Christmasy activities

Visit with Santa

While mommy was away, the boys went to see Santa at his favorite pre-Christmas stop; Cheshire Medical Center. A little trivia: Santa is native to New England. He carries that unmistakable accent as evidenced by him addressing our youngest son "Coopa" and asking him what he wants for Christmas: a dinosaur. Jackson asked for a marble maze.

I think the Santa is pretty convincing. Cooper, however, was not impressed and wouldn't look at him the entire time.

They also made ornaments and had their faces painted by this lady.

**For more pictures of the boys' visit with Santa; click here

Holiday "Baking"

Does buying sugar cookie mix at Target and making your own "grandma Ruby" frosting count as baking? I don't bake my cookies from scratch, but we still had a great time decorating our Christmas cookies this year!

Here is Cooper getting his hands dirty (literally) rolling out some cookie dough!

Coop opening up a potential mess!!

Jackson putting the finishing touches (M&Ms) on his candy cane!


Gingerbread house

Here are the proud designers. It really is all I can do to get Jackson to smile anymore for a picture!

Cooper was enthralled with an electronic ornament that our friends had on their tree. He watched it for about 10 minutes.

For more pictures of the boys baking and decorating the house; click here

Christmas Tree 2008

The day has arrived for the Endacott family to seek out the lucky tree that will sacrifice its life for the sake of our holiday decoration. Little did the trees at Wright's Christmas Tree Farm know that one of them was going to be the jackpot winner that would grace our living room for the next month or so.

Jackson was ready to go and it was pretty cold so we were bundled up.



Cooper was very excited to go pick out a "Mih-Mus" tree, and he pointed out at least 50 of them all by himself while running around and tripping over old stumps.



In true Endacott fashion we looked at every single tree in the field before finally deciding on this specimen of yule tide cheer. Here we pose and the boys indicate that it was truly the tree for us.



And so it dies. In what is becoming a tradition, Haley takes a picture of my butt while I cut down the tree. Not that I don't see why she does it. I mean... look at that chunk of manliness. Enough said. Cooper supervises the cut job.



With our prize felled, the boys helped to haul it off to the car. Jackson actually carried the top of the tree the whole way. He's tough. Cooper, reprising his management role, mostly avoided being stepped on.



Once in the stand the application of our old school ceramic lights begins. Cooper helps to ensure that the tree remains upright while Daddy puts on the "10,000 imported Italian twinkle lights".



Jackson jumps in to put on the ornaments. Not surprisingly, about 75% of the ornaments are on the bottom 50% of the tree.



Mommy gets into the act. At this point the tree was almost done which was good because it was getting difficult to keep Cooper from taking all of the ornaments apart. Jackson decided that he needed to know the story behind all of our ornaments. Where we got them, whose ornament it was, what it was constructed of, the name of the Chinese dude that glued it together, its ecological footprint and biodegradability, basically all the standard stuff.



The tree is almost done. Daddy is gone. Football is on.



Merry X-Mas!