December 21st –

The boys had their “Traditional Kindergarten Holiday Program” at the school. Their first singing concert!!

The school’s four Kindergarten classes practiced each day for three weeks and learned so many songs and signs. I was impressed. I am sorry about the all-over-the-place video. I was holding a big zoom lens and no tripod. I was blown away by Brendan front and center doing every line and sign! Trevor says someone behind him was so loud that he was distracted.

December 23rd –
We got last minute plane tickets (Thank you, Gramma!!) for the boys and I to go back to Illinois and surprise everyone for the holiday. Not much time to prep! We let the boys open a couple of their gifts early.

The boys each made me a “blueprint” for packing for our trip. It was a very helpful checklist! This one is Trevor’s.

We ran to Target and Brendan tried to convince me we needed to buy up all of the owls!

We had to smash the chocolate house before we left.

Waiting at the airport on Christmas Eve!!

These guys did so well on the plane. Brendan was so excited for his very first plane ride! He handled it well and didn’t even need oxygen.

We landed in SNOW!! And it was single digit temperatures!!

We would be arriving at Gramma’s house right in the middle of the Christmas Eve dinner, so I didn’t want anyone to have to leave to come and get us. For a treat to the boys, I reserved a stretch limousine.

We opened a can of Sprite and had a “toast” in the car. We called Bill to tell him we were on our way in the car and Brendan said, “Daddy, we need to buy a car like this, it has a KITCHEN!” It did have the party lights. It was too too too cold and snowing or we would have opened the sunroof.

Needless to say, everyone was shocked when Brendan walked in to the kitchen. Everything was so crazy that week, I can’t believe I don’t have a single picture of any of the aunts or cousins! The girls spent lots of time playing with the boys.

We can’t visit Gramma without getting frozen cokes! Yes, we buys Icees even when it is only 5 degrees outside!

Gizmo begs to get up too

Icee bigger than his head!

The boys love to play pool at Gramma’s house.

Gramma tries to teach them, but they usually just make up their own game

Silly phone pictures

Making music

It might have been 2 or 3 degrees below zero. But we brought our swimsuits to get in to the hot tub!

Tubbin’ in the snow! Brendan was so happy that his trach was out and he could get in the hot tub too!

I took this from upstairs. I stayed dry to be the towel fetcher.

We left the suits outside on the deck overnight so I could show the boys how they froze solid! I had to peel them up off the deck.

Trevor got to share Gizmo’s spot in Gramma’s bed.

Gizmo was under the covers!

Gizmo really liked to wake up Trevor

This is why I live in Arizona!!!

Home again. Christmas was past, but there were still presents waiting for the boys.

Trevor got a Halo Nerf gun to go with his Master Chief costume.

Brendan has been waiting for months for his “Emmet Mech Suit” from The Lego Movie. He wanted to build it right then!

I help him find pieces and he puts it all together following the book. He is good at it!

Trevor gets the TerraScout Nerf Drone!

LOVES IT

The box makes pretty awesome armor to protect from Nerf fire

Brendan found an original Simon game at Gramma’s house and brought it home with him. He loves it! He had to make a Lego Simon for his Emmet.

Their gift from us was a Lego Boost set. (Lego robotics like Mindstorms for little kids) They are building Vernie the Robot and they can control him from their iPad. He does a lot of things!