Oh Christmas Tree Oh Christmas Tree...

Today is the day! It is our family tradition to go find and cut down our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving (barring any seizures, blizzards, or vacations). Last year we found a tree farm MUCH closer to our home - only a 10 minute drive. The weather was clear but a bit chilly. We bundled the kids up in the warm snow gear and started the hunt!

Logan was tired and was ready for a nap...Zach on the other hand had so much fun running around the trees with a bit of snow on the ground. Every tree we went to that was a potential candidate we would ask Zach if this was our Christmas tree, he kept replying, "no - we need a BIG tree". After about 15 minutes we found that "BIG" tree. This picture doesn't do it justice...it was at least 12 feet tall.

Zach was VERY pleased.....

Dustin did the honors of chopping it down with a chainsaw:


Then Zach and Dustin dragged that big 12 footer to the clearing so the tree farm owners could haul it to our truck on a 4x4. At this point Logan was fast asleep in Jen's arms....he missed the "fun" part!

The tree fit on top of the 4runner no problem.

Now getting that sucker into the house...that is a different story. We have had a few years of trying to get large Christmas trees into our home....this year was probably the easiest (we learn from past mistakes!). We had the tree in the garage. Dustin put the tree stand on the tree while it was in the garage and then wrapped and tied it with a large tarp. We then carried/dragged the tree from the garage through our front door. The tarp kept the tree and our front door frame protected from damage.

Once the tarp was removed we stood the tree up and made some minor adjustments to the position in the stand and TA-DA! The Gray family 2010 Christmas tree!

We decided to let the tree stand un-decorated for a bit to make sure it didn't fall down (incident from two years ago!)....

Thanksgiving

This year we had our yummy Thanksgiving dinner with the Krotosky's. We split up the menu and gathered at our house for the feast. I didn't get any pictures :( It was a lovely day - we spent it with the kids, playing games ALL DAY LONG!

Snow day

Today we woke up to four inches of fresh powder snow!

We played hooky from everything and decided to go play in it! This was Logan's first "snow" experience. At first he wasn't sure he liked it.....but then as he saw all of us having fun he started to get more into it.

Dustin playing with Zach....lots of snowball fights this morning!

And we found out we can put THREE people on our sled! Zach, Dustin and Logan....check out the faces on this one as they were sledding down the side of our yard.

We were finally able to get that smile out of Logan!

Dustin buried the boys in the snow...they didn't know what to make of it...

And snowballs CAN taste oh so good!

I wanna go in the Hummer!

At the shop where Dustin is restoring his Dad's truck they have a stretched hummer.. Zach thinks its awesome.

Here is the '58 sitting next to the hummer a few weeks ago..

Today Zach got a chance to see the hummer up close!

He sat in the front of the truck and said things like, "Vroom Vroom", and "My Hummer!" Then he said "Close the door!"

So we did, and he loved it. All he needed was a chauffeur cap and he was ready to drive that limo out of the garage! It was fun until we heard.. "click click!" Jen says.. "Dustin! Zach just locked the door!" Dustin said "He'll be fine. Zach. Unlock the door." Zach replied with a smile "No!"

Then we watched him figure out how to make the electric seat slide forward and backward and all of the cool lights in the limo turning on and off.. Stinker.

Lucky for us Joe didn't have the key in the ignition, because as you can see from this picture, there is no way to crawl from the back of the limo up front because there is a wall there!

Could you imagine having to call a locksmith to break your son out of a customer's hummer limousine? Sheew. :)

Zach's first dentist visit

Today was Zach's first visit to the dentist! Dustin already had a scheduled cleaning and we were able to get Zach in at the same time. We figured if we had Zach watch Dustin getting his teeth cleaned maybe it would go better. We even were seated in the "monkey room" and had the movie Shrek playing in the ceiling.

Zach was VERY interested in his dad's teeth and mouth. He insisted on helping out the hygienist the whole time.

Dustin finished up and now it was Zach's turn. He jumped up in the chair, laid back, and handed the hygienist the cookie dough flavored cleaning polish....

...and he refused to open his mouth and started crying. The whole trip had been going so well. So that was the end of the dentist trip. They don't force the kids to do stuff at the first visit, they don't want to make it traumatic for them. They seemed to think that in 6 months he would have no issues getting his teeth cleaned....I guess we will see!

Preschool Thanksgiving

For Zach's pre-school this week they were having a Thanksgiving "feast". The teacher asked each student to bring their favorite snack. Jen got a bit creative and came up with these.....

....beats the mom that showed up with goldfish....hands DOWN! Zach helped Jen bake the cookies. Zach was telling everyone about his "turkey cookies" all day!

Look what FINALLY came!

Logan's bottom two teeth came in!!

Nephew Scott's Birthday

While we were in California - our nephew Scott had his 4 year old birthday party. The theme of the party was "superheroes". Jen's sister-in-law Renee did a GREAT job hosting this party and keeping all the kids entertained! There was a "villain" (which was Jen's brother in disguise) that kept making appearances and the kids would have to do tasks to defeat the "villain" to gain more superhero powers!

In the end the villain was subdued...

At end of all the superhero training the kids had earned all the gear - cape, glasses, and power bracelet!

Logan flying - that superhero cape is a magical thing!

My favorite shot of the day.....Logan looks so stinking cute!

This is the cake Jen and her mom put together for the party. Sam's club did the flames for us and we got a bunch of Marvel superheroes to put on top. It turned out pretty good!

At the end of the party all the kids were playing outside and Zach was pushed down from behind.....since he didn't see it coming he landed face first on the cement patio. He had some scrapes on his face - the only thing that put him in a good mood after that was this cat. It was a four month old cat of Scott's. Zach loved that he could pick it up and hug it and kiss it and it wouldn't run away (it was too young to realize it COULD run away!).

We had a great time at Scott's birthday party.....we have a bunch of superheroes on our hands now!

South Lake Tahoe

We spent five days in South Lake Tahoe with Jen's parents and her brother and his family. Jen's parents own a timeshare the Marriott Timber Lodge Resort. We stayed here two years ago and had a great time and decided to do it again! This visit the weather was PERFECT. First week of November and it was clear skies and in the seventies. The kids enjoyed the pool - it was heated to about 85 degrees.

We took a large paddle boat trip in the actual Lake Tahoe. The kids were all excited to go on a big boat. Zach loved hanging out with his cousin Scott and exploring the boat. The views were unbelievable.

We also had some family photos taken while we were in Tahoe. We were able to convince Zach it was cool to take a picture by the old car and with a gun. Since he isn't in the smiling mood for pictures anymore this "serious" shot was PERFECT!