G and G Incorporated

Gavin and Garrett have apparently decided to become incorporated. They've been writing comic books together. Garrett illustrates and Gavin writes. Tonight they declared that they are going to become incorporated as G and G Comix.....watch a comic store near you.

Crazy Hair!!

This week has been spirit week at school. Here's some crazy hair from the boys and a cute photo of Kierstin, because she wanted her picture too!!

Kierstin's princess wave

Here's a short video of Kierstin 'waving like a princess' on the train!

Winter performance/train ride

The boys had their winter performance at school on Friday, Dec. 14th. They both did a great job and it was a well done performance by the entire school. Yaya and Grandpa Rod came to visit on Saturday, they'll be here through Christmas and Windy and Dave will also join us. On Sunday, we rode the Royal Gorge Route train. The kids really enjoyed it. Santa was on the train (the kids avoided him like the plague) however, they did tune in for some Christmas stories read by an elf. The train creeps its way through a narrow canyon next to the Arkansas River. The river was beautiful, filled with icy chunks - icebergs according to the boys.

Snow!

We got a few inches of snow on Saturday and Sunday. Garrett wanted to sled 24/7, the rest of us only wanted to go a couple of times, so we compromised with about 4 sledding trips. On our first sledding outing of the weekend, the boys left ahead of us and Kierstin and I were walking over to the sledding hill. It was very snowy and sunny out...no snow plows had yet passed by so the roads were covered also...it was absolutely beautiful. Kierstin said, "Oh, it's Christmas time, there's snow, and Santa's going to come. Yea! Santa bring me toys, a kitchen, a baby and I like transformers too!" We had a blast sledding the weekend away. Sorry, no photos - cameras, snow and Thompson's just don't mix.

For those of you who don't know, our dear friends in Manhattan have been suffering through a miserable ice storm. Over half of the county is without power. Our friends Nancy, Carlos, and Devon have been without power for 3 days now!! Send warm vibes their way (and master power line fixers). If you want to see photos of the craziness check out The Mercury online. Here's a photo our old neighbor, Elaine, sent....
This is in their back yard...that giant cedar tree that is lying down use to be standing tall like the others.

Chicago

Darin and I went to Chicago this past week for a radiology conference. My parents came to watch the kids. We had a great time. We went to see Wicked. I went to see Jersey Boys. We went out to eat.....ALONE!!! Wow, there's definitely something to be said about that. I spent some time at the Art Museum. We also visited the Sears Tower, on a clear day, and could see forever!!

Thanksgiving

We had a really fun Thanksgiving. Nancy and Devon surprised us and arrived a day early for the festivities. We cooked a super small turkey (the baseball as Darin called it) and then early, early Friday morning the real fun started!! Nancy and I got up at 3:30 am to join the other looney folks for some early morning shopping deals! We filled her minivan up to the top with all of our fantastic bargains. We got back from our marathon day of shopping and Garrett said, "You've been shopping all day, oh man, that must have been painful!"
The boys and Kierstin had a blast playing with Devon for the long weekend. They also had fun decorating the tree!

Garrett turns 6!

Garrett turned 6 on Friday! He believes he is much bigger now. He claims that he used to be only to Gavin's eyes, but now he comes to Gavin's forehead. Then Grandma Dot, who was here for his birthday, said something about taking the boys somewhere when they are older and Garrett chimed in with, "I'm older now, remember I'm 6."
On Friday, he opened his gifts first thing, took cupcakes to school and got to go to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner.
His birthday party was on Saturday. He had a blast. We did a pirate theme, complete with pin the eye patch on the pirate, musical islands, treasure hunt and pinata. His entire Kindergarten class came, so it was crazy, but super fun!

On Sunday, we took Grandma Dot to Seven Falls. It is beautiful!
Kierstin helped paint the treasure chests for Garrett's party...she also painted herself!

Stinky tooters

As we were driving to dinner, Darin rolled the windows down because he farted. I told the boys to hold on because the stinkiest tooter in the world had just been released.

Garrett then says, "Daddy's smell bad 'cause the older you are, the smellier your tooters get." He then added, "It smells so bad because dogs have really smelly tooters, and daddy is half dog." I laughed and asked him why he thought that. He said, "Because he's so hairy!"

Funny!

Daddy....

A few days ago Garrett, out of the blue, said, "Daddy, I love you - you're just as cute as me!" Darin started laughing and said, "Thanks." Then, Garrett said, "I mean, just as handsome as me. Gosh! I did that on purpose."