From One Creative Writer to Another

The boys would like to give a big shout out to our friends Katie and Nick!  Katie, is an editor for a big fancy publishing company (Random House) in NYC, and never fails to send the boys the coolest books each year.  Last year, one of the books she sent was The Wicked Big Toddlah by Kevin Hawkes.  The boys love this book, especially because it takes place in Maine and we try to use our best Maine accents to read it.  We should actually have Beepa read it with an authentic Maine accent—that would be much cooler.

This year, she sent The Wicked Big Toddlah Goes To New York by Kevin Hawkes. The boys love it!  But Soren was curious as to how Toddie got to be such a big toddler.  I asked him he thought Toddie got so big and he decided to write a little story about it…

How Toddie Got to Be a Wicked Big Toddlah

By Soren Peterson

Once upon a time, Toddie had a wicked big mom. Even bigger than his size.

And he came out in the space hospital. He came out of the mom's belly.

They had an alien spaceship and the drove there. And they had an alien house that looked like cheese.

At the space hospital, Toddie grew up and he got to be so big that he was almost turning into his Dad's size.

Toddie got taken away from his parents and went to Earth and had another family.

And Toddie loved his family but he missed his real family. He knew if he went back, he would just get taken away from his family again, so he stayed at Earth and lived there.

Then Toddie went to New York when he was a big boy.

The End.

So a big thank you to Katie, a creative writer, for sending these awesome books and inspiring the next generation of creative writers!

And while we are talking about our friends with supercool NYC chic careers. A big congrats to Nick who is now a pilot of a plane.  The boys think that this is one of the coolest professions ever!  However, when Nick first got promoted as a pilot, Soren got a little big confused and thought he was a pirate…that would be cool too. Nick, any interest in a career change?…

The Ghosts of Christmas Cards Past II

This is a recycled post from last year with some updates, but it is just too cute not to repost.

Just a little look back at some past Christmas pictures.

Christmas 2007

My goodness, I was only going to post the xmas card pics from each of the years, but they are all just so cute, I couldn’t post just one!

Christmas 2008

Christmas 2009

Christmas 2010

Christmas 2011

It is absolutely amazing how much changes, yet, how much stays the same!

Merry Christmas!

An Early Visitor

We had a surprise visitor last week (well, surprise for the kids. We were in on the deal).  But nonetheless, it was a nice Christmas surprise. We first got the kids in the Christmas spirit with some crafts.

We moved on to a quick traditional Christmas dinner consisting of take-out pizza and juice boxes.  Complimented by an arrangement of hilarious fart jokes (well, the jokes were hilarious for the kids, and the kids’ reaction was hilarious for us)

We then settled into a viewing of the Polar Express

And then…

jaws dropped, eyes widened, and each of the kids had their own unique reaction. 

Our friend, Callie was absolutely enamored with Santa. I think she would have been content to sit on his lap all day and chat it up with the Big Guy.

Cooper and Santa got to do some math problems together. If math wasn’t Cooper’s favorite subject before, it is now!

Caydence just stood next to Santa for most of the visits and patted his coat, leg, boot, whatever she could get her little hand on.

We thought that Soren, our creative, abstract, story teller we be totally wrapped up in the magic of Santa, but that little bugger was the skeptic of the group.  After Santa arrived, his first statement was “That’s not Santa. That’s just an old man in a suit. Santa has never come to our house before. Why would he come now?  I am going to take his hat off to see if he is real!”  After reviewing some of the video, at one point Soren even did sneak up behind Santa and was going to pull his hat off but someone stopped him. Seriously…Nonetheless, when it was Soren’s turn on Santa’s lap, he did give some serious thought to their conversation. “Just in case” it was the real Santa. Timmy told Santa all about the battles he wanted to have with his requested Imaginex sets. Bodie tried to show Santa how old he was on his fingers. It proved a bit more challenging than he anticipated. He then talked to Santa about his one and only wish for Christmas, M&Ms  (well, that and money, but we told him Santa doesn’t bring money).  Nick told Santa about the Star Wars Lego Death Star but then they got down to business. Santa explained to Nicholas that if he ate cookies at every house, he wouldn’t fit down the chimney by the end of the night. So Santa made a special request from Nick to leave him a small side salad with fat free dressing.  Nick seemed to hang on his every word and I have no doubt that he will deliver on this promise!

Santa read a story and sang songs. But of course the kids’ favorite part was opening the presents from Santa. It was about this time that all, and I do mean all, of Soren’s skepticism vanished.  Soren had asked Santa for a headlamp and Santa absolutely delivered!  Soren slept with his head lamp that night and went to sleep saying, “I can’t believe Santa came to our house!”

A big thank you to Beepa for his connections with the Big Guy!