Lathrops in LegoLand!

Welcome to Legoland! It was a gloomy day, but so much fun. The boys had a blast. Here we all are, out in front:Ben wanted a picture next to the "B", of course -

Here's all the fun lego stuff we saw:

R2D2Thomas the Tank Engine

Bob the builder

How big is Ryan? So big!

Ryan loved MiniLand

The rides were great too - Raylene and Nathan, rolling along - Mommy and BenGrammy and PapawWhee!

Ryan's many happy faces

Ben, mugging for the camera

And Nathan, with the best pose of the day:

It's the Lathrops!

Karate graduation December 08

Karate graduation December 2008 - the pictures aren't all great, but you get the idea :-)

Of course, the first pic is the best of the bunch -

You can see Ben in the background of these -

and of course, we had to get one of Ryan running around!

Christmas Day

Christmas Morning!
With gifts under the tree......and loot in the stockings as well!Raylene and Papaw, their excitment just overwhelming us all - And so begins the frenzy...Raylene is pointing out to me that Lucy got hold of one of Ryan's stocking stuffers. Buh-bye Luke Skywalker, it was nice knowin' you!Raylene, Grammy & Papaw opening stockings:Manuel and Pancho doing the same...Hey look, I made it into a picture!Ben and Nathan got Pokemon cards from Grammy and Papaw, and were very excited by that!
Ryan's favorite, from NeeNee - Ryan's next favorite - his very own helmet!Complete with its own steering wheel, for virtual racing through the house - Yeah, I'm cute, so what?Cuddling on the couch following a frenzied morning of opening presents:Note the dead expression on Stephen's face... and check out Raylene's dubious expression over to the side. I call this picture "Christmas, hurrah?"

Christmas morning was fun! Thanks to everyone!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve, with captions!Dinner, after Chrismas Eve mass

Ben and Lucy

yay! A clean kitchen! For now....

It's our family tradition to make and decorate Christmas cookies for us and Santa on Christmas Eve - here are a bunch of pics of the festivities:

Even Ryan got into the act...And now, the results!Manuel and his Christmas camel

And then, of course Raylene had to plus it up a bit:Somehow, Ben didn't get hit with the icing...

and Ryan missed it all because he was playing on the deck with Tio Pancho.

Our second big Christmas Eve tradition is to open one gift before going to bed. This year, the kids each got a gift for eachother and they decided to open those.

Ben got Nathan a Dalmation webkin:

And Nathan got Ben a Pokemon set of figurines

Ryan opened his gift from his teachers at school, but didn't get beyond the foam stickers on the outside. Mostly he just pulled those off and put them on his face.

Merry Christmas Eve!