Eli is 5!

I can not believe that the baby of the family is turning 5! I hate this growing up thing...especially since ours is happening all at once. But, hey, Eli might be the sweetest, most kind hearted child you'll ever meet, so how could I ever ask for more? 

Happiest of birthdays, to our darling little boy!

Good-bye, Santa

We did it. We told the boys that Santa Claus is not real. Before you flip your lid and start thinking about what a monster I am, just take a second to consider the fact that we live with our kids and we know them better than anybody else and we feel that we did what was best for our children.

Ian has NEVER found the concept of Santa to be entertaining. You can SEE distress on his face every time he talks about it. He started questioning Santa and commenting on how none of it makes sense when he was four. We neither confirmed nor denied his suspicions. This year he flat out asked me, "Is Santa real or not?" One of Ian's greatest qualities is his unwavering honesty, and Cole and I praise him for his honesty all the time. Honesty can be a hard pill to swallow, and Ian will. not. lie. It's so very admirable. Given the fact that the thought of Santa never brought joy, only stress, to Ian's life and that honesty is one of the very most important character qualities we want to develop in our boys, we had to let Santa go and tell the truth.

We told the boys about Saint Nicholas and how Santa was inspired by Saint Nicholas and the discussion just evolved from there. Eli started acting silly and tried to ignore the conversation. That's Eli's natural reaction to anything that makes him uncomfortable, and I know his little heart was breaking. Ian was quiet for the longest time and then asked, "Why did you tell me this?!" I was flabbergasted and quickly retorted, "You asked me!" He said, "No, I didn't!" And then this whole argument ensued. He DID ask me! I did not make that up. I'm pretty sure that Ian was upset because while he knew in his head that Santa didn't make sense and wasn't real, his sweet little six-year-old heart wanted it to be true.

We decided to tell both boys at once because we didn't want Ian to have to keep a secret like this, and we also wanted to let Eli down easy...if that makes sense. It was a sad day for me because I remember believing in Santa and the magic of Christmas. It was so much fun. But that was not the case for Ian, and unfortunately Eli was caught in the middle. I think we'll still wait until Christmas morning to lay out the gifts, so there will still be excitement, and we made it very clear that this MUST remain a secret from other children we know that still believe and we came up with a vague response to give when people ask questions like, "Is Santa going to come to your house?" I think we covered everything, but who knows.

When it was all said and done Eli whispered in my ear, "Since there's no Santa, I want to tell you that I want the biggest train set from Brio, okay?"

Lego Land...under the table

Ian was playing Legos the other night and wanted a picture of himself with his hard work. He kept saying, "Once I get this ALLLL set up, I want you to take my picture with it." I'm still not entirely sure what this scene was, but he was so darn proud of it. He looks so old in this picture. :(

Mass Update

My, my, my...it's been a LONG time since I updated the blog!!! So, in true Danielle fashion, this update will be a catch-all of what's been happening since August. The other day Cole and I were talking about how the blog has been terribly neglected and how that stinks because this IS our family journal. I commented that the blogging (not to mention a perfectly tidy house with drawers FULL of clean laundry) fell off the radar when I started working (part-time) again. Cole said, "Well, you could quit your job. It's up to you." Cole knows I won't quit, but I think a little bitty part of him sort of misses the life we had when I was at home an additional 20 hours a week. It was definitely more organized around here. {Sarah, if you are reading this don't worry. I'm NOT quitting!!!} I'm just going to have to make an appointment with Blogger once a week to do updates regularly. For now...here's what's going on in the life of the Andersons.

This guy turned 6! Yep. That happened. And within the last week he has gotten his first wiggly tooth...and then a second...and what might be a third! I asked him what we would do when he lost all these teeth and he said, "I think I'll have to eat baby food."

We ate supper at Olive Garden for Ian's birthday. He can't get enough of those buttery breadsticks.

This dude continues to live life in costume. Why wear clothes when you can wear a costume, right? And his character development and improv skills are unreal. He comes up with COMPLEX character back stories on the spot and NEVER breaks character. When he gets into a new character at home he always asks, "Mrs. Anderson, where's your bathroom?" He is so. much. fun.

Big Bro got glasses! He has done so well with them. He clearly needed them because they are ALWAYS on his face. You never need to remind him. Over Thanksgiving the kids were playing in the basement and my sister announced that kids with glasses MUST take them off before playing rough. Ian said, "Uh, Aunt Jess, I can't take mine off or I can't see right." I think he opted out of playing rough.

Railroad Days 2014. We showed up at 9:00 a.m. and stayed until 5:30 p.m. We even weathered a pretty heavy downpour. These boys and their trains.

The cold weather is here. Vests, fleece, gloves, hats, boots, parkas, scarves...they all make me realize how much I hate winter in the Midwest. It's miserable...and it's not even cold yet!!!

Matching be damned...this one wears what he "feels" in his heart. And yes, that is sometimes two different boots to school. Whatever. His feet were warm and dry.

We carved gourds this year instead of pumpkins. Ian's held up REALLY well...not sure where his specs are in this picture. Hmmmm.... Eli's, however, dehydrated pretty quickly and looked totally bizarre. Eli got pretty upset about "Pumpky's" demise and started acting really oddly. After days of being super weird about the pumpkin he yelled out, "I don't like Pumpky anymore! He looks like some weird gorilla!!!" This was true. The eyes were bulging out and it was pretty freaky looking. I, too, was relieved when consent was given to lay Pumpky to rest in the compost.

There has been a great deal of scrap lumber ramp construction going on. These boys are quite the ramp builders and can stay occupied for HOURS building and rebuilding their tracks.

Sweetest boys a mom could ask for!

We had a front row seat for some serious road repaving that I didn't think was EVER going to end. It finally did, but good lord...I hope it doesn't happen again for a very long time. I was having fantasies of driving the Nissan at full speed right through the road barrier blocking our intersection. I'm glad that never ended up happening.

No story here. I just think Ian is ADORABLE in this picture, and it brings the total number of pictures of me with at least one of the boys up to about 12 which is fine by me considering how much I loathe having my picture taken. (Ian, when I'm old and gray, please reference this picture to remember that your mom was once young.)

Let's talk about this guy for a minute! Ran his first marathon on November 1st in Indianapolis. It was FREEZING...quite literally. Temperature at the start time was 27. That's one of his running partners, Jenn. We couldn't find his other partner, Ben, that morning for a group picture, but Ben's wife has some mad photoshop skills so maybe we can get a group picture someday.

His official chip time was 3:44:01. He was awesome! I'm super proud of him, Jenn, and Ben. They were all amazing.