T'was the Night Before Christmas

This year Christmas Eve in Texas was relatively calm. The boys and I spent much of the day decorating a gingerbread house and then sugar cookies for Santa. Nolan has been wanting to leave a present for Santa and we settled on a "to go bag" full of cookies and carrots for the reindeer (beyond those left on the platter with milk). The boys took a good look up the chimney to make sure it was clear and finally hit the hay. Santa did indeed come and I thought I would share with everyone now while "not a creature was stirring"... Merry Christmas y'all!

You gotta love this picture the way Luke and Dane are eying each other!

Drew his his boys!

Family picture

Cookies & milk, complete with a "to go" bag!

Santa, are you sure they were THAT good this year?!

Santa was a hungry fellow!

Doc Brown? Is that you?

It's hard to tell by these pictures but Dane actually has very fine, white/blond hair which was very long. He woke up from his nap on Thursday and his hair looked like Nick Nolte's mug shot! Drew even refers to Dane as "Doc Brown" from the movie Back to the Future. So, off to the salon we go! It's one of those, sit in a fire truck, watch a movie kinda place. He tolerated the experience, watched his movie and furrowed his brow frequently. All in all I'd say he was a fabulous client! Our hairdresser was kind enough to collect his baby fine hair and presented Dane with a 1st haircut certificate. I think we're good for at least 6 months!

Before

After

Hey, that's not the Polar Express!!!

If you aren't aware, Grapevine, TX is hailed as the "Christmas Capital of Texas"! And, I have to say, it is a wonderful city to live in. This year we had tickets to ride the "North Pole Express" so we dressed the boys in their PJ's and went to downtown Grapevine/Main Street and started our evening by grabbing a bite to eat. Oh what fun...eating in public in your PJ's! Afterwards we walked down to the gazebo to watch the light show set to music. It was so much fun we finally had to join in on all the dancing. After we were all danced out we went to the train station where we were to board our train promptly at 7:30pm. Luke (our "train kid") was so excited to take a ride on the Polar Express. He was ready to drink hot chocolate and go the North Pole to see Santa. Our train departed the station and sure enough, Santa made his way down our train car and it was all very exciting until we returned back to the station where Luke said, "Hey! We didn't go to the North Pole!" (There's no fooling this kid!). We walked back to our car and they were parking the engine for the night and as quick as a flash Luke was sure to inform us that that train was an imposter! It was NOT the Polar Express! Lesson learned...we now know better than to suggest to a kid who LOVES the movie Polar Express that we were indeed riding that very same train!

3 brothers watching the light show.

Dancing at the gazebo.

Look at those monkey slippers!

Sam & Luke

Riding the train with friends and cousins!

Drew and Dane

Wilson Annual Trip to the Gaylord to see Santa

Every year we make our Sunday morning trek out to the Gaylord to see Santa. My most recent memory of an 18 month old (Luke) sitting on Santa's lap resulted in a picture of an open mouth and the vision of 4 giant molars and that dangly thing in the back of your throat...needless to say, my expectations were fairly low. I fully expected to watch Dane slither off of the "Big Guy's" lap but not so. Luckily, this year Santa was extremely jolly and allowed Dane to slowly approach. Dane lowered his eye brows but did not cry. Nolan took the first seat, then Luke and then Dane decided he was an O.K. guy. It's good to have big brothers! He knows they'll take care of him!

Another attempt to get a picture of all 3 at the same time. I was so close until Luke looked away!

Luke is fully concentrating on the train watching.

GQ...enough said!

Wilson Family Christmas

All I can say is WOW! Bring on the presents! Christmas present unwrapping has gone from a record setting 4 hour event (in 2003) to a 4 minute event (in 2010). The boys ripped packages faster than we could see what was behind the beautiful paper! We had a wonderful Mexican themed dinner with traditional tamales and green chili stew. Only in Texas! And to think that this was the first of many Christmas gatherings yet to come!

The loot!

6 Wilson grandsons (as you can see, Luke has learned the art of "bunny ears").

Dane got a 4 wheeler (powered by his 2 legs, of course!)

Luke got more train track and he was happy as a clam!

Nolan got a Brett Bros necklace which is going to drastically improve his baseball game! :)

Yes, that is Dane sporting a pink drink cup. Apparently Cabela's ran out of different shades of blue!

Nolan just "hanging" with Grandpa

That's Dave doing dishes! I had to capture a picture of this!

Nolan's 7th Birthday - December 8, 2010

Today not only did Nolan celebrate his 7th birthday but he was also "Star Student" in his 1st grade classroom. The bulletin board was all about him and he even was able to bring in things that were special to him and he got to tell about them and answer questions. Of course, Nolan chooses to bring his wakeboard to school with him which doesn't exactly fit in is backpack but Mrs. Robinson told him if he could carry it he could bring it! He loved all of the attention that was showered on him, especially since it coincided with his birthday!

I've decided that this was the year for electronics! St Nick brought him a "kid" MP3 player on Sunday night and for his birthday he got his very own NintendoDS. He's been waiting patiently an entire year for this gift!

