Christmas warfare

Mason and Felix got matching Nerf guns. Kenzie got a white board and quickly put it to good use.

Sporting Christmas

I have mastered the Double Windsor, alas, even after failing at the task for Felix's homecoming. We had even tried YouTube before settling for the Half Windsor.

Prom: bring it.

When I'm 16

I asked Mason if he could do a video that describes what he's going to be like at sixteen. He's got a big brother role model here in Felix, so I thought it would be fun to capture what he sees and what's sticking. I thought I would hear things like "I want to be an exchange student and travel," or "I want to play lots of sports." I'd like to believe that the spirit of adventure and the love for sports is what's actually going to last, and not what he thinks today...

A perfect day

Every once in a while we realize that we just had a near-perfect day, even if we didn't do anything too unusual. Today started off with a nice, maybe smaller than normal, Christmas party with Cindy's family. The breakfast was easy-going, complete with good conversations, kids opening presents and being chased by the dog.

About three minutes after the party ended, Sarah, her exchange student Sara, David and Daniel showed up to spend the day with us. After a short while, my cousin Diane called and invited Felix to play a pick-up game of soccer with her son Keegan, who is home from college.

Kenzie opted to go grocery shopping and make dinner with the Sarahs, so Cindy and I loaded up all the boys and headed for Mercer Island. This December day the sun decided to come out in perfect time for the soccer game. The little boys played on one side while Felix played up with about twenty college guys. I joined the little boys for a bit, threw the frisbee, kicked the ball, while Cindy took pictures and enjoyed watching the game, including Felix's two goals.

By the time we got home the girls had a great dinner prepared for us. We chatted and laughed at the dinner table. After dinner the chasing and wrestling started. Felix had drawn a picture in Kenzies fashion book of a girls outfit. Sarah told him it was going to go on the blog. It probably wouldn't have but he ripped it out of the book. The girls took out in pursuit of the paper he had crumbled in his hand. The boys worked to defend Felix. Eventually the paper was flushed, but at least I got this picture out of it.

Christmas is half over

We had the Bolam Christmas party today. Hard to believe that Christmas is almost here...and half over.

Retro Santa

For some reason this picture was buried in the archived and never made it to the blog. I remember now why we stopped paying for pictures for a professional Santa.

Christmas pagaent

Our kids were in the church Christmas pageant today, that Cindy directed and helped write. The title was "techno Christmas," complete with Tweets and iPads. It was very cute.

Christmas lights

Finally we have Christmas lights on the eaves of our house!

Dear Santa

Santa, Mason enjoyed your video and wanted to share one of his own. He was concerned you might not get this in a timely manner, but I assured him you check the blog regularly.

Fame

Thanks to Felix for some candid photography...

Turn the sports calendar...it's basketball time

 

Tree and Santa

Mason was able to sneak to the front of the long Santa line.

The reason Cindy wanted a boy

Lion cut

For the first time in recent memory Madison came down and sat on my lap tonight. I like to think it's because he was thankful that I shaved all his mats away, not that he might be a little bit cold being bald in December. (A special shout out goes to Cindy for helping me at 11 o'clock last night, when, for some reason, I decided this was an emergency situation and got the clippers out.) Kids, need a haircut?

Hypnotized critters, by Kenzie