Christmas vacation

Nicholas had the time of his life at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  He spent time "redecorating," danced his little heart out, played the piano, 

and my brothers taught him to "shoot" with a nerf gun or a tv remote or pretty much anything long and skinny.

I should have taken a picture of it...he holds the nerf gun sideways like a gangster and just points it at you until you react as if you've been shot.

Lovely.

I think we need to have a girl next.  We need some feminine influence in this house.

 

One of my favorite parts of the vacation was that Nicholas slept upstairs, so when he woke up, my mom and the kids were already up getting ready for school, 
so when I came upstairs quite a bit later (after sleeping in!) he already had a clean diaper, a belly full of "krahkers" (cereal) and pears, and he was happily playing.  It was heavenly, I tell you.

We played lots of games as a family, 
but I think my favorite was reverse charades.  It's the same as charades, but instead of one person acting and everyone guessing it is 
one person guessing and everyone acting.  
Hilarious.
Poor Nathan ended up being used as a prop one too many times, and when the word "Nutcracker" followed the word "Love Handles" my enthusiasm whacked him on the head with my elbow and then his head whacked on the corner of the laptop.  
We end a game when blood is drawn.

Nicholas crashed after Church-he wore himself out walking up and down the rows giving every single person a handshake.

Kent and I enjoyed a wonderful night away at the Anniversary Inn in the African Safari room. Everything was fabulous-we ate dinner at Hamiltons (where our wedding reception was held), watched Prince of Persia, and had an quiet, relaxing night where we didn't once have to think about whether someone else needed to eat or sleep or have his diaper changed. Thanks for watching Nicholas, family!  I don't think he even noticed that we were gone; he was having too much fun.

We were having such a great time that when Sunday night came I just didn't feel ready to leave in the morning.  Southwest is excellent because you can change your flights whenever you want without any extra fees.  I found a flight leaving on Thursday that actually ended up saving us $100!  Wahoo!  So although Kent had to come back to work, Nicholas and I were able to stay a few more days, and it was perfect.

I could go on and on about our trip, but instead I will leave you with a few of the funny little phrases that became our soundtrack:
"Coincidence!  My brother is 12 but he has a friend who is 11!"
"But what about at weddings and stuff?"
"Ho ho ho!"
"Pass the purple crayon please" said really fast
"The man with the serious skinny legs"
"Bukah bukah bukah bukah"
"Ummmm, all right."