This year we let Nolan have a sleepover birthday party to celebrate his birthday. 3 of his buddies from his pre-school class spent the night. I just love that he has friends from before he was even 3 years old! They all play baseball together and what I've learned is that when Drew is the baseball coach, on or off the field, the boys respect him. I enjoyed not having to be the "mean mom" for this sleepover! When the boys woke up we had a special treat for breakfast. We took them to the fire station to have pancakes with Santa. It was pretty cool because 3 helicopters came circling around and when they landed Santa got out of one, Mrs. C got out of another and Rudolph got out of the other helicopter! We do our best to deliver spectacular birthday entertainment!

Nolan holding his brand new Nintendo DS!

Nolan's friends singing Happy Birthday to him!

Best Buds (and Luke too!)

Checking out the helicopter that Santa arrived in!

You better not pout...

Here's a sneak peak of this year's Wilson family Christmas card! Fortunately, this pose didn't make the cut. It was the first pose of my "family picture photo session" and it only went downhill from there! Nolan is always ready for the camera, I had to threaten Luke with the loss of his trains if he didn't smile and look at the camera (simultaneously) and Dane, well, hopefully he'll laugh at himself one day! Oh what a joy Santa's lap should be this year! Ho Ho Ho!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like...March?

Just a week ago we were enjoying a blustery 80 degree weekend and the boys just HAD to go fly their kites. You gotta love a warm November day that makes it feel like a spring day! We finished our yard work and headed up to the park near our house where we could find wide open spaces and enjoyed lots of giggles and squeals from the boys trying to fly their kites. It was actually too gusty to keep the kites up for long, long periods of time but when they came crashing down they were up again in no time thanks to the gusts of winds that caught their kites. I was a little thankful we didn't have one of those 2 handle kites because I am convinced it would have carried Luke away! Even Dane enjoyed watching his brothers fly their kites. Maybe next year he'll have one of his own to fly!

I love the look of concentration on Luke's face in this picture.

Turtle kite

Fish kite

Nolan has mastered his kite (for the moment anyway)

A tree in the park with fall color! I love the different shades from the bottom to the top of the tree. I appreciate any color I can see because in Texas the trees go from green to brown to on the ground.

Dane and Lucy hanging out by the baseball backstop enjoying the show!

It's Pumpkin Carving Time!

I haven't decided which holiday my kids like most...Christmas or Halloween! This Halloween I got my first taste of "I want to be _______". I had great plans for their costumes and how I was going to create a "theme" for the 3 of them but this year I had to let my ideas go and embrace the costume decisions made by Nolan and Luke (I still got to dress Dane up tho!). Either way, Halloween day always proves to be very exciting. We started by preparing our pumpkins for their annual "carvings". Nolan and Luke drew pictures of what they wanted their pumpkins to look like. I did the cutting, they did the gutting! Dane even got in on the action.

As it has been in the past, the weather was wonderful yet again for our Trick or Treating adventure! I remember many Halloweens in Missouri where our costumes were covered up with warm winter coats! Not so in Texas! This year Nolan was a USA soccer player, Luke was Buzz Lightyear (to infinity and beyond!) and Dane was my little viking (he IS 1/8th Norwegian ya know!). I guess I'm a sucker for the home-made costume as I think so many others are. A run down of Dane's costume looked something like this...

A "pelt" of fur - $3.50

A viking helmet made out of a baseball cap, paper horns, tape and paint - Free

A viking shield made out of a sauce pot lid and aluminum foil - Free again!

Duct tape to attach the horns to the cap - PRICELESS!

I hope everyone had a ghoulish night to remember!

Nolan and Dane "gutting" their pumpkin

Dane posing for the camera

Nolan doing his "gutting"

Luke scooping out his pumpkin guts

It's time! This viking has arrived!

A viking, a soccer player and a Buzz Lightyear

A rare photo of me and Dane!

Drew and Dane walking together. (I think Drew was checking the score of the World Series Rangers vs. Giants, game 4)

Who couldn't love this picture!

Someone loves him a Kit Kat bar!

The Pumpkin Patch

A few weeks ago we made our annual trip to the Halls Farm Pumpkin Patch. We've visited another pumpkin patch several years ago when Luke was about 18 months old and well, we keep returning to the tried and true. This pumpkin patch truly resembles the "less is more" philosophy. As always I attempted to pose 3 children in the same photo and as always, I get a great shot of Nolan and Dane and interesting participation from Luke. Once I put away the camera the boys finally got to have the fun they were promised! Hay mazes, corn mazes, tractor climbing, farm animal viewing and pumpkin picking-outing. The only event we missed this year was the evening hay ride which was sold out 2 hours before the next ride. I think our pumpkin farm secret is out because every year it seems to be a bigger and bigger group of people hanging out at the pumpkin patch. Next stop...Halloween!

3 Brothers together (sorta) :)

I finally got a decent shot of Dane.

Hanging out in an old truck!

A great picture of Luke and Nolan. Sure wish I could get a picture like this with Dane included.

Luke LOVED picking out his pumpkin this year.