James loses his first tooth!

Hooray!  James finally lost a tooth!  He is nearly 7 years old and I was beginning to wonder when exactly it would happen.  He's had a few loose teeth but nothing too wiggly.  He really wanted this one to come out so he wiggled and wiggled and wiggled it.  We tried before bedtime and nothing.  We tried the next morning and it was still pretty stuck.  I knew he really wanted it out so I tugged really hard and finally got it to come loose!

After I pulled it he said, "One more try okay?"  Ha!  He didn't even know it was gone!  William cried and whined about his teeth being pulled but James was super tough.

He couldn't wait to get to school and show his friends the gap in his mouth!

Snow day!

Our last day of winter break we headed up to the mountains to play in the snow.  We are really lucky that we are so close to the mountains here.  It took less than an hour to get up to our friend's cabin.  It was so nice that they invited us to come play with them!  And even better because we had a place to warm up and relax if we got too cold.

James got his entire leg stuck in the snow.

And William slid on his belly like a penguin.

 The nicest part was being able to have some snow fun and then head back to our wonderfully mild temperatures at home!

New Year's Eve

For New Year's Eve we had our traditional dinner of fondue.  I like the cheese fondue but I think the boys filled up mostly on the chocolate!

A few months ago I found some floating paper lanterns on sale. (Think: Tangled) I thought they would be so much fun to light and send up our wishes for the new year. 

They turned out to be an epic failure.  I don't know if we were clueless on how to  get them to work or if it was the wind but we stood out in the 30-something degree weather trying.  The boys were so cold that they went back to sit in the car.  William is the only one that stuck it out while we tried to get each of the six lanterns to float.  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

It would have been so super cool to have our beautiful lanterns float into the sky... but I guess we're just lucky they didn't get blown by the wind over to the school!  It was a good New Year's anyway.

Daily Sunshine

On the way back home to Las Vegas we stopped by Brea to visit with my Grandpa.  It was nice to visit with him for a little bit and let the boys see him again.  We love Grandpa Allred.

We hit traffic a few times on the way home but the boys were super good.  (Part of the credit goes to audio books... they love them!  And if they are listening it means they aren't fighting and teasing each other!)

Legoland

We decided on Legoland this year because Rich pointed out that we had a very small window in which all the boys would interested in Legos.  And so on Friday morning we headed up the road a few miles and started out on our adventure.

 We got there before the rides opened and had plenty of time to wander around admiring all the amazing Lego creations.

 We even found a little piece of our new home.

 The great thing I discovered about Legoland is that it's small enough to get through the majority in one day.  Also, it is geared to younger kids which meant that William, James, and Alexander were able to ride on every single ride.  And even Henry could ride on most!  It made for a great experience (no tears like those shed at Star Tours!!)

This pirate ship ride was fun but Henry wasn't fond of getting sprayed and some guy along the edge kept spraying everyone!  Thankfully he didn't get us much more once he saw that Henry was sad.

Probably the smallest log ride I've ever been on... but the boys liked it.

This was the first ride that Henry couldn't go on... and he wasn't very happy about it.  Every time a horse came around he would tell me, "my horse!"

The three big boys went on several roller coasters during the day.  They had a great time!

 A few of the rides had Lego tables set up so that the kids could play with Legos while the parents stood in line.  It was a good idea... too bad they didn't have that option on most of the rides!

We really did have a great day!

 The boys were great and walking around and didn't complain about being to tired to walk.

 Henry even got some good one-on-one time with Rich and I while the other of us was taking the boys on big rides.  He even took a little nap!

What we were most impressed with at the end of the day is that none of the boys asked us to buy anything for them all day!

I guess you could say that we had an ideal amusement park experience.  What good boys we have!

By the end of the day we were all worn out and ready to rest our feet and heads for a good night's rest.

It was a great way to wrap up the year... and something we hope the boys remember for years to come!