Foxy PlayDay: January 2016

You get them all on one post, because that's as often as I can get around to making blog posts these days.
We didn't travel over the holidays (and likely won't again - it's just too hard and stressful) and nobody came here either - it was actually quite a relaxing Christmas to New Year's holiday. Owen this year was finally fully in the throws of "getting" Christmas. And was helpful in decorating the house/tree - and of course impatient about the presents under the tree! Everyday (at least once a day) in the lead up to Christmas he would ask if it was time yet to open presents. Elliot of course had no idea what was going on, and surprising left all those brightly coloured packages under the tree alone...instead he chose to un-decorate the tree to play with the ornaments - come Christmas most of the lowest branches were fairly bare...except for the truly unbreakable paper ornaments.

New Year's was celebrated London time (so 6pm for us), and included a fun skype call with our good friends Lars, Elissa, Ben, and Julia in Oxford - they actually managed to stay up past midnight!

We had a nice 2 weeks of vacation time as a family over the holidays and did lots of fun stuff - museums, hikes, some baking, the arboretum, sledding - it was really great having some family time that wasn't just the weekend! Elliot is definitely the more adventuresome of the two of them. He was happy to sled from the top of the hill, and wanted to be walking himself when we hiked - Owen's more of a mid-slope kind of sledder and more than happy to be pushed along in the stroller!

And this past Saturday, Owen celebrated his 4th birthday! We rented out the party room and gym space at the local YMCA (which is so perfect for the winter birthday!) and all of his daycare friends came for the party. In addition, Grandma and Grandpa made the trip down from Calgary to help us celebrate - and of course spend time playing and reading with the boys. Elliot grew quite attached to Grandpa and would bring books over and climb up onto his lap to have a nice snuggle and read. Owen insisted Grandma had to read him stories and put him to bed every night they were here!

Christmas tree hunting family selfie

Elliot had to give the polar bear kisses at the holidazzle market

maybe 10 of these gifts are actually from Dave and I (and mostly just books buried at the bottom of this pile) - the extended family (Aunts/Uncles/cousins/grandparents) are very, very generous to the boys!