look into getting one. Johny 5 says that they are straight out of Canda. Probably going to have to start there to track one down.

After our fun in the cold, we all had to warm ourselves with cups of hot chocolate and snuggling on the couch while watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Landon even cuddled up to me. He's a fun, happy, friendly kid. I'm a fan! I'm so glad that we got to go spend some time with friends. We had a fabulous time! We had lots of fun up there. I still have to post the pictures of our New Years Day celebrations, but my lower back is killing me, so I'll have to do it another day. Hopefully I'll dig myself out of all the house work I've been doing and have time not only soon, but preferrably not at 1:25 am.