10. Deb starting and maintaining a blog for a whole year. 9. Ryan delving into the world of terrible 2's. 8. Alicia completely out of diapers. 7. Starting the new year with Kathy, Walt, Kortney, Kayla, and Robert in VA. 6. Deb completing another 5 courses at ESC leaving only 3 more till graduation. 5. Driving down to TN and back this summer to see Grandma and Grandpa Burlington. 4. Mark doing the animation for a local t.v. commercial. 3. Mark graduating from ESC. 2. Alicia beginning Kindergarten. 1. Surviving another year full of ups and downs and craziness - mostly thanks to our loving friends and family. Thanks to everyone who has done so much for us. It was truly a year of great growth for our family and we have been greatly blessed.
Okay so after sleeping in quite a bit on New Year's Day we decided to take advantage of the cold of winter and headed out to the pond. This was no ordinary trip to the pond however... with some diligence we got a section cleaned off of the snow that had fallen on New Year's Eve Day and Alicia proceeded with her very first ice-skating lesson.
Daddy (of course) was the one to teach her.
After a little while though she felt pretty confident scooting around on her own.
After we got some more ice cleared Mark and I put on skates as well. Mark showed us all up... naturally... while I made Alicia feel much better about herself but proving that falling is okay. After all... the idea of walking on water is still just a bit scary for this Florida girl.
Ryan announced loudly the injustice of Sissy having skates while he didn't. In a classic Ryan move I all the sudden noticed he had disappeared so I went looking around for him. When I got close to the house I heard a cry for help coming from the garage. My instant worry was that he had gone inside and gotten hurt. I should have known better. He had gone on a very specific mission - find Daddy's rollerblades. He did and he had them on his feet and the cry for help was simply that he couldn't figure out how to get up on them and make it out to the pond so he could skate too. He was absolutely furious that I took them off and wanted to put his boots back on him. He actually kicked so much that I couldn't so I took him and left him in the green house next to the pond where we could keep an eye on him and he could play with all of his toys in there. No go... in his socks he came crashing to us through the snow. ::sigh:: he survived but you'll also notice in the picture he refused to wear his hat or gloves... something fairly common for him even when we're outside for a while. I think he believes we should be living somewhere much warmer than VT. (on a side note as he's watching me put the picture of him up here he looks at it and says "Ryan so sad". )
So in all the usual craziness of the holiday season with the added benefits of school not ending until the 23rd of December for all of us... Christmas ended up being a very small, quiet affair without any pictures. Christmas Eve morning we drove over to Saratoga to Grandma and Grandpa Ostrom's (and of course Uncle Matt's). Mostly we just enjoyed getting a chance to relax and enjoy the time with family. We watched some movies, made a movie, and of course had a nice Christmas morning opening presents. Thankfully the kids haven't gotten too grabby and crabby about the "I wants" yet and were content to eat breakfast first - a tradition from Christmas with my grandmother Burlington. They both got lots of stuff to enjoy including a remote control car for Ryan, movies for both of them, a new My Little Pony for Alicia's collection, lego sets for both of them, and flashlights - these guys are obsessed with all of the above anyways so it was great!
The holiday fun doesn't stop with Christmas around here though. Every year some friends of ours have a combined Christmas/New Year's Eve Day celebration that allows for the rest of the holidays to be spent not feeling conflicting obligations. We've kind of become extended family so New Year's Eve day we went and had another round of presents and excitement there.
Kind of fuzzy but Ryan was enjoying playing with one of his new planes
Alicia playing with her light up ball... she was quite thrilled at having a second Christmas and more stuff!
Presents were followed by a great game of dodgeball that everyone enjoyed (even me although I was the party crasher hanging out on my computer trying desparately to finish up my final paper for one of my classes... a week late...)
I love that both Ryan and Mark are in the air in this one.
Alicia was right in there playing hard.
Go for it Zed!
When we got back home we took the kids outside and shot of some fire works and let them play with sparklers.
Ryan gave out at about 10:30. Alicia made it to midnight. I think the best comment of the evening was from the newly 9 year old as we were all toasting the new year with our sparkling cider... "Global warming was so last year." He always cracks me up!
