Merry Christmas!

Breakfast in Matching Jammies from Aunt Jessy

Playing in the Blizzard in our Jammies!

Christmas Lights on our Home

Mommom Nijole and Rawy at the Christmas Spectacular

3D Glasses Before the Show!



The Wilson Family

The Ladd Family

Ladds in Rockfeller Center

The Boys after Christmas Eve Church Service

Christmas Jammies from Mommom Lois (Thanks Mommom!)

Santa Came!



Dinner in Little Italy

Mommy and her "Little" Brothers


We had another full house this year for Christmas! Mommom Nijole and Rawy came to visit us from Florida for a few weeks; Aunt Jessy, Uncle Carl and Treyman came to visit for just over a week; Uncle Drew and Aunt Maria showed up Christmas night; Uncle Eric and Aunt Jourdan surprised us on the Saturday after Christmas(we haven't seen Uncle Eric because he is in the Air Force and has been deployed to Qatar for 9 months!); and Poppop Suter even came up for a night on the Monday after Christmas! We had such an amazing time together with our family. We all really love having everyone we love so close to us during this time of celebration. We might live in a little 2 bedroom-1 bathroom house, but somehow the love makes it work.

Aunt Jessy and Uncle Carl had a wedding to go to in North NJ on the Saturday before Christmas, so Trey stayed with us. That night we got a blizzard. When I asked Mom that night if we could go out and play in the snow (it was about 8pm), she told me we could in the morning since we were already in jammies. The next thing she knew, I was in my jammies, coat, hat, gloves, and boots and ready to head out the door! She could see how excited I was and decided to let us go...in our jammies! It was SO fun!!

For Christmas, we gave Mommom and Rawy and Aunt Jessy's family tickets to go and see the Rockette's Christmas Spectacular in NYC on the 23rd of December. Mommy and Aunt Jessy last saw this show with Mommom Suter a few months before she passed away and so having us kids see it for the first time together was really special for them (even though Emerson was asking to leave and Trey fell asleep halfway through!). The show was really awesome! I loved the 3-d part at the beginning. Mommy and Mommom thought it was pretty funny that Daddy, Em and I were all checking out the Rockettes in the PlayBill before the show too! After the show we walked to FAO Schwarz. Every year Mom and Dad take us there so Emerson and I can buy each other a Christmas present. I bought him a Playmobil person and a lego set and he bought be a magic kit (which I LOVE!).

We celebrated Kucious again on Christmas Eve. It was really cool to have Mommom here this year since her family is where this tradition comes from for us. Mommy thought it was really cute when Trey asked me "What is Kucios?" (even though he was here for it last year) and I answered, "It's the best dinner of the year!". After Kucios, we headed to church and then back home to get ready for Santa to come.

Santa sure was good to us this year again! I was the first one awake and Mommy and Daddy knew it because they heard me run upstairs at 4:30am to check to see if Santa had come. They then heard me run back downstairs and into the kitchen to turn on the coffee (it's a rule that we have to start the coffee for them before we can wake them up!). Then I ran into their room and whispered "Santa came!". Mommy told me it was only 4:30 and we had to wait until at least 5am to wake up everyone else, so I laid with her and Daddy in their bed. I was so excited that I couldn't fall back asleep and I kept popping my head up to check their clock. I finally told Mommy that I needed a clock so I could tell when it was 5am and she let me move over and lay with Dad. As it got closer to 5, they could hear me counting to 60 as each minute passed!

Once 5 came around, I woke up Trey and Em and we went upstairs to open presents. Emerson shook every box to see if it was Legos. His favorite presents were the 250 piece "Lego Guy" set and his Nintendo DS. My favorite gifts were my "Pumper Scooter" (a scooter that you pump a pedal on the back to keep it going instead of pushing off of the ground), my Bakusphere, my new "magic" blankie (electric blanket), and my remote control car that drives on walls and ceilings! Santa was so good to us!

After Christmas we had many visitors come in and out. Poppop Suter came up one night to stay with me and Em while Mommy and Dad went into the city with Mom's brothers and their girlfriends. They went to dinner in Little Italy and then to a comedy show at "The Comedy Cellar" in Greenwich Village. Poppop took us to McDonald's and even got us ice cream. Em didn't eat much because he was just getting over a stomach bug. We were so happy to have a little "boy time" with him though!

A couple days later we drove Mommom up to Rochester so we could visit with her family. We stayed with Sandy and Brian and their dog Tux. They have such a nice house and Brian even played wii with us! Plus they taught us how to get Tux to do his tricks! We had fun with them!! For New Year's Eve, we went to Aunt Linda and Uncle John's house. We LOVE playing with Katie and Shannon! That night we stayed at a hotel. It was pretty cool to get to swim inside when it was so cold and snowy outside! We drove home on New Year's Day.

