Family

The boys are already thoroughly enjoying the new yard as it comes together. (Although, truth be told, they’d be happy with just the dirt.) But, as each element goes in, they use it. Case in point, Ezra (“King of Star Wars”) called a meeting on the boulders on Thursday afternoon. Luke Skywalker and I (Princess Leia, of course) were in attendance.

Discussion was short as neither of them has actually seen any of the Star Wars movies.

Once the DG pathways were in and compacted, the bike riding immediately started. Cari stopped by after school with Ruby and Chapin and they joined right in as well.

I took a couple of videos, too.

This second one shows our first crash. Finn took it like a champ — in fact, he was only upset because the rubber on his handlebar broke.

We’d been talking to the landscapers about having the boys put their handprints in concrete somewhere; this first came up when they were working on the front walkway. Yesterday Victor made it happen (he even stayed late so that Ezra could do his after school). The boys had a great time.

The final product:

After the first two, Victor made a third one so they could play around.

Seriously, we have the nicest landscapers ever.

Sunday was a busy day for the Moision boys. Finn practiced his Fruit Ninja moves.

Ezra climbed a tree.

Finn made projects with scraps, glue and clamps.

And Bruce built an awesome bridge for the front yard.

It wasn’t even properly installed and Finn was already enjoying it.

When I was a kid, Saturday morning was all about cartoons (although I was more of a Land of the Lost kind of girl). For my boys, it’s the iPad games that they crave. First thing yesterday morning, Ezra made sure it was the weekend and when I confirmed his suspicions, he begged for the ipad. At least for a while, they played quite cooperatively.

We got a slow start back to school this week when, on Monday night, Ezra had a bout whatever stomach bug Bruce was fighting. Luckily it was nowhere near as intense and only lasted a day, but it still meant he missed the first day back to school. The day off gave him a chance to protect his penguin drawing on the chalkboard with this message.

I like the eraser in a circle with a line through it.

Later in the afternoon he was feeling fine and he and Finn went out to help the landscapers in the backyard. Luckily all of the workers are good sports when it comes to having some “help.”

On Wednesday, finally, everyone was back — even me since I got scheduled to be snack parent in Finn’s class. I didn’t take many photos, but got this one of Finn and his best friends Charlie and Kai discussing some important details.

Christmas Eve continued with its mellowness — after the Arroyo trip Bruce relaxed with a little boxed wine (the Solo cup adds to the classiness, no?) while we waited for Jamma to arrive.

Later, we had a roaring fire.

Jamma brought her usual awesome assortment of ornaments. Here’s Bruce checking out his rooster (symbolic of the chickens we want to have).

Then the kids opened their presents.

Finn tried out his new guitar.

And so did Bruce.

Then we had dinner — we tried fondue this year because we don’t have a kitchen to cook much of anything else. It was good, although not exactly as I’d envisioned because I decided I didn’t want the boys sitting around a pot of hot oil so we cooked on one table and ate on another.

For dessert, we tried out Jamma’s new chocolate fondue pot. That was a much bigger hit with the boys.

Finn’s favorite was the chocolate strawberries.

In the morning, the boys awoke to two new Hotwheels sets (per Ezra’s list) and full stockings.

Ezra, our little penguin fan, loved the Happy Feet 2 book in his stocking.

Finn helped everyone go through their stockings.

And then we had some eggs and cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Bruce braved the cold to cook the eggs on the grill.

Christmas Day was very low key. Bob, Vanessa and Thomas came up in the afternoon for another trip to the Arroyo (just the boys) and a trip to Zankou Chicken for dinner. We also did round two of the chocolate fondue.

We celebrated with the rest of the family on the 26th at Grandpa Bill and Grandma Therese’s house. Great to see all seven cousins together.

A slideshow of all of my photos is here.

The boys were up bright and early this morning — Finn came in to our room about 5:00 but then fell back asleep, thankfully. Ezra came in about 6:00 and then it was just too crowded for me so I got up to make some coffee. I was joined, shortly thereafter, by Ezra who came downstairs and said, “Mommy, I think it may be Christmas Eve and that’s the day we get to open one of our presents.” I held them off as long as I could … until just before 8:00 a.m.

Later Bruce took the boys on a bike ride in the Arroyo, which gave me time to finish wrapping the last two presents for the boys. I also straightened out the stockings and came upon Ezra’s updated Christmas list, which I have to share.

Translation:

Ezra’s Christmas List

1 Hexbug Hive
2 Hotwheel sets
1 Cars 2 Color Changers set and 1 different car
2 remote control spiders that can walk on the wall and the ceiling
1 nonfiction Emperor Penguin book
2 Emperor Penguin stuffed animals
2 Emperor Penguin costumes
2 Hexbugs
1 Emperor Penguin hospital
2 remote control off-road trucks

There are two of things because this stuff is for Finn, too, which is sweet. I think my favorite misspelling is “zeeling” for ceiling.

A few random shots …

Finn tries to open his apple juice at Friday’s late afternoon lunch-dinner.

Finn’s sparkly CD (or DC, as he calls it) ornament that he made at Cottage. It’s hard to see just how sparkly it is, but trust me, he had fun with the glitter.

Ezra’s photo taken out his window from the 5 freeway. Pretty good!

And finally, a little snuggle time.

We went to Dick and Claire’s for dinner on Saturday night and finally (!) Leah got to meet my boys and we all got to meet 2-1/2-year-old Logan. What a cutie! The boys loved playing with him; Finn, I think, loved being the big kid.

They played trains.

Did some somersaults.

Lounged in the crib.

Logan pointed out how many girls and boys we had in the room.

And he found another use for the train bucket.

Great to see everyone!

We attended our last holiday potluck at Cottage this past Friday. Hard to believe our four years there are coming to an end.

Finn had his usual good time, and Ezra was already on winter break so he got to join in the fun, too. Here they are with some friends.

Later there was lots of playing in the yards.

And everyone got into the act during the singalong.

Here’s a video from our first Cottage holiday potluck in 2008 when Ezra was in the Oak Tree class and Finn was 20 months old. Ezra wasn’t crazy about the chaos and was laying down the whole time. (The video quality is terrible but I haven’t figured out how to fix it.)

The boys have their own little Christmas tree in their room. They chose ornaments that they knew were theirs (and they continued to steal more off of the big tree well after I asked them to stop). Needless to say, they have a unique decorating style.

In an effort to retain some semblance of normalcy during our remodel, and because our front window screams out for a Christmas tree, we spent a good portion of today gettin’ Christmassy. We went and got a tree — luckily I was able to talk Ezra out of the blue-flocked one.

It’s up! Man, that’s a tall one.

After I hauled all the boxes up from the basement, the boys had a blast going through all of the ornaments. (Fun for them; nervous breakdown for me — some of these ornaments are very old and fragile!)

After an emergency trip to Target to get more lights, Finn and I started putting the ornaments on the tree. (Ezra and Bruce started working on his Aveson family project.) It was chaos.

But after a while the tree was done, the stockings were hung, and the room looked like this.

And the train is running.

It feels a lot like Christmas around here.

A few random quotes that have entertained me recently. All were while we were in the car; all at different times.

Finn: Mommy, do you know that sometimes my penis gets cold?

Ruby: Do you guys have an Advil calendar?

Ezra: Finn, you are my favorite person in the family.