Stuart had to work today, so Dora and I took the boys out for a movie.  Both Dora and I wanted to watch Frozen.  This was Connor’s first movie at the theater and I was happy to have Dora there in case Connor could not stay through the entire show.

    The boys were very excited about the plan.  Logan led the way to the theater and Connor ran after him.  We got tickets and popcorns, then we got seated inside.  Logan was very protective of the popcorn to save them when the movie started; he was guarding it from Dora.  Throughout the entire advertisement, Connor kept asking me “is this the movie?”  He must have asked me about a dozen times; I was happy when the movie finally started.  Both boys were paying attention to the movie while enjoying the popcorn.  The movie was great, and I really enjoyed it.  Periodically Connor would make some comments, like “too dark”, “I want to go home”, “where is daddy?”, but he would return his focus at the movie quickly.  More than half way into the movie, Logan asked to come sit with me, then Connor asked to go sit with auntie Dora.  Connor however did return next to me for the rest of the show.  The ending of the movie was good too, and Connor and I clapped when it was over.  I was happy that Connor stayed through the entire show and did not even need a bathroom break. 

    We grabbed lunch at the food court before we went home.  During lunch, Connor started suggesting for us to go back and watch the movie again.

    Logan is a lazy one or a smart one.  I recalled one morning before Christmas when he came down to look for Elfie, after just a minute of searching, he said "I will just sit here and watch TV.  We will wait for Connor to come down to look.  He is very smart". 

    Lately, we have divided the duty of cleaning up the bath toys between the two boys.  Logan is in charge of cleaning on Mon/Wed/Fri and Connor has Tue/Thu/Sat.  And they would clean together on Sundays.  Logan often asks or confirms the day of the week at the start of bath, then he would convince Connor not to play with toys that night if he was on duty.  Connor is opposite; he loves to clean up and proud to do the work.  But the laziness is starting to spread to him at times, and Connor starts complaining about having to clean up sometimes.

    Dora arrived last night.  This morning, we took Dora to a local place for a short hike.  Both boys were happy to go hiking and claimed that they were the best hikers.  We did our usual one mile hike.  Connor complained briefly at the end of tiredness, but he walked the entire way.  He got slightly nervous when going down hill.  Logan walked and ran the whole way with the sword in hand.  Afterward, we took a break at the structures for the boys to play and for us to have lunch.  It was a nice day out.

     It was another beautiful sunny day, so we decided to go play miniature golf with the grandparents.  The boys were very excited with the plan.  When we arrived, Stuart demonstrated at the first hole to remind the boys what to do.  Logan was a bit shy to start, and wanted me to help him.  But after the first hit, he warmed up and he was the first hitter for the rest of the course.  He had some good hits, but he seemed to still think the winner was the first one making the hole rather than the one with the least strokes.  Sometimes he would make the hole before we all had our first hits.  Connor was happy to get help from daddy or me.  He did not have good aims but he was very persistent.  He was happy to keep hitting back and forth until we helped him finished it up.  We all had a great time.  Grandma and Grandpa competed with each other while Stuart and I kept our own score.  Logan would watch and cheered for me or daddy sometimes too.  One bad hole with a volcano definitely ruined my chance of winning.  After the game, we took a break for a snack while Logan played a game at the arcade with daddy before we went home for lunch.

     This evening we went out for dinner.  The boys picked their entree (pizza) while the rest of us enjoyed our picks too.  It was funny that on the way home, Logan suddenly said to me “Mommy, we did not have veggies at dinner.  Yay!”.  He was cheering and shared his discovery with Connor too.  He is so goofy sometimes.

    Part of the holidays are officially over as I will be going back to work tomorrow, and the grandparents will be heading back home.