On Jan 2, Dad drove Mommom and Rawy to the airport so they could fly back to FL. We both headed back to school on the 4th. It's now the 12th of January and Mom is so proud that the "laundry mountain" of blankets from everyone that stayed here is FINALLY finished as of today! :)

We are so happy to have each other, our many friends and family, and our health as we head into this new year! Happy 2010 to you all!

Because I'm a Champion!

Today was the last day of soccer season and although we lost our last game, I still got a trophy. Mom and Dad are so proud of me and how I have played this season. I'm pretty proud of myself too. When I got home from my game with my new trophy, I put it right up on my dresser so I could see it every morning when I wake up. I even told Mommy when I was getting dressed after my shower that I was going to put on my lacrosse sweatpants that said "champion" on them..."well, you know.....because I am," I told her. And she agrees.

Swine Flu.....Been there. Done that.

Sunday night (Nov 8th) we went over to Aunt Betsey and Uncle David's for Sunday dinner. Mommy warned her that I hadn't really been feeling well, but she thought it was just a cold so we went anyway (which subsequently lead to Uncle David getting what we had---SORRY UNCLE DAVID!!! :) ). After we ate dinner, I sat on Mommy's lap and fell asleep and she noticed that I had a fever. We packed up and went home. Mommy took my temperature and it was 102. She and Dad got me dressed in my jammies, gave me some Motrin and put me to bed. I stayed home from school the next day but I had no fever all day. I went with Mom to the grocery store and talked and talked and talked all day....I think she was a little exhausted by the end of the day! Since I had no fever all day on Monday, I went back to school on Tuesday. By Wednesday, I had a nasty cough but I was feeling fine. It was Veteran's Day (Thank you Vets!!) and I didn't have school so I stayed home AGAIN. Emerson was supposed to have school on Wednesday, but he woke up with the fever so it was his turn to stay home. His fever was 103 so Mommy gave him the Motrin and called and made us both doctor's appointments. The doctor seemed to think that my virus was something different than Em's even though we had the exact same symptoms (high fever, nasty cough). She did a culture (which Emerson was NOT happy about!) on Emerson and they called Mom on Friday to tell her it was positive for H1N1. Here's the best part of the story though---Thursday morning, after I left for school, Emerson was standing in the doorway to Mom and Dad's bedroom wearing a fireman's hat, his jammie shirt, and NO pants and NO underwear singing "Santa Claus is coming to town!". Mommy says she'll take H1N1 over any pukey/poopy sicknesses anyday! By Wednesday of the following week, Em was able to go back to school and all was right in the world again. :)

Getting Us On Track

Mommy has been struggling with us lately for two different reasons. First of all, I'm not a fan of homework. I know that no one is, but I'm really not. So every night, Mommy has to have a fight with me over getting it done and she says she's not doing that any more. Second of all, Mommy and Daddy are always trying to get Emerson to eat his dinner. For whatever reason, Emerson has decided that everything Mom gives us to eat is either "yucky" or has "yucky stuff on it". There have been more times than we can count where he goes to bed hungry at night. So again, she says she is finished fighting with him over it. SO, to help us get on track she made us each a chart this weekend. Everytime I come home and do my homework neatly and without complaining, I get a sticker. And every night Emerson eats his dinner until he is full and without complaining (or coaxing from Mom and Dad), he gets a sticker. When our charts are full, Mom will give us each $20 and we can pick out whatever we want at Toys 'R Us. So far so good!

Happy Halloween!

We like to call him "Indiana Emerson"!


Harrison the Pirate!

We had a very busy day today! We woke up at went to my soccer game this morning. After that we had to run to Walmart because Mom hadn't picked up any candy yet for trick-or-treaters. After that, we ran home, got cleaned up and put our costumes on to go to my best friend Eric's Halloween Party. It was so fun! His mom planned lots of games for the kids to do like a race where the kids had to eat donuts off of strings without using their hands or dropping it on the ground. Emerson was really great at that one! He even did it twice! Then we had a Mummy Race where our team had to wrap someone up in white crepe paper and then they had to run to the finish line. It was so funny! The last game was bobbing for apples. This was our favorite!! It took us both a little bit to figure it out, but we eventually got it--and without cheating with our hands! Thanks Mrs Pote for such a fun party!! After the party, we ran home to carve our pumpkins. This was the first year that I was old enough to not only design my own pumpkin, but carve it too! Emerson and I both drew the faces on our pumpkins--we wanted them to be extra spooky (even though Mommy thought they looked a little silly too!). Once our pumpkins were carved, we got costumes on again (this time I went as a pirate since my Transformer costume was wet still from bobbing for apples) and waited for our friends Jasmyn and Jayda to meet us to go trick-or-treating with us. We had an awesome time and got TONS of candy!

