Tis' the Season

We enjoyed a great festive day today. We woke up to our first snow of the year (which is apparently very late for IL) and enjoyed a lazy day around the house. Highlights for Alec included shoveling the driveway (which took poor Matt almost 2 hours) and building his first Gingerbread House. Papa Randy and Retta sent our xmas presents this week and several of them we were allowed to open early, the Gingerbread making kit included. I was pretty impressed with how it turned out, and Alec is pretty impressed with how good it smells. Thanks Retta and P.R.

Enjoying our first snow

One of Alec's favorite new games is to pretend he is a dog like Brody - this is him pretending to "run crazy" in the snow like a dog.

So happy that his snowpants from last year still fit

And of course Papa Randy and Retta didn't forget Brody. Here he is with his mammoth sized dog bone that was delivered this week. It's almost as long as he is! We just let him sniff it to get some pics, b/c we are afraid of what might happen if we set him free with it in the house. He will have to wait for some warmer weather to enjoy it in the yard. Of course, I have been trying desperatly to get a cute pic of Alec in front of the tree and I am finally successful with the shot that includes the mammoth bone!

Attempting to take off with the bone, he failed!

Work and Soccer

Alec has been particularly hilarious lately. He is completely into imaginative play and is constantly making up hilarious stories or scenarios or scenes and telling us all about them. One of his latest things to do is pretend that he needs to go to work like dad. This started by him telling us on Sunday that he needed to make his lunch, which Matt does every night. So, for the last week he has riffled through the kitchen and packed a lunch for himself. Then he wants to have meetings with me during the day (which consist of him eating his lunch.) Last night ayt dinner he asked Matt about what movies he watched at work, and when Matt said he didn't really watch movies at work, Alec told him that was too bad b/c he could watch movies at his job. He also told him that he had had a meeting with JP, who is Matt's boss. Then while running errands with me today he saw an office building and told me that was his office, which was called Sevenary, and that he worked on the 8th floor, and that at his job they designed monorails, but that they didn't actually have any monorail tracks there, they only had regular train tracks. It's hilarious!! Last night Matt gave him his own "work" lunch box (which was just one we had in the pantry) but it has been great b/c he no longer wants to carry around his giant plastic toy bin full of his lunch to his meetings, which often take place in my car. Anyway - here are a few pics of one of his self packed lunches.

On another note, Alec started soccer yesterday. We had gone to one trial class, and he loved it, so he was thrilled to actually start yesterday. It's a really cute soccer program and Alec did great. It is supposed to be a class for kids only, with no parent involvement, but several kids had a terrible time with that and spent most of the class running to their parents or crying. Alec was the complete opposite - he marched right over to his coach and had a blast. He listened really well and definitely got in a workout. He actually tried very hard to be the fastest at all of the sprints (which he was) but he was a little confused when he asked the teacher who was the fastest and she said "everyone." Anyway, we are super excited to see how he does for the next 3 months. Here he is modeling his uniform.

With his new soccer ball, a treat from mom and dad.

Looking so grown-up

During practice

Telling other kids what they are supposed to be doing (yes, he has a bit of his mother's bossiness in him.)

Mid-hop

....and I have to throw this in b/c he cracks me up,

While riding to soccer yesterday and having an apple in the backseat, he said "mom, this apple goes straight to my butt." (Apparently I need to watch what I say about my weight gain to Matt.)