Christmas Photos

I know -  a little late, but I'm slowly catching up with everything I wanted to get done in December (including a last few Christmas packages to go out this week, fingers crossed). I threw my neck out of whack a couple weeks ago, and it's really slowing me down. In any case, here's a few peeks at the Christmas hoopla that went down at the Coffman homestead.

Here are the boys on Christmas eve, ready to go out and sprinkle the "reindeer food" Ben made a preschool out into the street. They were thrilled to be allowed out a) at night, and b) to thrown glitter on the street. Turns were taken nicely, and (other than a slightly icy wet patch) in the morning the reindeer food was magically gone!

 On Christmas eve the boys always get new jammies, and this year there was a super hero theme. It's a little blurry since it's hard for superheroes to hold still an pose! Gabe has been coveting the Captain America jammies for almost 4 months now, so to say he was excited about his Christmas eve gift is a bit of an understatement. And since Ben often wants whatever Gabe does at this point (it's all the same or complete opposites with those guys) there was general happiness all around. To infinity....and beyond!

Christmas morning we made gluten free chocolate donuts. Two boys are topless to make sure that they could still wear their jammies when we were opening presents - these were pretty messy. I wasn't super thrilled with them, but I swear you throw some chocolate icing and colored sprinkles on anything and these boys would chow it down. Soon we were opening presents, and it was just as loud, messy, and happy as you could hope for with three little whirlwinds. Max opened his stocking, grabbed the top item (a train) and disappeared to the boys' room to play. Gabe whipped through all his presents and tried to open some of the grownups...and help Max do half of his as well. Ben got a Lightning McQueen Guitar (his version of the Red Ryder Beebe Gun) and all was right with the world. Hope y'all had a wonderful holiday, too!

A Visit with Santa 2011

I know it's super early, but we went to visit Santa today. It works for us that Santa arrives at the Mall waaaay before Christmas since that tends to reduce the crowds for Santa, which stresses out the boys a bit less, making for a nicer experience (for Mommy at least). It's a little weird seeing Santa before Thanksgiving, but the boys were all excited. At least, on the way there they were excited.

It was all smiles and giggles in the van on the way to the mall. Max was cracking Knock Knock jokes. Gabe was reading the new Thomas catalog. Ben was singing to himself. Everyone was calm and happy.

Then we got to the mall. The parking wasn't too busy. We got our favorite parking space right next to the elevator where there's room to dance around in front of the van without too much chance of any little boys being run over by errant and inattentive drivers while Mommy spends forever loading all possible supplies into the stroller.  All is good...

Soon we got to Santa. And they are doing this new thing where they have you enter your cell phone into this terminal so they can text you when it's "your turn". So we put in the number and went around to the front to wait since they said it would only be a few minutes. The text came, and we booked it around to the back of the Santa area to get in line...and our name was erased from the line. Apparently we didn't get there fast enough. I guess the text didn't arrive to my phone right away - it had been a whole 10 minutes since we got there. Shame on us for being too slow I guess! Thank goodness we hadn't actually wandered away in the mall. The elf let us in line anyhow, though now there were quite a few people in line waiting.   Yea for technology!

We managed the wait without too much whining (and a GF pretzel snack), and soon it was our turn. Max had been happy as a clam all morning, through the waiting, right up until I placed him on Santa's lap. Then the tears came pouring out. Max was REALLY screaming.

Helpful Mommy couldn't stop laughing at Gabe (smiling his biggest cheesy grin to make a good impression on Santa), Ben (sort of smiling only because he was promised candy canes and a smoothie if he would just sit on Santa's lap), and Max (wailing like Santa's lap is made of razor sharp knives). So the first shots are Gabe smiling and Max screaming. Towards the end we got my favorite shot...Max is finally looking at the camera and only whimpering, Ben is squirming and asking after the promised candy cane, and Gabe...well, Gabe's got crazy eyes.

That Santa was amazing - smiling no matter how much Max screamed and keeping everyone on his lap. I can't even hardly get them all to sit still in their car seats lately and those have buckles! He must have really strong arms. I know Gabe is small, but dude is heavy! Look at him dangling there off the side...

Once the photos were taken, I almost forgot to grab Max as the photographer wanted me to view the goofy pics of the boys right away. I ran back to Santa, grabbed my still whimpering baby, and the older boys trotted off with the elf to get candy. Hmmm...maybe should have the stranger danger chat... Max started freaking out in my arms, and clearly communicated that he wanted Candy too. Soon everyone was eating sticky candy canes (are they GF? Who knows!?) and we were off to get a smoothie treat. Now I get to threaten to text Santa if the boys are having naughty behavior for the next month or so... ahhh, now that's the Christmas Spirit!

Twas the night before Christmas...

and all the boys are in their Christmas jammies (Santa Monkey jammies for the kiddos, A Christmas Story "It's a Major Award!" jammies for Daddy). We let the boys unwrap one present tonight - usually it would be their jammies, but we already let Gabe wear his holiday jammies to school for hibernation day, so we let them open a board game to play together for family time tonight.

Gabe and Ben were super excited to open a present together, and they shared the opening process so well! Max was just happy to get his little baby paws on some paper - I think that's why we couldn't get a pic of him smiling, since he was nervous we were gonna take the shiny crackly paper away from him. Merry Christmas - we wish you were here!

All I want for Christmas is a Buzz Lightyear bike!

Grandma and Papa are here visiting from California, and they brought Christmas a little bit early. Seems only fair that they should get to witness the opening of the presents they brought with them while they are actually here. Turns out they have a direct line to Santa, and he told them about Gabe's fondest wish! It's the (infamous) Toy Story bike! Hooray! Thank you, Grandma and Papa!

They also brought a super cool Wheelies Ramp car thing for Ben...which is the favortie toy of all three kiddos now. Max can use it to stand up - woo! Gabe can race Ben down the double ramps - woo! Ben can bring his cars to the top in the super noisy elevator - woo! They can all play on it without fighting (if they want to) - woo!

Once we got through the present opening and got everyone all bundled up, we took Gabe's new bike for a spin. While Ben was thrilled at another shot for a trike walk, Gabe was...well, less excited about riding his bike than expected. He rode it carefully around the living room twice before we put the kibosh on that action. Then he sat on it for like a half an hour while everyone bundled up. Then he danced around imaptiently while it was carried downstairs. He took off with Papa before we got the little boys settled onto trike and big red car...but by the time we got around the building to the mailboxes, he was complaining it goes too fast! He rode the brake and did stop and go "riding"...more stop than go...around the complex one time. Then he was done. He has not asked to ride it again.  We'll have to try again on a path that's more perfectly flat - hopefully he'll stop being scared of the bike. Which is exactly like the other bikes he's been riding in the last month, bumming rides off other kids and taking off at Walmart. While he still insists he wants the bike, loves the bike, is so glad they brought the bike...he mentioned he'd prefer to ride his trike. Welcome home, Buzz Lightyear bike!