Pooh Bear and Mickey Mouse

This is the last holiday posting! Gavin kept asking for me to buy "blow ups" for the front yard for the holidays. Joel and I weren't so keen on the idea. Luckily the neighbors 2 doors down on either side of us filled the void. One neighbor is an obcessed Broncos fan and has a giant Broncos football player blow up in their yard on weekends. The other has Pooh bear, a train and a carousel with Minney, Mickey and Santa. Trevor says good night to them every night. Once in a while I'd take the kids over to see the Christmas decor blown up at night. After Christmas, the neighbor still had their stuff out but not blown up. We went over, Gavin knocked on the door and asked if they would turn them on. The neighbor did and we stood in their front yard for a good 20 minutes one afternoon just "admiring" the blow ups! It's January 16, the blow ups are still out but not blown up. Trevor wants to run down every night to see them - I tell him they're sleeping. He says "Mickey sleeping." The neighbor offered to let us put them in our backyard for the rest of winter - I don't think so! I told Joel next year we'd go big and create some one-of-a-kind decor for the front yard. We'll see!

Consider yourself updated! I'm going to bed.

 

Hanging out with cousin Landyn!

The cousins had a fun time hanging out together. They played, went to the park and were silly together.    I made an attempt to take a few photos of the 3 kids together. Landyn sat still, the other two were hit or miss! 

Thank you to Uncle Neil, Aunt Rebekah and Cousin Landyn for your hospitality and letting us take over your house for 5 days. We had a fun visit. Gavin wants to thank you for letting him play with Roxy and Fredo (the cats)! Trevor wanted to thank Cousin Landyn for letting him play rough with Buzz and Woody. 

 

A visit with Pizza Bruce and family

On Thursday, we drove down to Olympia to visit with Dan and Jen, their 2 kids Emmy and Jack and Uncle Bruce and Jackie. The sun even made an appearance! We had a fun visit catching up, playing in the kids play room, spending a few minutes outside between rain drops and playing some more. Before we left everyone pulled out their cameras to get a group photo - mine didn't turn out so hot! 

Gavin and Trevor had a great time playing with the big kids. They wrestled, climbed like monkeys and just had a fun time. 

 

 

(good photos compliments of Uncle Bruce and Jackie!)

A trip to the Bounce House!

On Wednesday, Neil and Rebekah suggested we head to the bounce house place (a technical term!) - a giant warehouse space filled with different shapes and sizes of bounce houses! The kids (Landyn and Gavin) had a great time as did the big kids. Neil and Joel were a hoot to watch as they flew through one of the bounce houses that had a maze. Neil was flying through the air, Joel was tumbling and Trevor and I watched! I didn't get any photos of Aunt Rebekah but she was having fun bouncing with the kids too! 

Christmas Dinner!

We visited a friend of Joel's from high school, Joe and Rebecca, for Christmas dinner. The just moved to Seattle area a few weeks prior. We actually visited them on Christmas day last year in Bakersfield. We said next year, they'd have to visit us in Colorado!

We had a nice dinner, the 4 kids ran around the house playing with Nerf guns and every toy that they could get their hands on in the basement! It was fun!

Christmas Morning!

The Beam boys (at least the younger ones) aren't known for sleeping in. And with the 1 hour time change, it feels like we were getting up even earlier. Another thing they aren't known for is being quiet. On Christmas day, the boys were up before the sun and hanging out with me in the family room until we successfully woke up everyone else in the house.

Santa had come. He ate his cookies. Drank his milk. There were presents under the tree. It was show time! There were lots of presents and fun to go around.

Seattle for Christmas!

We finally got packed on Sunday night only to go to bed and wake up at 4 for an early morning flight to Seattle. We were amazed at how attentive the parking lot attendants were, how quickly the shuttle was from the lot to the airport and how friendly the airport staff were. (Joel headed off to the bathroom when we were in a long line to get boarding passes. I had all the luggage, car seat and 2 kids with me. Every time the line moved, I had to move everything. I must have looked pitiful because the Frontier staff came back to help me and put me at the front of the line! I'll have to remember this for next time!)

Anyway, the flight was a bit late and Gavin was not happy about it. Everyone behaved well on the flight and Uncle Neil picked us up from the airport. The boys napped on the car ride north.

The last time we were up to visit Neil, Rebekah and Landyn was when Gavin was 18 months old. He had a leg cast due to a playground injury before heading out of town. It was a strange coincidence that this time Trevor was the wounded soldier!

A seat on the chair

Every once in a while I have the camera out when the boys decide to sit still on the chair in the living room. Here are the latest shots!

Two nights before Christmas and all through the house...

On Sunday afternoon we went to the Rickert's new house for a visit. We had a nice time, the kids behaved well, then we went home. I was in the laundry room putting stuff into the dryer, Gavin and Joel were in the kitchen and Trevor was playing with the washer door. I turned around and Trevor had walked off. Not a minute later I heard crying. Trevor went into the kitchen, tripped, fell and hit his head on the tile floor. Nice 3/4" gash on his forehead. Joel called me in after picking Trevor up and assessing the situation - (after I asked what Joel did to him, of course!) - we needed to get stitches. Not 15 minutes after getting home, we all jumped back in the car and headed to Children's North Campus Urgent Care. I was surprised at how many little people were there that night but we were seen quickly and in an exam room in no time.

After the doctor, nurse and tech came through, it was decided that T needed stitches to close up his wound. That was the fun part. Trevor has never liked being in the doctor's office with the door closed. The staff had to pin him down to clean the area and put numbing gel on his forehead followed by bandage to make sure he didn't pull anything off! Then we wait 20 minutes for the numbing gel to kick in. We were all getting a little tired and still hadn't packed for our early morning flight! 20 minutes passed and the doctor and nurse came in. Joel and Gavin left the room and I got to be at the feet of a little boy that was not happy being put back on the table to get a few stitches. It was over very quickly but Joel said he could hear Trevor down the hall even with the door closed. Once he was back in my arms he was happy again and noticing the duckies on the wall. He was a trooper. It was a minor wound but after his last bonk, we thought it best to get this one fixed up quickly. Trevor got to wear a bandaid on his "boo boo" for 4 days which he was happy to point out to us. Cousin Dan took out the 2 stitches and voila, the scar should be gone in a year or so. I'm sure he won't bonk again!

Pre-Christmas Christmas

Since we were headed to Seattle for Christmas, we had Uncle David and Amy come over the Saturday before to celebrate with the kids. They were very generous and came bearing lots of gifts. We also opened gifts from grandma Joyce. The floor was soon covered in discarded wrapping paper. Trevor was delighted with Elmo gifts while Maria hit it out of the park again this year with a Lego zoo! Gavin put on his elf hat he made at preschool while daddy wore the santa hat with grandpa John's sweater gift from last year (the gift that keeps on giving)! The highlight of the evening was when Joel opened his "fra-ge-lay" lamp from that darn Christmas movie that he likes to quote from, "You'll poke you're eye out."