On 12/31, I took the boys to visit Karen, Kyle and Steven at their house, and we wanted to meet their doggie, Sam, too.  Sam was very adorable and eventually warmed up to play with us.  He especially liked Connor even though Connor was nervous for his attention initially.  After the boys played with Sam, Kyle suggested to play Fortnight and the boys were more than thrilled to accept.  They bonded quickly over the video game, and they played quite awhile together.  Karen and I had this chance to catch up.

   With Connor’s suggestion, we had a hotpot dinner that night.  The boys wanted to stay up past midnight, so we watched a movie.  The boys did well staying up; when it was time to do the count down, we watched a rerun of the New York ball drop.  We then wished each other happy new year and finally we all went to bed.

   On 1/2, Michelle and I made plan to take the kids on a hike.  We met up after lunch and hiked the Rancho San Antonio.  The kids were playing around, and Michelle and I had to rush them along often.  We managed to get some exercise, and we had boba drinks afterward as an award.  The kids all wanted to go back their home to play, and later Michelle invited us to stay for dinner and made us pho.  Stuart was tired after the day of work and did not feel like driving up to join us.  So Logan, Connor and I stayed with the Kaos until after dinner before heading home to Stuart.

    We drove down to SoCal on 12/28 and spending two nights to visit the grandparents.  The first night there was like Christmas again.  Grandparents had prepared and gave us many presents, and we had a nice dinner starting with crackers too.  The next two days, we hung out and relaxed at the house mainly; we played video games, board games, watched Warriors and football, and went out for a dinner.  The boys enjoyed spending time with grandparents during the holiday.

   Both Logan and Connor woke up early at 7am, but they allowed Stuart and I stayed in bed longer.  After breakfast, they were thrilled to dig into the presents.  We started with the stockings then moved onto the ones under the tree.  After opening all the presents, Stuart and I also put together a little hunt for them to find their final “large” gifts.  The boys were intrigued with that and also quickly found their largest friends .  Right afterward, the rest of the day we hung out at home and indulged in playing with our new games/toys.  One of the boys’ gifts was headphone with mic, and the boys definitely made use of them chatting with their friends while playing together at Fortnite.  Their big stuffed animal friends Spot and George were also with the boys all day long as well as when they went to bed at night.  This was the day the boys looked forward to and enjoyed.

   We stayed home on this day.  We put together the gingerbread house.  The boys helped me make chocolate chip cookies for Santa.  This was the first time Logan spent that much time helping me and first time touching the dough.  Connor was probably a bit more experienced.  They both had a good laugh making the doughballs.  The cookies came out quite delicious as we tried some right out of the oven.  During the day, we also played Just Dance to get exercise while having fun.  By the end of the day, the boys were quite excited and preferred to go to bed early to anticipate their most looking forward day of the year.  Connor set up the ottoman with cookies and milk on the tray for Santa before he went to bed.