end of the year

Our last week of 2010 was full of fun, surprises, and lots of together time...

These first pictures are taken at my friend Erica's house.  Her husband puts this together every year in their front room, and it's a work of art.  Department 56 stopped making these, so they are real collector's items now.  

Christmas Eve!!  With pajamas on and the cookies and milk out, the boys were ready.

It's hard to tell, but we had 3 different train tracks set up at this time--the electric Polar Express around the tree, the wooden Polar Express, and the huge Take Along Thomas train set.  It's sad that the boys are getting older and don't play with trains so much anymore, but I love the magic of Christmas that allows you to feel like a kid again and get all these fun things out.  

Ben made this amazing poetry book at school to give us for Christmas.  As soon as I find it (it's been missing since I went to California for Gma's 90th b-day), I'll copy some of the poems and post them.  They are so funny and I'm so sad I can't find it right now.  :(

Santa knew that Ben, Will and Jake love movies, so he brought each of them their favorite ones with other surprises.  Ben got the Back to the Future trilogy on blue-ray and this '81 DeLorean from the movies;  Will got Ghostbusters 1 & 2 and a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man bank (seriously, how does Santa find these things?!), and Jake got the original Jaws movie with a stuffed great-white shark.  Notice that each of these movies are at least 20 years old!  They love anything old...including us! :)

We all got into helping Daren with his Christmas present--an old-fashioned popcorn machine.  

Unfortunately it was one of those presents that didn't work out too well, so it was fun while it lasted, and we'll go back to enjoying our microwave popcorn.  It would have been perfect in our movie room, too.  

Ben had a Christmas piano recital the Monday night after Christmas.  He played Frosty the Snowman and Joy to the World (as a duet with his teacher, Rachel.)  He did a great job and had many other family members there to support him...

...including Brenda and her kids.  We kept three of them that night after the recital to sleepover, including Ciera, Garrett and Gage.  The next morning they were introduced to the Back to the Future movie.  You just won't escape it if you come to our house!!

WINTER TRAIN FESTIVAL

at Promontory Point

lunch/dinner after that at Robintino's with extended Cox family

And finally, to wrap up the year, we had our own little celebration going on here, with Thomas who joined us for the evening.  These guys all loved playing Legos, drawing, and playing Lego Rockband.  Will and Daren didn't quite make it to celebrate the New Year at midnight, but Ben, Thomas, Jake and then Tom, Julie and their gang joined us for the countdown.  Happy New Year!