Walcotts' Winter Wonderland

The Walcott family gathered again on Sunday, December 27 for dinner and some family fun in what turned out to be a winter wonderland. We all had a blast playing outside before dinner. I tried out my new snow pants, and Bright tried out his new sled. Once he was over the hurdle of putting boots on, he was a very happy little dude. We have yet to make a snowman, but I suppose there's still time.

Christmas 2009

Home for the Holidays

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday. I wanted to let you know that Jon's parents are home, happy, and healthy. Thanks for all your prayers as they have been living, working, and teaching in Jos, Nigeria.

We've never really understood "Home for the Holidays" until now. We've enjoyed several gatherings with the Walcotts this past week already, and we are so thankful they are able to be home for a few weeks. They don't begin their journey back to Nigeria until January 9 where they have been asked to stay and work full-time. We will know their decision next month.

There's lots to catch up on after being gone for five months, but not much is more important than catching up with the grandkids :)

Merry Christmas!

Confession: We Started Early

The Little Drummer Boy

We shared this with some family members via email as we weren't going to post this, but several of them persuaded us that it is blog worthy. In case you were wondering, I did receive permission from my husband to post his singing debut here for all to see and hear.

And now without further ado, here are My Boys performing "The Little Drummer Boy." We hope you enjoy their performance.

Message from Santa

Brighton received a personalized video from Santa this morning! 

You can view it HERE. 

You can make one too.  It's free and only takes a couple minutes to set it up for someone young or old...naughty or nice. 

The Season is Here

The holiday season is upon us.
The snow is here.
A snow day has even arrived, so I have a few extra minutes to share some pictures from the last week of fun.

Holland's Holiday Parade

Seeing, touching, and identifying snow for the first time: "no"

Mini-marshmallows (a first) with cousins

18 Month Pictures

Brighton's 18 month pictures and some family shots

by Walcott Imaging are available for viewing HERE.

Santa Junkies

Our Saturday night was filled with Santas! We are up north with the Raterinks for the long holiday weekend, and both Pentwater and Silver Lake had festivities with Santa. We thought why not take part in both celebrations.

We bundled up and started in Pentwater after an early tasty dinner at the Brown Bear. We then were first in line to get a carraige ride through the beautifully lit downtown streets of Pentwater. That was an unexpected treat.

No horse-drawn carriages in Silver Lake, but they've got dune buggies and Santa.

As we left Jon said to Brighton, "Say, see you next weekend Santa."

Too fun...we just might be Santa Junkies.

Ho Ho Ho

Happy Thanksgiving!

In years gone by, during Thanksgiving celebrations, we went around the table sharing our gratitude and blessings.  This is a tradition we have stopped.   Yes, we are abundantly grateful, but we are all just too emotional and really can't even make it around the table.  Can anyone relate?

Even though I am the band leader of effective communication, there are some things that don't need to be articulated in detail.  I probably won't do it at the table today, and I will refrain from doing it here too.

My cup runneth over...

Holiday Mornings

...are the best aren't they?

Bottles and Big Boy Jammies

A unique combination of firsts for us over here tonight.Our little guy went to bed willingly without a bottle. He never even asked for one. Admittedly, last night wasn't as smooth, but tonight was a huge surprise. He even still wanted to snuggle with his mama.

He did this all while wearing his first pair of big boy pajamas. He's usually in a sleeper.

I packed away the bottles, but I suspect he'll be wearing sleepers for years to come. Wouldn't you if you could?

He's All Boy

The last few weekends Jon has been very busy around here. In addition to lights and yard work, he is finishing the garage. It is painted; trim is almost finished, and he is putting together some closets for all that stuff that piles up in garages.
The nice weather over the last few weeks has permitted us to get these tasks nearly finished even though it is almost Decemeber. Brighton has been along side us (well, Jon mostly) for a lot of this except the painting and running of power tools. Don't read this with worry grandparents.

Yesterday we stood by the garage watching our son as he picked up each of the basic tools and seemed to know exactly what it was for. We even went so far as to say, "Brighton, would you please bring Daddy the hammer?" Our son knows his tools!

We've been told by several family members, "Whoa, he is all boy." After yesterday, I am really tending to agree. Although, when I sit here writing this I also wonder how it all happens/happened to this now one and a half year old. He must have been watching his dad a whole lot more than we thought. I also think we also must acknowlege the influence of Handy Manny too.

Let's get going and fix it right

Twist and turn, make it tight

Trabajamos juntos (we work together)

we work together now

Cut it, measure it, tap it flat

Bend and twist, just like that

Each of us has a special job

We work together -- todos juntos (everyone together)

We can fix it right!

~ Handy Manny Theme Song

The Trees

What an awesome weekend! 

The weather was fabulous.

 We did some fun stuff and got a lot of things crossed off our to-do list.  Love it when both of those happen simultaneously.  It just so happens that lots of what we did focused on trees. 

We are in the process of teaching those basic words to Brighton, so tree was the word of the day.

 

We started out with a hike just up the road at Riley Trails.  If you're local, and you've never been there, you should check it out. It's beautiful, and I'm not just writing that to write it.  It was a joy to be there in great weather with my boys and take in the view.  We commented that it won't be long and we'll be climbing the trees instead of just looking at them.

Jon then picked up leaves and mowed the lawn for the last time.

We finally hung lights on our outdoor pine tree.  We ended up not finishing because we ran out of lights. 

We bought LED lights this year, and we just weren't sure how many we would need.  Well, we need more, so we'll be conitnuing that project once the lights arrive.

Hope you were able to enjoy some time outside this weekend too!

Boys' Toys

Trunk 'n Treat

It was Brighton's first Halloween in the sense that he actually participated this year.  He was a bundled-up Nemo.  After greeting a few neighbors at our door, we went to the Trunk 'n Treat at Bethany CRC with Brighton's cousins.  We had a great time even though it was really cold.  We saw lots of familiar faces as well as more family. 

 Yes, that is my grandpa dressed up as a grandma.