     The boys woke up in the morning and asked if Santa had arrived.  We convinced them to have breakfast first before we started the gift opening.  We began with our stockings first, then dug into all the presents under the tree.  Connor was very efficient finding his own name and opening the presents.  Stuart had to take over directing the present opening so everyone else had a chance to open and look at when we all received.  Logan opened presents gingerly while Connor opened up wrappers quickly.  Connor often asked Logan "Gou Gou, do you need help?" and Logan would answer yes, then they worked together nicely.  Logan has been having a running nose the past couple of days, but his spirit had not been dampened by it.  He was in search for his Lego Batman2, and when he finally opened up Batman2 and later the Marvel one, he gave out a very genuine smile.  Right after that, he was ready to walk away from more present opening to go play the game.  All of us received many presents especially the boys, but Connor asked for more presents to open when the bottom of the tree became empty.
      Afterward, we took a walk to our local school to play while Stuart drove the boys’ bikes over for them to try out.  Logan was happy with his golden bike, but when we asked him to get on it, he declined.  It took some convincing, he finally rode it with some hesitation.  But he did ok, and managed to ride it for a couple of rounds.  Connor tried out his "Green Machine"; he too wanted a cool name for the bike (or Logan’s previous bike).  Connor was willing to get on it but he became discouraged with the interruption from the back paddle brake.  I pushed him around for a round, and he got a better hang with it then.  The boys then took a break from biking to play with the boomerangs.  Logan learned how to use it quickly and played with it for a long time.  Connor could not throw it correctly but he did not seem to mind it and enjoyed walking to pick it up after the throws.  Both grandparents and I had our share of time trying it out too.  We then played at the structures; Connor claimed that he was doing some "exercises". 
     The rest of the day we played with the toys and presents that we received.  Connor had fun using the magic hat to show us his rabbit in the hat trick.  Grandma, Logan, Connor and I played with the Spot It game.  Logan was very quick with it once he got the hang of it, and Connor, to our surprise, did very well with it too.  Logan obviously spent some time playing with his Lego Marvel game, and he loved carrying his pirate chest around too. The boys also received a bath toy that they had fun putting it together during bath. 

    Before dinner, the boys enjoyed watching Mr. Grinch with Grandma.  At dinner we began the meal with the holiday crackers.  Our day was fun and festive.  Both boys declared that their favorite holiday is Christmas.

    The grandparents came up to spend the holiday with us this year.  They arrived by plane on the 23rd late afternoon, and the kids were very excited to see them.  After dinner, the boys immediately asked Grandma to play the Number Game with them.  Poor grandma had to chase the boys around the house.

    On the 24th morning, we took a stroll at the Christmas in the Park.  The boys enjoyed holding Grandma’s hands to look around, and their favorite, especially Connor’s, was the candy canes train.  We took a detour to the Tech Museum gift shop and the kids’ highlight was the popcorns for snack afterward.

    In the afternoon, after we came back from Logan’s 2nd eye appointment, we decorated the gingerbread cookies.  Connor has been talking about them for a long time and he was patiently waiting for us to start.  I assisted both boys with the icing and they decorated them with chocolate.  They could not wait to eat and both enjoyed eating a chunk of it.  They had even more of the cookies for desserts until I finally threw out the remaining after dinner on Christmas day.

    At dinner time, we somehow started a question game.  All of us came up with some simple questions about each other, and everyone tried to answer them.  Logan and Connor had a blast asking questions and Connor had the sweetest smile when he raised his hand to answer.  The grandparents and us all had a great laugh from the game too.

    Both boys are full of the Christmas spirits this year.  They have been so excited since the beginning of December, and with the help of Logan, they had been counting down to Christmas.  They also enjoyed the little things, like looking for Elfie every morning, loving the chocolate each night from the advent calendar, tracking down Santa with Stuart’s app, writing to Santa and waiting for his arrival.  Both boys went down to sleep very quickly on Christmas eve as they knew Santa would be coming during their sleep.  Connor kept rushing us to tuck in him after reading “Hurry, hurry, I hear Santa coming. I hear some noises”.