CHRISTMAS TIME!

We have been doing so many fun things around here for Christmas, so here is a photo log of our week before Christmas.

This pretty much sums up all of our interactions with Santa.  The boys have seen him 5 times this year--definitely a record!  Mark is okay, not great, sitting on his lap, but Dax just wants to get away!

We built this gingerbread house at the Ockey Family Christmas Party.  The boys definitely ate more than they put on the actual house.

We built this snow fort.  Too bad it was mostly gone by morning.

Did I mention the fort was actually a tunnel?  Randy is very creative with the snow!  I am still learning.  Here is Dax crawling through.

Mark built a snowman with our neighbor.  We loved it!

We made sugar cookies and Dax loved them!

Snowy Day

We had a lot of fun in the snow today!  We have been waiting for a good snow to build a snowman and it finally came.  Our snowman is already melting 5 hours later, but we had a great morning playing outside.  I also got to use my new video camera, so check out our video!

Pictures

Last Saturday, we took the boys in to take some pictures at Portrait Innovations.  Although we ended up waiting for a bit (even though we had an appointment) we were pleased with how well the photographers interacted with the kids and with how well the pictures turned out.  Mark loved taking pictures, at first.  By the end, he had a look on his face like, "seriously, we are still taking pictures."  Dax cried the minute we walked in, but luckily I had brought a huge box of Junior Mints.   Every time he sat and smiled, he got some candy.  It was almost like training a dog.  The hardest part was getting them to take a good picture together.  One was either looking away, running away, or making a crazy face.  But, we managed to get some good ones of them together.  Here are a few favorites you won't see hanging in our house or on a Christmas Card!

Christmas Songs

We have been listening to tons of Christmas music here at our house.  Our favorites are "The Twelve Days of Christmas," as sung by John Denver and the Muppets, and "Ay, Ay, Ay, It's Christmas" by Ricky Martin, with help from Rosie O'Donnell.  My boys love to dance to the songs.

Today, when Randy and Mark were working on a word search and Mark was looking for the word joy, he asked Randy what joy meant.  So Randy told him it meant happy, like the song "Joy to the World."  Mark replies, "Oh yeah, I like that song.  Especially the part about the fishes."  As Randy and I both start singing in our heads "Joy to the World" trying to figure out what word in the song would sound like fishes, Mark starts singing, "Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea, Joy to you and me."  Well, Mark, I like that song, too!  And so does Three Dog Night.

Mark and Dax in front of our Christmas tree.  Dax has quite the "cheese" face.

I guess it runs in the family . . .Photography, I mean!

Today I found Mark taking pictures of Dax.  At least Mark's photos are a little bit clearer.  Randy and I have decided to put the cameras in a new spot since Mark and Dax both seem to know where to find them and use them.  At least it makes for entertainment!

Tonight as Mark said his prayers, he asked that, "everyone in his family would do whatever he wanted them to do."  Randy and I just looked at each other and tried not to laugh.  I guess we aren't following his every command anymore, so he thought he would appeal to someone with a little more authority.  I guess we'll see how that one works out for him!  Oh, four year olds.

Here are Mark's pictures!

Dax as a Photographer

Today I downloaded the pictures from my camera.  When I started looking through them, I found about 30 pictures that apparently Dax had taken.  I didn't know that 18 month old children knew how to work digital cameras, but I guess they come programmed with that knowledge in this day and age.  Here are some of my favorites.

His hand

Self Portrait

Mark--obviously not telling mom about this camera incident, and what is he doing holding a DVD?

Dax's world view