Lights at the Zoo

It was that time of year again... but we have all been so busy that we didn't think we were going to make it to see the lights at the zoo this year... However, we made it happen this saturday. Thank goodness! it was so great

we all enjoyed the wonders of the beautiful array of colors that they put up. and their display at the entrance where they play music in time to the lights... just awesome. I took a little video of it, but I am not sure if I will be able to upload it to blogger. It was freezing cold, but Cal didn't seem to mind. I wish we could have made it earlier in the year... this weekend probably was by far the busiest weekend for the lights.... as adam would say, "it was an absolute zoo there!"

Christmas morning...

Christmas morning was a real treat in the Wahl house this year... Santa was good to us and we all got several of the things that were on our wish lists.

cal got his tricycle and a train set, a new Pez dispenser and lots of "Cars" characters among other fun surprises and truly enjoyed opening up his gifts this year... it was a treasure just to watch him walk down the stairs in the morning and see what Santa had brought for him. I wouldn't want to pass that up for anything.

christmas eve is finally here!

We had a practice run of gift opening on christmas eve with some gifts from grammy and poppy. Calvin really loved this and I just can't wait until the morning to see how his face will light up after Santa has come and gone...

Then we put our cookies out for Santa and some carrot sticks out for the reindeer.

Cal didn't like this, he wanted to eat all the cookies and even the carrot sticks, I am sure in the years to come we will laugh at this, but at the time, it was very frustrating to explain to him that the plate of goodies was for Santa! Cal threw an absolute fit... that was when it was decided it was bed time for one little man!

The Wahl's christmas

We got to spend christmas with adam's family on Sunday the 23rd. We had a delicious dinner then opened our stockings from Santa there.

Cal checks out grammy's immaculately decorated christmas tree... this is a real treat, since most of the time the tree is up, it is off limits for the kids!

We got Quentin his favorite character... ELMO! and Forrest got a neat spinning top, that he seemed to like. and of course adam's mom and dad got a new food saver.

Christmas at Gramma and Boppa's

We spent saturday the 22nd at the Brandt's house for christmas with my family. What a day! Calvin got to see cousin Zac after a long time without him and they love playing together! We were all very tired by the time we left, then I had to go to work from 11-7! yuck.

Calvin got a brand new table and chairs from grandma which he absolutely loves. anything that is kid sized is a winner in his book. we tried to make the kids eat at that table, but that didn't go over so well, in fact, I don't think they ended up eating lunch at all... too much gift opening excitement

Then we had to make our annual batch of sugar cookies, which usually ends up being a bigger mess than the cookies are even worth, but it is fun nonetheless.

Cal of course, felt that any cookies gramma sat in front of him were his own cookies to sprinkle... and then eat... so when I tried to explain to him that we had to decorate the cookies, then NOT eat them... he pretty much exploded. I think he ended up eating the 3 cookies that he decorated. Zac decorated the rest... after all, he actually understood the concept of not eating ALL of the cookies!

christmas card picture...

As many of you already know... once you have kids, it is never easy getting a good picture. multiply the number of kids and you extremely multiply the difficulty in getting pictures. So when the holiday season comes along... it becomes immediately necessary to make attempts at potential shots for the christmas card.

Sometimes people will simply pull a picture off their hard drive for the year, but my dad (aka Boppa) is a firm believer in that the pictures in christmas cards must be somehow christmas related... so in our case, we have to at least wait until we have pulled out the christmas supplies, the tree, the decorations, before we can even make an honest effort at getting our photos!

Here are just a few of our attempts at getting that perfect shot...

Trust me, there are MANY more that were either deleted, or just didn't make the "final cut" if you will...

gramma and boppa's tree...

cal was a big help in picking out his gramma and boppa's tree...

as you can see, if it weren't for him, they may have never gotten the tree home!

check out these boots, ma...

c'mon, everybody needs at least one of these type of photos from their past... Here is cal's

He decided to try on mom's old work boots, and I must say, he looks a lot better in them than his mommy does!

he sure can strike a pose when he wants to!

so damn cute!