Christmas Time = Good Times

We have had a lot of fun these past few days. Russell and I have spent a lot of time driving "the King" and "McQueen" around the halls, and I've even worn a new hole in a pair of my pants. It has also been raining a crazy amount for this area and we have been enjoying it. Natalie and Russell went out with umbrellas and somehow managed to still get soaked. Russell thought it fun to stand right by the house and get drenched where the water came off of the roof, with and without his umbrella. :)
For a special Christmas treat, Natalie came up with the idea of making whip cream snowmen in the tub. It was a hit, and each snowman met the same fate as Russell would say "yummmmm." This is Russell looking at his favorite present on Christmas morning. He probably would have played with it like this all morning if we didn't ask him to unwrap it.And here it is, a kitchen (that had soooo many pieces it took over two hours to assemble.)Russell sees me do a lot of things for my schooling/profession and likes to copy me any chance he can get a hold of any of my "tools." Here he is checking Elmo's ears...Needless to say, he was very excited when Grandma Johnson got him a pair of scrubs. If he looks a little grumpy in this picture, its because he's worked a long shift in the ER.We were able to go to Toddler time at Sky Zone where we set Russell loose in a warehouse full of trampolines. He really gets after it. The camera couldn't even keep up with him jumping/running around!

Christmas Countdown

Great Grandma Johnson has given these countdown calendars to the grandkids for as long as I can remember. Russell really loves his and sometimes tries to trick us by saying "what's under Santa" or "the house" etc. It has been very fun seeing him excited to open a new door every morning this month. We took Russell ice skating today. I had fun skating him around, but it was just too cold for him in spite of our efforts to keep him warm and he didn't enjoy himself as much as I'd hoped. However, afterwards he said "skate fun, fun" so it wasn't that bad. Poor Natalie sat on the sidelines and froze.
Our latest project was finishing a table we got back in May from the DI. It was orange and beat up, so Natalie painstakingly sanded the detailed legs and I stuck to the big flat surfaces. Then I stained it and put several coats of varnish until it looked rather good we think.
MERRY CHRISTMAS to all and to all a Good Night!

That canyon was grand!

Last week we had a day between rotations and so we took the opportunity to drive the 4 hours to the Grand Canyon! Chad had never been, and we figured that it was something that we should do as we will probably never be closer to it again, and since time is running out for us here we decided that it was now or never. It was fun and I think that Chad really enjoyed it, Russell on the other hand did not love the 8 hours in the car that day. But we did try to make it fun for him, we made a couple of stops just to get out and move, and when we got there, he got to play with snow for the first real time!

If you will notice in this first picture, Dad has built Russell a little snow man, move to the next picture...

Russell demolished the poor thing! Then he started to cry because it was gone, Chad and I busted up laughing, and made him a new one that he left standing and we said good by to it, on the trail.

Dad and Russell at the look out!

All of us with the sun in our face. We had a lot of fun, but I would have to say that I did not particularly enjoy the hours in the car with Russell being a pill.