Christmasy

 Pre-K Christmas Program

(in which the boys were in the audience and Elaine is suddenly shy)

(And video up when I can get blogger to respond...)

 Before the program.

 Live Nativity at the neighborhood train station.

 Dinner with friends.

 Cookie making.

(Alida can knead dough like a pro!)

 Um, decorating

(the wreaths into Lego cities)

Impromptu iPhone family pictures taken by the kindness of strangers.

All I Want for Christmas

From the boy who asked to go to Red Lobster for his birthday dinner, I get the following:

"Mommy, can I have a DSi with Legos Batman for Christmas?   Please, please, please, mommy?!"

"Well, Nicholas.  Santa is coming. Let's see what he brings."

Hedging his bets, he replies: "Yeah mom, but you and dad get us presents too. You could get it for me. Pleeeeeease?"

(big smile for effect)

And so is the first year of real wants in the Stuber household, along with lawyerly arguments for such wants.

Happiness

Almost time!

Our Wandering Weekend

 Saturday it rained as we rolled into San Antonio for the weekend.

It was dreary, and we wound up in the mall.

When we saw no line in the break in the rain with this most beautiful Santa on the river, we took it.

Alida was the only one that would go to him.

Nicholas asked if he couldn't just write Santa a letter?

And later, when I had snuck away to a few stores and came back, the kids, tired and kind of cooped up, were acting crazy at the play area in the mall.

Patric was on the phone.

Everything had just been off.

"My grandfather died today," he mouthed.

 And we felt appropriately heavy on our dreary day.

Later we went to dinner, and we had a nice meal.  We did. We had a nice meal with these folks who were tired from our wandering and lost sort of day.

 And we headed to the hotel, and we let the kids roam as we were quiet.

And it seemed like the right end to the day to be forced into quiet in the hotel with the kids tucked in.

And we sat quietly with our view and remembered grandpa with no housework to finish and no tasks overwhelming us. 

We will miss you Great-grandpa Stuber.

Major Schmajor

 Grandpa Airplane was here for the promotion ceremony, but I think the kids were a little more interested in thumb wrestling,

 And bike riding,

 And pre-flight checking.

It's always too quick, but always a big time when they have Grandpa Airplane around.

Alida even popped out of vomiting pretty quickly so she could play.

Happy Sixth Birthday Boys!

 Six years ago today, there was Benjamin.

 And a short two minutes before that was Nicholas. 

 We had no idea what a charming boy you would become within our short, and sometimes long, six years together.

And we never knew that the boy who refused to crawl until eight months and then stood up and walked one day after turning one, would then refuse to stop--ever--for the next five years.

And we are so pleased to be chartering you through your childhood and cannot imagine what life would be like without the Stuber brothers.

Happy birthday boys.

We love you.

Major Changes

Congratulations Major Stuber.

We're proud of you.

Ah Girl

Friday, when I picked you up at school, you had recently thrown up all over the place.

When you got home, you threw up all over the couch.

Before bed, you threw up in a bucket.

Saturday morning, you ate some cereal, went back to bed until 1:00 in the afternoon, and then woke up and asked for potato chips.

I always want potato chips when I'm feeling better too. 

Thankful

Thanksgiving was all about family this year.

We're a fortunate group, we are.

Oh Grandma Airplane, how is it that there are pictures of me but not of you from the past weekend?

Happy Birthday Patric

Happy Birthday old man.

42 looks pretty good on you.

That's How We Roll

 The interesting thing about hotels and the Stubers.

We have to lie.

We have yet to find a hotel that will allow us to book six in one room.

They may have enough sleeping capacity for us to very comfortably fit six in one room, but they can't let us do it. So on these days, we just have three kids.

 The morning fog made me nervous for the rest of the day, but about an hour later it was as if we drove straight out of a wall.

 There was open-mouthed un-abashed napping.

and overall, road tripping was pretty fun.

But, we'll leave it at that.  There are no pictures of the return trip with a van and a moving truck and a very long day.