Happy Holidays & Hello 2012!

I apologize in advance for the megapost, but we have a lot to cover here since we've been busy since our last post. If you stick with it you'll be rewarded with the money Christmas shots towards the end.

First things first, I think it is worth mentioning that Mary's car is now officially a Sconnie(while still representin' the Beavs of course):

The Volvo is next, and we both need new drivers licenses too. I'm really looking forward to a trip to the DMV!

I had the pleasure of an open afternoon on a recent business trip to Boston and took advantage of the fact that I was only a few miles from where the greatest football team in history plays:

There's not much the Pats can learn from the Packers, but offering fans a proper stadium tour is one of them. This was as close as I got to the field.

This is George, the most senior Pats employee who was celebrating his 76th birthday. He basically gave me a personal tour of the Hall of Fame and was a pretty cool guy, he's seen it all over the years.

He has three of these.

He must have liked me because he let me wear it.

And finally, the Lombardi trophies.

Mary and Owen got our Christmas holiday off to a good start with a gingerbread house and lots of cookies:

The only photo we have of the house before Owen began to strategically eat it.

Doin' Work at the mixer.

Getting a little dirty rolling out some dough.

He is pretty creative when it comes to decorating. I'll give you one guess which one he did.

And finally, enjoying the fruit of his labor.

We were greeted three days before Christmas with a proper snow storm. Wonder boy took full advantage, not to mention our two crazy dogs:

Owen was pretty excited to check out the snow when he woke up.

Turns out tractors work pretty well in the snow.

We don't let these two crazies out very much...for obvious reasons.

On Christmas Eve Owen received an early Christmas present. He absolutely lit up after every sled ride. We started out pretty mild in our back yard.

Then moved up to some of the best sledding grounds in the Sheboygan area...though you wouldn't know it by looking at it we live across the street from them.

We got a little tired of lugging him around so we made him do his own dirty work.

A little later we took the monster wagon to the park to let the boys burn off some energy.

It starts out innocent enough...

...but soon becomes a full contact sport.

Classic action shot of The Har.

Shockingly we had one of the more decorated homes in the village. Next year I'm gonna go Clark Griswold on the hood and really do it right...

And now what you've all been waiting for, our first Wisconsin Christmas:

Mary started Christmas eve off right with a nice ham dinner before church.

You can clearly see where he gets his good looks.

Family presents after church. He opened the first one like a pro and had it fully mastered by the time we were done.

Noisy little tractors (thanks Grandma) but a big hit with the target audience.

Despite what you may have heard, this kid is not one dimensional, he does trains too.

The next guy to see these stockings would be Santa himself.

Getting the cookies ready for Santa. This did not go well. Tears were shed not because a strange man was going to come into our house while we slept but because Owen would need to share his cookies. I later told Owen while he laid in bed that I would talk to Santa and ask him to not eat them. This seemed to make things better and he finally fell asleep.

Quite the spread on Christmas morning.

The sand table would quickly become the star of the show. (It is filled with popcorn kernels to make cleanup a little easier.)

Dinosaurs are another attempt at branching out from tractors, he seemed pretty impressed.

The kid is a natural born organizer, lining everything up. These would all soon end up in the sand table with anything else not bolted down.

We can't seem to give him away, not even with a pretty bow.

I ran into Tom Brady while in Boston, he asked me to make sure Owen got this awesome jersey. (Brian forgot to mention that Owen refuses to wear the jersey and stomps on it when he gets the chance. I guess the Packer fans got to Owen early!)

Another awesome dinner by Mary, prime rib this time.

Owen's new favorite mealtime trick = putting peas down the straw and slurping them up.

What a crazy a year, full of change and great experiences with our little guy. We're looking forward to what 2012 has in store and hope you all have a great one too!

'Tis The Season

Have no fear, Brian the master blogger is here. Mary did a good job filling in for me but I know you all crave family insights from yours truly, so I hope you enjoy this update. Sorry I was away for so long, Syrus showed me how to use a pile of books for a pillow and I have been catching up on my beauty sleep ever since.

While the Wisconsin weather has slowed down we have not. It's been a busy couple weeks. First and foremost, I was able to join Mary and Owen for an art class just before the Turkey Day holiday. Watching Owen express himself is a thing to behold. He is all over the place, I'm afraid he got his attention span from his dad. But he does some really good work, as you can see. I'm proud to have a few of his masterpieces at my office.

One of the perks of my job is hanging out with plumbers. Recently we had a famous blogging plumber come to town for some meetings and I was given the special assignment of giving him a tour of Lambeau Field, which was very cool. The famous blogging plumber turned out to be a father/son team from Seattle and we got along famously, which made spending 5 hours on a Sunday at Lambeau pretty enjoyable, here are a few pics.

We also recently celebrated our first Wisconsin Thanksgiving. It was a little strange not being with our families in Oregon for the first time in our lives but we enjoyed the slow pace of the day. We were able to Skype with both families between pumpkin pies and I certainly appreciated having a few of my favorite things all to myself on the great day of gorging.

During Thanksgiving weekend we took a little trip down to Milwaukee to take Sesame Street's biggest fan to the live music show. Lets just say it was not the reaction we had expected. Owen was a little in shock over seeing them in person and overwhelmed by the show, sound and all of the lights. He loosened up towards the end and seemed to start enjoying himself but strangely watching Elmo, Big Bird and Cookie Monster has not been the same since his first person encounter.

Meeting Santa on the other hand went very well. While doing some shopping yesterday we stopped into the Village toy store and to our surprise Santa was holding it down and posing for pictures. After a few high fives and subsequent "HO, HO, HO"s Owen settled in beside him for a photo op. Owen didn't understand the concept of a candy cane and kept trying to give it back to him. Santa has apparently been very busy at the North Pole because he fell asleep after things settled down at the store, which concerned Owen. All in all, Owen's first encounter with Santa was a smashing success and he speaks of him constantly ever since.

Which brings me to the last story I'll share with you about where Santa will leave presents for Owen on Christmas. Tree selection has been quite a dilemma out here in Wisconsin, what with Mary being the daughter of Oregon's Tree Farmer of the Year (way to go Jim and Phyllis!) and all. She is officially a tree snob in my book. We went to the region famous "Roy's Tree Farm" to take in all they had to offer and came away empty handed. Mary was not impressed by the "Cadillac of Christmas Trees" as they called the Frasier Fir. To my ongoing shock and surprise we ended up at Home Depot and walked out of there with a fake tree... After much thought and consideration however Mary decided today that we needed a second tree, a real tree and we returned to Roy's and walked away with a White Fir that is proudly displayed in our dining room. Needless to say next time you see Mary it may be on an episode of "Christmas Tree Hoarders"...

One last video that is just too entertaining to not pass along, behold Owen "movin' it":

(move it)

That sums up the last few weeks for us. We hope you and your loved ones have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year!