Well, the bad news is that I’m up at midnight because Lex threw up five times in a row this evening.  I think it’s just a stomach bug that several of his friends have already experienced and gotten over.  I know we were lucky to make it three years without him puking, but it’s certainly never fun and I feel bad for the kid.  But the good news is that you all get another blog entry as I wait for a potential round six.

We got together with our friends for the annual Ramm/Mellom/Weaver Christmas dinner on Sunday evening. Lex adores Gabby and Mia:

The girls and Lex played ring around the rosy:

And had a dance party:

And Christopher’s finally getting old enough for Lex to begin educating him on the importance of trucks and cars:

Loretta told me that if our dinner party made it into this blog, I had to feature a picture of her fancy napkins that she folded into the shape of Christmas trees.  So here you go…impressive indeed!

The kids all exchanged gifts at the end of the evening.  Lex got a race car and two figurines from the tv show Dinosaur Train.  He was a happy camper!  I believe he even slept with the new toys that night.

Ok, enough for now.  I’m hoping to still get a few hours of sleep tonight, but we’ll see how it goes.

Last weekend our family took a ride on the max train, simply to entertain the toddler.  We ended up at the mall downtown, so we stopped and had lunch before returning home again. Lex really liked this particular fountain:

There are lots of leaves to be raked in our backyard.  My helper is small but energetic.

Last Wednesday I hosted our play group at our house.  I made a bunch of gingerbread men and women and let the kids decorate them as they pleased with frosting, sprinkles and candy.  Lex was in heaven.

Random picture of a boy in a basket:

On Friday afternoon we went to a local farm and cut down our Christmas tree.  We all had fun, but Lex looks a bit disgruntled in this picture because there was a Santa Claus wandering around taking pictures with kids, and our son was terrified of him.  We might successfully get a Santa’s lap picture by the time Lex turns 12.

Lex was so excited to decorate the tree that he couldn’t wait for me to get out all the ornaments.  Instead he hung up whatever he could, including the plastic orange holders for our lights :

I think I mentioned in my last post that we couldn’t drive to Boise over Thanksgiving due to bad weather and icy roads.  Instead we spent a lovely evening with the Wilberding crew (Dayn’s family).  We’re very grateful to them for being so hospitable.

“Cheers!”

Shuffleboard, anyone?

The next morning we avoided the Black Friday shopping scene, but we did go to the holiday parade downtown with Loretta and her family.

One of the parade marchers handed out free dog noses to the kids in the crowd, but Lex decided that his dad should wear it:

Lex wasn’t too sure about the whole parade thing.  He remained fairly stoic as he watched the dressed up characters pass by.

Eventually he did start giving hi-fives though:

After the parade we stopped at the Teazone for scones and a warm beverage.  Lex stole my Earl Grey tea latte and drank the rest of it.  (He has good taste though…it was fantastic!)