Philadelphia's Please Touch Museum

This weekend we went to NJ so Mom and Dad could go see Uncle Matt's Induction into his high school's Sports Hall of Fame. We left of Thursday after Dad finished work so that they could go to the dinner on Friday night. Instead of hanging around the house all day, Mom decided to take me, Emerson, and Emma to the Please Touch Museum. It was really cool! They had a HUGE water table with little waterfalls, boats and rubber ducks to play with. They had diggers that you could dig in a ball pit with and an entire Alice in Wonderland section too. They even had a mini-Shop Rite (the grocery store Mom shops at!), McDonald's and doctor's office. I really liked pretending I was riding the real moped! It was such a fun place!

NYC...by boat!

Today we took the train into NYC to meet Mommom Lenor and Poppop Ladd at the 79 Street Boat Basin so we could go for a boat ride around Manhattan. It was so cool to get to see the Statue of Liberty so close! Here are a few pictures.

Overnight in VT

This weekend we went to Vermont to check out the fall leaves. It's about a 4 hour drive so we decided to leave after my soccer game on Saturday morning (that's where I had an AWESOME sliding save--Mom and Dad wish they would have taped it!). After the game we drove up to East Hartford where we went to Cabella's to shop for Dad's birthday present. We spent about 3 hours there! It was such a cool place! They had tents for us to play in, a shooting gallery, fish tank, and stuffed animals everywhere! Once we finished there, we headed up to VT. We got to our hotel at about 5pm and checked in. From there we went to have dinner at a restaurant called "The Back Behind"-- a bar-b-que place that used to be "back behind" another building (it's not anymore). After dinner, we went back to our hotel and changed into our bathing suits so we could hit the pool! The pool was outside and was heated to 96 degrees so it was perfect in the chilly 30 degree weather! After swimming for about an hour, it was time to hit the sack. The next morning, we got up, checked out, and headed to a restaurant called "Sugar and Spice". They had the BEST pancakes!! I ate an entire half order of silver dollar pancakes (it was HUGE!), and about half of Dad's order of "maple-walnut" and "sugar & spice" pancakes--plus bacon! Once we finished eating, we drove over to Pico Mountain. At Pico, during the "off season" they have a place open called "adventure land". Adventure Land has a mini-golf course, a rock climbing wall, a trampoline type bouncy thing (yes, that's the technical term) and alpine slides. At first, it looked like we might not get to go down the slide because the line for the ski lift wasn't moving. But once inside to buy our tickets we learned that the line had stopped because it had started snowing on top of the mountain and they had to be sure that it stopped to let people continue to ride--which it did. The ski lift ride was interesting. It was REALLY cold and pretty windy and we didn't have hats and gloves. Mommy rode up with Emerson and I rode with Dad. Once at the top, we switched partners to ride the slide down. It was SO fun! If it hadn't been so cold, we would have gone again!! We headed from Pico to Belmont for the "Cider Days" fair--a really small little town with an even smaller "festival"--but well worth the drive for the hot apple cider! We even got to pick out our Halloween Pumpkins there! Once we finished looking around in Belmont, we started to head back to the highway. We made a stop for lunch and another stop to check out the Vermont Country Store (where Dad bought us each a treat that we picked out--I picked a magic duck and Em picked a candy necklace). It was a nice drive home from there. Dad bought 2 "Interstate Bingo" cards so we had something to do on the drive home, but it ended up entertaining him and Mom the longest. :) When Mom and Dad asked us what our favorite part of our trip was, we both told them that the Alpine Slides and the pool were tied for 1st.

Congratulations Aunt Melissa & Uncle Chris!!

Tonight Aunt Melissa had baby Andrew "Lawson" Hayes at 7:50pm. I guessed the right time, Mommy guessed the right length, but Daddy guessed the right weight! Lawson is a teenie tiny thing and weighs 6lbs 3oz and is 20.5" long. Here are a few pics of our new "cousin"! Mommy is so lucky because she gets to fly down to NC on Thursday for the weekend to meet baby Lawson. I hope we get to meet him sometime soon too--maybe when he can be around us "biohazards" as Mommy and Daddy call us. :)