Christmas 2012

I am so glad the world kept spinning a few days ago because, and even though I say this every year, this has been my favorite Christmas. Ashton rarely gets excited about anything we do (year 11 is upon us. According to my mother in law I have about 5 months left before all hell breaks loose and my pre-pre teen is amplified into a fire breathing pre-teen. I've been trying to enjoy year 10 as much as I can so I can remember the rare moments of joy when they start to disappear.), Talan is so overly into Santa that he nearly came unglued with excitement when Santa sent him a special video message, or that Syphr said that every present was his favorite thing and just about beamed with excitement until he crashed. Mostly this Christmas is great because Brad is here to celebrate with us. I know someday there will be another Christmas that he has to be away, so we try to always enjoy him as much as we can. 

This year Santa's family gift was several Wii and Playstation 3 games. Santa can never go wrong when video games and boys are paired up. 

 I think Talan makes the absolute best excited faces.

Even though Santa brought video games, if you are a 10 year old two extras might be the icing on the cake.

Talan might have nearly died of excitement when he pulled a sprite out of his stocking.

 "What! I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED THIS! I KNEW I WOULD GET THIS! WAHOOO!" Once again, best excited face ever!

Two of Syphr's most favorite things are backpacks and Mario. That makes this his most favorite present:

These are apparently not stacking blocks, but Syphr has been making towers with them all morning. All three boys are pretty sure they have the best aunt ever, and also, that toys from Thailand are the best.

After much excitement, we found Syphr curled up in an empty box with his two Mario guys pretending to sleep. 

The two big boys rigged a Mario kart track (can you guess we like Mario in this house?) with the train tracks. Pretty awesome actually.

Merry Christmas! 

Love, B.R.A.T.S.

In case that wasn't enough of us, Talan insisted on singing for 8 minutes. His teacher told him he had a beautiful singing voice. It has gone to his head. Enjoy.

I think it is awesome that Raphael fights with a sai, or "two forks" as Sy calls them

Every day Syphr is obsessed with one of the three following things: 

Lightening McQueen

Mario

Ninja Turtles

I just never know before I go to bed if I should find the ninja turtle dvd, locate his red car that he thinks is Lightening McQueen, or have his mario costume ready for the day. It is always a mystery and heaven help me if I am not prepared.

Today, we watched 5 episodes of TMNT on Hulu to feed the addiction, dug the Michelangelo mask out of the abyss that is Talan and Syphr's room, devised a holster for Donatello's bo staff so he would stop sticking the pool noodle in his underwear, fought a million bad guys that looked a lot like Ashton and Talan minding their own business, and Syphr made me call him Raph for most of the day. Today we were the ultimate Ninja Turtles.

Overflowing with awesomeness

I'm not sure if it is possible for Ashton to contain any more academic awesomeness. 

A few weeks ago Ashton was re-routed to the gifted math class. He was insanely bored, and could multiply decimals in his sleep so his teacher kicked him out to give him a new challenge. In a matter of three days he went from doing fifth grade math to sixth grade honors math. All I can say is I am so glad Brad is home to help with math homework, and I do not have enough patience to be a teacher.

Other than Ashton's huge excitement over being introduced to graph paper, and extreme fractions and decimals, he is also thrilled about his new seat in All City Band. All City Band is basically like honors band. It is comprised of kids fifth through eighth grade who audition, and if accepted, meet once a week for a 90 minute practice, and several concerts throughout the year. It is kind of a big deal, and he is so excited he was sitting at the door 2 hours before his first practice started. 

I hope the academic/musical awesomeness always continues!