This one's for the grandparents and aunts and uncles who sent my children all kinds of goodness to enjoy this Christmas. I don't have pictures of everything, but they loved every bit of it. Thank you!!!
P.S. There's no commentary. Cause I like to think of Christmas morning as being a quiet, peaceful, snuggle up with a blanket and a cup of hot chocolate kind of time.
P.P.S. HA! Like that would ever happen. But we can all pretend we like quiet during this post.
Dave has been pretty into chess lately.
Which means the boys have been pretty into chess lately.
Sometimes he plays games with them,
Sometimes they do drills, practicing with certain pieces.
Isaiah loooves learning this stuff.
Lightbulb!
Ellen would rather read.
And, honestly?
I'm with her.
When Mom was here visiting we decorated our very first gingerbread house. Ever.
Everybody got a wall (or roof) and decorated it however they wanted.
Bopp decided to just take pictures.
Decorating gingerbread houses is pretty serious business.
See?
Ellen had the roof. It was a good strong roof and could handle a lot of decorating.
I've always felt a little wary of those gingerbread house kits you see in the stores, but no more.
Ten dollars and a trip to Costco got us a stable and sturdy house, a couple gingerbread men, and a tree, all of which were baked and assembled and made to look cute by someone other than me. Aaaand all the frosting and candies we could shellac on there.
And the bonus??
(I know, right? How could there be a bonus to that amazing deal?)
Even though we tried,
and tried...
and tried...
It wasn't exactly edible.
Turns out house's whose main adjective is 'sturdy' generally aren't also known for their deliciousness.
Which feels like a bummer for the children eyeing all that apparent goodness.
But not so bad for those who had a gingerbread man. Those were much tastier than sturdy.
Or for those assigned a tree to decorate. Those folks came out alright.
I kid! I shared some of my tree.
So we got to eat all the candy off (which everyone knows is the best part anyway) and left all the "gingerbread" behind.
Well...most of it.
Mom was here visiting a couple weeks ago.
My plan was to have a Bopp/grandkids photo shoot, but I forgot. And when I remembered, Joel was the only one still up.
So we had a Bopp/Joel shoot instead.
Which was fabulous.
Duh.
Joel is a fan of Bopp
...and glasses.
We have a Halloween tradition of getting together with the Steele's for a little dinner and a little trick or treating.
Isaiah and Emily are the bravest of the lot, always the first to the door and the first to find a new house to go to.
Ellen Steele is downright hysterical, coming back from every single house with an absolutely thrilled "Look what I got!!!"
Dave was "Super Dad". :)
Brennan went to two houses and was pretty satisfied with his two suckers for a long time. After maybe ten minutes, he decided maybe he'd start heading up to the door with the rest of the kids again. He came home with plenty of candy.
It's hard to tell in the picture, but Joel was happy to be himself again.
We found this alien costume a couple days ago and Isaiah thought it was pretty great.
In true Isaiah fashion, he wanted to rip it apart and rework some parts of it to make it work a little better, but we just didn't get to it.
Ellen wanted to be Princess Leia again.
She loves the regal princess look.
And Brennan found a monkey costume which is, of course, perfect.
Joel was having a hard time napping and was therefore slightly unsure about all these shenanigans.
But by night time, he was a happy hotdog.
At least for a few minutes.
This is what they do when I say "Pretend you like each other." I have no idea what the face is, but they're all making it.
One of Isaiah's "classes" is a Lego building class. He made a model of himself today.
Brennan much prefers to follow me, pushing Joel's stroller, while I take pictures of everyone.
Yesterday, Ellen started walking home from school by herself. Well, with friends. She's never really by herself.
She's currently loving school. She loves that she knows kids in the neighborhood. She loves that she gets to have hot lunch periodically.
She's learning all kinds of things I never thought to teach her about - like the World Series for instance. She gave a speech last week. And tonight she taught us all how to draw cats and dogs through a story. I gotta say, I've been much more impressed with this whole experience so far that I expected to be.
You point a camera at him, even when he's in a serious mood, and the faces come out.
I wonder if he'll do this for always, or if it's like his camera smile that pre-schooler's tend to have.
I hope it's a part of him, always what he does when the camera turns to him.
Maybe not on his wedding day...
