Easter and Legos...

So I have to relate a hilarious conversation we had last night after dinner. A little background: The boys are really into Legos right now, especially the Lego Star Wars video game. (They've already beaten Lego Indiana Jones...) If you've never seen the Lego video games, anything that is hit or killed just breaks into little Lego pieces. If it's your character, you just reappear whole again shortly after being hit. Nice and kid-friendly.

Well, last night while I was doing the dishes and Andrew was (slowly) finishing his dinner, he said out of the blue, "Lego people are resurrected." It took a minute for that to register in my brain, and Victor and I chuckled - at least our talks about the real meaning of Easter were kind of sinking in! But trying to create a "teaching moment", we told him that real people will be resurrected, too, but it won't happen right away, like it does in a Lego game. It will take a long time until we are resurrected. Then Enoch, with his 5-year-old wisdom, said, "Yeah, it took Jesus 3 whole days!" Needless to say, we have a lot of teaching to go, but we had a good laugh about that one!

"Spring" Break?

So Enoch is out of school for Spring Break. And this is how it looks this morning:

Kind of a misnomer, huh? Spring Break... makes you want to put on some shorts, have a picnic in the park, go fly a kite... I guess we'll have to settle for playing in the snow!

Christmas

So, it's probably about time to post some Christmas pictures, huh? Enjoy... We spent a week in Tucson with my family and had a wonderful time.

Here are the boys and their cousin Sydney supposedly going to sleep on the couch. Didn't work so well, but they had a good time!

Wrestling with Uncle Mike and cousins.

My family has a tradition where we line up youngest to oldest in the hallway, and then head into the family room to see what Santa brought. Now it's our kids lining up instead of us, so here are my kids and some of their cousins. We missed the rest of you!

The LaJeunesse stockings laid out nicely on the couch. With 30 people there Christmas morning, we all just took what space we could find! And yes, I know Lynn has a ghetto, non-matching stocking. That's because every year I say I'm going to make the family stockings. Hmmm, maybe next year...

Enoch and Andrew enjoying their stockings.

Onto the presents.

And then on to playing with the presents. They found a corner to enjoy their Lite Brite.

And this is how Victor and Lynn spent the afternoon. Too cute! I love this picture!

Legoland!!

I've been meaning to post about our family vacation, but it's taken me awhile to get around to it. So I've picked out some of my favorite pictures to share some of our fun times. Here we are at the front gate - everyone takes a picture here, don't they?

One of my favorite parts was the 3-D Bob the Builder movie. Enoch was laughing through the whole thing - he thought it was so cool! He kept reaching out his hand to grab whatever was coming out at him. Andrew, on the other hand, wasn't so sure about it. About halfway through he realized nothing was going to happen to him, and he started to enjoy it. The boys liked posing by the Lego Bob, but when a "real" Bob appeared (in costume), they wouldn't have anything to do with him!

Here they are watching the boats. I don't think they realize that they aren't actually controlling the boats...

With most of the rides we had to do the "parent-swap" thing, because Lynn was too little. So here's Victor and Andrew going for a ride in the planes. Enoch and I went next.

Here's a ride that Enoch could go on, but Andrew (much to his disappointment) was too small for. So here he is, galloping away on his noble steed. Off to the joust, Sir Enoch!

This is just to prove that yes, Lynn was with us, and she was having just as much fun as the boys! Isn't she adorable!?!

This was Enoch's least favorite ride. He is holding on to that lap-bar for dear life! This picture just cracks me up every time I see it!

The boys loved this part - it's just a huge outdoor playground with lots of tunnels, ladders, slides, and fun stuff to crawl on, over, and through. Victor's next project is to build an exact replica in our backyard. Full-scale, of course.

Part of Legoland is a tour of a miniature Lego-making factory. So the boys are watching how Legos are made and packaged. Pretty cool.

Attached to Legoland is the Sea-Life Aquarium, which I was pretty excited to go visit. But when you go in, they have you stop in this enclosed area and wait for a few minutes. Well, Andrew freaked out and screamed until they let us out. So he didn't want to go through the aquarium, and it took a lot of effort just to go through quickly. Oh well. At least they liked this part. You can put your head up in this bubble thing, and watch the fish swimming 360 degrees around you. It was pretty neat, but not built for big people, and not meant for all 3 of us at one time!

So there's the quick recap of some of the things we did. We had a good time, despite the fact that I was fighting a cold. The weather was perfect, we didn't forget anything important, and nothing happened to our car, so we call the trip a success!

What Happens When...

...your legs don't go as fast as your upper body?

...your husband picks up a new welding hobby?

...there's a blustery snowstorm in October?

Just a few pictures I thought I'd share. The fence is a work in progress - I'll post another picture when it's finished. And Andrew's nose looks even worse now - it's a big bruise and a scrape. Too bad he missed Halloween by a week - he could have been Andrew the Red Nosed Reindeer. Ha ha ha - it's always good to get a laugh at your kid's expense! :)

Costumes? Who needs 'em?

So I spent this Halloween season trying to rejoice in my kids' imaginations. I kept asking them what they wanted to be for Halloween, and the answer would change fairly frequently. So I just waited until the last minute. Here they are all dressed up:

It's completely obvious who they are, isn't it? Andrew is Indiana Jones. Clearly. He has the hat and a piece of rope as his whip. Spent hours on that costume. And Enoch? Have you guessed it yet? If not, you must not be a 5-year-old obsessed with all things Indiana Jones. Obviously he is Short Round, because he has a baseball cap on.

So this is how they went trick-or-treating. I admit, I was a little embarrassed to go out with them, so I sent Victor with them. I could imagine what all the neighbors were thinking... "What greedy children! They didn't even dress up! They just want candy! What kind of mother would allow that behavior?"

Sigh. So I rejoice that they have good imaginations, that they aren't begging for expensive store-bought costumes, and that they really AREN'T greedy - they didn't even go up the whole street, just a small part of it. Victor asked them to go longer and get some more candy, but Enoch's response was simple, and quite accurate: "No Dad, we have enough!"

The First Field Trip

Earlier in October, Enoch got to go on his first field trip to a pumpkin patch. He was REALLY excited, and Victor agreed to go as a helper. He got some good pictures of Enoch and his class having a good time.

Here they are as they arrive at the pumpkin patch.

In the big tractor tire.

The pumpkin he picked out himself.

Victor had only a small allergic reaction to all the hay - those allergy shots are really working! And Enoch is excited for his next field trip in a couple weeks!