Zooooo Lights

As the week continued and to celebrate the holidays, we met up with the Bash/Godley and Madden clans for some Noodles and "Zoooo lights" as Liam likes to say. We had some slight precipitation (a few raindrops, no snow) and it was a fun and festive night. Thanks gang.

Claire and her Pops with Tommy and Papi.


A much better view

Some of the troops - Colleen/Liam/John, Aunt Maggie Bash (to Claire, Finley & Lucy) and Gigi

Tommy and buddy Liam checking out all the lit up animals

The gang - John, Matt, Maggie, Sarah, Aunt Beth and Papi

Off to the Children's Museum

We had a fun filled week before Christmas with Gigi and Papi. They planned to go to the mountains for a few days but decided to play in Denver instead - yay! The week included a trip to Little Monkey Bizness which was crazy with school out. Documented here was some fun at the Children's Museum. I couldn't get enough of driving the "wee-o, wee-o" - definitely the highlight. After leaving, I brought it up over and over. We'll be back...

My first job checking people out at "Whole Foods."

Check out these bubbles Gigi can make!

Some serious projects for a later date when Dad is around. Not sure we're quite ready for a real saw without him.

How old are you Tommy? "Peace"

Welcome to December. It's a celebratory time around the Martin house. We are one lucky family to be blessed with two healthy boys with so many people that love them. Everyone is so generous sending many packages beginning with Tommy's birthday. Our house kept UPS and FedEx in business that's for sure. And, since birthday and Christmas fall in the same week, there has to be a building strategy for Dad. Every night, Mike entered Dad/Santa's workshop to build all the fun toys (beer in hand :) Nice work!

Tommy turned TWO on December 17th - woo hoo - we survived 2 years - amazing. For a while, all Tommy would say is "one, three, one" avoiding two for some reason. His Aunt Beth taught him the peace sign last summer so whenever we held up two fingers, it automatically was peace. He has come around though and now says two. Where does the time go? We can only say how amazed we are at watching Tommy grow; he is no longer a baby (although always our baby) but is a little boy with many, many opinions :)

We opened many fun packages throughout a few days. On Sunday the 19th, Gigi and Papi arrived Colorado and they joined us for Tommy's "Thomas" themed bday. As you all know, Tommy loves choo, choos and has become quite the fan of Thomas, Sir Top in Hat and his Special, Special. How he picks up on this stuff is beyond me.

Thanks to everyone who shared in celebrating our big 2-year-old - both near and far.

Let what we like to call "the week of Tommy's birth" begin...yikes!

Checking out my new fireman house from Grandma and Grandpa. Building session number one (not too bad). Pretty cool!

My dad is good at making "coptor" sounds and I'm not so bad at mimicing them.

Pumped about the Thomas paper. What could it be?

A Thomas tent and tunnel.... I love tunnels. On your mark.

Get set...

GO!!

And my first Thomas train set - choo, choo

I LOVE buses too. Often caught singing "round and round, swish, swish, swish, waa, waa, waa" - different rounds of Wheels on the Bus. Thanks, Nana!

And I love to help Daddy fix things. This tool bench will help me practice. Thanks Gigi and Papi! (building session #2).

Happy Birthday! Tommy enjoying the company of many cute friends for pizza, cake and ice cream. They played, ate and then enjoyed a book exchange - everyone bringing a favorite book (wrapped) and then picking one from under the tree to take home. Crazy but not too overwhelming...

He loved his conductor hat!

Cake time from my Thomas themed cake

Danny's exhausted from all the activity

Chilin' with Papi

A few tears as friends leave. Tommy seemed to have had a fun time with his pals.

Opening a few things from Aunt Beth. Check out my Train Engineer book!

A new "Ack Chalk" sweatshirt and my first children's dictionary.

As always, Danny just chills during the madness in his seat. Sporting his new baseball outfit.

Here are just a few candids of us hanging around. The first series is of Tommy doing his cowboy hat handoff to Danny. This hat was a special gift given to Tommy by his good pal Finley and her "Pops" (aka Grandpa Roy) after their visit to Oklahoma back in early 2009. Tommy thought it would be fun to share his cool style with his little bro now that he's outgrown it.

Fixing the bill...

You need to tip it like this...


Giddy up, Cowboy!

Danny all smiles in his "coptor" outfit from Aunt Lexi, Uncle Brian and Cousin Charlie

Finley turns 2! Hard to believe Finley is 2 already. Tommy got to help her celebrate the big day. Who can resist a cute girl with a tutu on hanging in a ball pit - perfect way to celebrate turning 2!!

Prepping the tunes. JT (aka Justin Timberlake) started blarring shortly after these two made their selections :)

I prefer 3 straws, thank you very much!

Meeting Santa

December is a busy time around the Martin household. The latest is we are gearing up for "Santy Claus." Despite the warm Denver weather, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

The gang got together for some festive cheer at the de Gortaris. We had a little Secret Santa between the kiddos which is always fun. They change fast. Here is the most recent shot of all of them since Halloween which has been about 6-weeks. How quickly they grow...

Reese and Danny followed by Liam, Claire (in a sling after she broke her collar bone :(, Tommy, Finley and Lucy.


"Chopping down" the tree.

Tommy held on tight to Dad while meeting Santa for the first time. We did manage to get a family shot without tears.

A Mills Family Santa shot

High fives were defintely our speed this year from the Big Man..

And another...

Best one yet...

Gobble, Gobble

We had a great Thanksgiving and hope you did too. All of the Florida Martins visited us and we had the best time with everyone, especially Cousin Charlie. It was a cold start but turned out to be a beautiful weekend. Uncle Brian cooked up a delicious feast. We ventured out in the wagon to dinosaur park, played in the backyard all bundled up, Tommy watched his first bit of a movie, Cars, which we know is one of Charlie's favorites. Lucky for us, Aunt Beth drove from Glenwood Springs to join the turkey day festivities as well.

After a fun turkey day, we visited the Denver Aquarium with as you can imagine many other visitors looking for something fun to do after eating too much turkey. Danny wasn't too interested and slept most of the journey and Tommy was a little scared of the noise and dark (Mom was scared of the crowds). But, Tommy soon became a big fan of the fish and turtles.

Thanks for coming to visit; we loved having all of you.

We left it up to Brian & Lexi to document this fun weekend with their fancy camera so please visit their blog for some great shots. As you will see Tommy and Charlie were quite the pals and had lots of fun together - pretty cute! Uncle Brian and Dad were silly as they prepared to fry the turkey in the backyard with their protective gear. A few shots below but here is the link to Charlie's page so be sure to check it out...
http://web.mac.com/lexinbrian/Charlie/My_Albums/Pages/DenverThanksgiving.html

Cuddling with my cute giraffe Brian, Lexi & Charlie brought me :)
Cheese

Gobble, gobble...not so sure about this turkey on my head

The very prepared chef

Lovin' my overalls

Snuggled up with Aunt Lexi

Quite serious

Peaceful place