Very Happy Holidays 2007!

The holidays were wonderful this year, full of new and old family traditions. We decided to start a new Heldman family tradition of bringing the boys to Hallmark and letting them pick out a new ornament each year. Who knew they catered to the toddler boy crowd? There were trains, trucks, motorcycles, fire trucks - we ending up going home with the latter two - a motorcycle for Lucas and a fire truck for Ethan.



Our second new family tradition is to spend time together each evening after dinner putting one ornament each on the Christmas tree until it is full. This can last from Thanksgiving until about a week before Christmas. I have a great love of dragging out holiday events as long as everyone can tolerate it. The boys happily indulged me each evening, getting excited every time they selected and unwrapped an ornament from the box.


As for old family traditions, we got together with my parents, brothers and sister-in-law for cookie decorating. I have great memories of this throughout my childhood. Each of us brings our own personal touch to the creation and decoration of the cookies. For instance, here is my father's cookie tray:



Note the dreidel, menorah, lizard and eagle. Don't ask.

The boys did an awesome job adding their own touches to the collection. They were both very proud of themselves:



Cutting the cookies was fun, but once the decorating sugar came out, it was all about how much they could manage to get in their mouths. Now that we have come down from the sugar high, I'd say it was a great success. However, I'm not sure this establishment would get an "A" rating from the health inspector:




One of the highlights of the holiday season was that we had several weeks with some rather cool weather. It felt fantastic! Now don't get me wrong, I know we can hardly sing "The weather outside is frightful..." when it is 59 degrees outside, but it was fun to be able to bundle up when we went on our walks and enjoy some weather that let you know it wasn't the middle of June.



Christmas Day was a blast! We celebrated three times - once at home, once at my parents' house and once at Noah's parents' house.

Round One: Vroom Vroom!

Santa was good to the boys this year! How did he know how much they love cars and trucks?



Santa must also know about their interest in all things bathroom related, because he also brought them potty chairs! I can't say that they really got it right away...



But eventually it made sense.



Round Two: Toot Toot!

At my parents' house, they were treated to the most exciting gift yet - apparently Uncle Tim knows them as well as Santa does, for he got them a train they could actually sit in and pretend to drive:



Round Three: Eat Eat!

At Grandma Pat's and Grandpa Keith's, the boys were certainly treated to many fantastic gifts from Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and Cousins, but the boys (and their parents) were especially excited to eat. Ethan ate about 50 pickles, Lucas as many olives, and mommy and daddy as many of Uncle Matthew's stuffed mushrooms. Job well done Uncle Matthew!



Somehow, the boys had not yet run out of steam in the evening, and the camera had not run out of batteries, so we have on record more good times - playing trucks with Grandma and ducks with Katie:



What is left to say? Well, it cannot go unsaid how blessed we feel to have such amazing family that has always made us feel loved, and now passes that love onto our children. And speaking of our children - they rock! We enjoyed sharing all of these special times with them and appreciate all the joy, wonder, love and playfulness they bring to the holidays. We are so fortunate to have enjoyed such a fantastic year, and we can't wait to see what the new year has to bring!