Black Friday

This year I took the day after Thanksgiving off, and we went down to Crown Center to watch Santa Claus come to town in his "sleigh".  We've been down here with the kids to see him every year, but we hadn't watch him arrive since Noah was two.  

We killed a little time before he arrived, then stood outside with the rest of the crowd waiting for him to arrive.  We were well positioned - right in front of where his carriage would stop.  Finally he came, and it was cute to see Noah nervously waving his hand at him.  We followed him in, then as everyone else went to stand in line to have pictures taken, we walked over to Union Station instead.  There will be plenty of time to go during the week for our annual pictures with Santa, when the lines are shorter and the kids can play longer at Crayola Land.

At Union Station, we let the boys have a train ride that turned out to be pretty lame for $5 each - three turns on a circle track at a speed that Elliot could have crawled a couple years ago.  But they enjoyed it, and afterwards we went to Science City for a while.  After a busy, fun-filled morning, we had lunch at Harvey's in Union Station.  A little more upscale than Fritz's, where your meal is delivered by a train, but not nearly as crazy either. 

Noah was fascinated by the Lego Nutcracker.

Counting down the minutes 'til Christmas.

Looking for Santa Claus

Cute family.  I don't think we have a single picture of all of them staring at the camera at once.

Watching Santa arrive.

The big guy driving could give Santa a run for his money. 

The perfect spot to watch Santa disembark.

It's the real Santa!

I don't think he was as interested in the trains running around this gingerbread village, as he was in the candy on display.

Taking the skywalk to Union Station.

View of downtown KC from the skywalk.

Union Station

They were actually more excited about this train ride than the picture indicates, but it seemed pretty lame to me.

Playing music at Science City

Playing with the water table.  This thing fascinates them. 

Elliot got wet even though we kept pulling up his sleeves

Thanksgiving 2011

It was not our year to host Thanksgiving, which suited me fine with all we had going on this year.  Instead, we went to Mandy's aunt and uncle's house.  The day turned out to be a perfect day, weather-wise, and we got to enjoy a lot of outdoor time with the boys. I took advantage of the weather too, and even rode my motorcycle to dinner.  

Noah and Elliot love running around their big back yard, playing around the trees and creek and just being boys.  They cleaned up all the hedge apples lying on the ground by throwing them in the creek.  Any excuse to throw something in and watch it splash - the bigger, the better.  It was certainly a better endeavor than throwing decorative rocks onto the net that covered their fish pond/waterfall, which I found Elliot doing when I first walked outside.  I fished them all off the net with the pool strainer, and pointed him towards the creek.  I find myself using "Because you just can't" as an answer more often, as Elliot is asking me, "Why can't I?" more often. 

This year the roles were reversed as Noah ate a good, balanced meal, and Elliot ate virtually nothing but the pumpkin cookies he discovered on the counter.  As always, there was food aplenty, and lots of desserts.  All that was missing this year was a screening of "Christmas Vacation."

Turkey Bowl

One of the constants when we get together with the Johnson side of the family is that sooner or later, a football will be produced, some smack will be talked and eventually a game will be played.  Doesn't matter if it's in the scorching Texas sun, so hot that even the fire ants don't come out, or in two feet of snow, like last New Year's Eve - we play. 

The rules are a little bit like Calvinball, constantly changing on the fly to benefit whoever has just been disadvantaged for whatever reason.   It's a physical game, even when my brother Todd and I, who is usually on my team, claim to be old, fat and out of shape and no longer capable of taking hits to our knees, or falls to the hard ground.

I have very fond memories of pickup football games as a kid, and there were many fall and winter days, especially on the holidays, when my brother and me would square off, just the two of us, and have a game of full-contact football until we were ready to collapse. We usually stopped after someone got hurt.  We were just like these kids, always wanting to play and looking for someone to play with.


Todd wasn't around for this game, but like all get togethers with these boys, you can't play too much football, and they eventually talked us into a round two that lasted into the dark cold (which I'm going to claim we won).  It was a very cold day, and the ground, which we hit many times, was frozen.   Since Todd couldn't be there, Noah got his first taste of family football, although he liked tackling people more than he liked running with the ball.  Asa was on my team as well, and we played against Eli and Braden.  As is typical, they had no shame in exploiting a little 4-year old if it meant putting points on the board.

Two of our cheerleaders - Elliot and Finn.  Poor Finn - Elliot didn't seem to be in the sharing mood with his mittens.  E so much wanted to play too.

Eli takes the snap.

One of the rare times I get schooled...

Elliot cheering us on

Asa and Noah discussing plans? Noah rode his bike to the game, but I thought it would be a good idea to make it a football helmet.

Leading Noah back to the line of scrimmage

Discussing our plans in the huddle

Tyring to coax Noah to go after the QB (Eli)

Eli doing a flip after a touchdown

Father and son - Noah is definitely built for football.  I hope he will play it someday.

Noah was having a ball

Discussing our offensive strategy with Noah

Cousin Braden trying to intimidate the 4-year old.

Didn't work

Fumble!

Asa completing a pass

Noah encouraging E to get off the playing field.

Look at that intensity.  Noah could have scored, but Eli had to tackle him.

Elliot enjoying the game - he belly laughed a few times, thinking it was funny when we threw the ball and everyone went running after it.

I especially like how Noah tackles Eli, who's nowhere near the ball.

Elliot looks like he's getting ready to block/tackle Noah. After the play.  Sounds like one of the Johnson kids.