Christmas Tree Part II

When I woke up this morning and walked into our living room this is what I saw...

 He was just sitting there with his super-hero cape on, gazing at the tree.  So darn sweet...

Then, later in the day we made cupcakes.  I turned by back for one thousandth of a milli-second and this is what I saw when I turned around...

 Then, just before dinner, this is what we found...notice the newly trimmed hair...YAY!!

He was just laying there, still and with his eyes closed.  A rarity indeed-I hated to interrupt the moment with my flash.

Christmas Tree...Can We Keep You For Tomorrow??

Mitchell continues to use "for" in place of "with" as his main preposition...and who am I to stop him at this point???  It's all too cute and I know we will lose it soon, so I'm letting it go.  Maybe I should be the responsible mama and correct him, but I just can't.  I'm losing all grips on baby-isms and this is one of the last ones I feel we have with him-so I'll suck it up and claim responsibility if he has a problem in school.  Our Christmas tree was propped up last night-we started decking the halls the day after Thanksgiving due to my excitement, but I had NO IDEA how excited Mitchell would become when it actually came to decorating the tree.  Thank God for 4-year-olds!

The last pic is evidence of the ornamental-hangings of Mitchell...heavy on the bottom- and to be shifted by me in about 5 minutes since he's in bed.  But he was so excited about the tree he kept saying "I love our Christmas tree...can I hug it?  I love you mom and dad".  Over and over...repeatedly..."I love our Christmas tree, can we keep it for tomorrow?"

He must have told us a hundred times that he loved us and that he loved that tree...ahhhh, the bliss of seeing Christmas through the eyes of a kid!
We are so blessed!
*I can't wait to see what he's like tomorrow morning!!

Rider Park

Now that Mitchell is no longer going to daycare our days are quite different and we're still trying to figure out a routine.  I've started a list of activities to try and keep us busy.  But the last two weeks I've tried to take advantage of the good weather as much as possible since I know they are numbered.  Today we explored Rider Park a bit, taking a leisurely hike out to one of the several vistas within the park.  It was perfect.  I'm tellin ya what, you get this little boy in the woods and it's darn hard to get him out.  Today Reese's Peanut Butter Cups did the trick...thank you dear God, once again, for peanut butter.  Here's what we saw...

The walk to the hiking trail...or rather, run, in Mitchell's case.  As you can probably guess he did a face plant within the next hundred yards or so of this picture.

Approaching the vista...

 the view from the vista, of Route 87 and the Sportsmens Shooting Club...

I'm so happy to be back in PA...it's views like this one that I just treasure...

KA-POW!

a lovely little afternoon hike with my bestest little buddy.

Camp with the Littles

Reese participates in Big Brothers/Little Brothers.  His friend Matt does it also, and they were able to pair two brothers (littles) up with Matt & Reese (bigs), knowing they were friends.  So because of that we often do things with both littles, rather than just Reese's alone.  I consider them my littles too, and Mitchell considers them his bigs...so it all just works out!
One of the things we try to do with them is to take them up to camp with us.  They seem to love it and I think it's a great escape for them.  I'll call them C and D.  C is Reese's little and D is Matt's little.  My heartstrings tug particularly for D, who has the weight of the world on his shoulders.  C is still too young to understand all that is wrong around him (C is 8 and D is 11).  I'm glad we're able to provide them with an escape every weekend or so...I only wish there were more I could do for them.

Here are some of the shenanigans from this weekend...

 uh-oh...tree down!

 success! 

the three amigos...

 C on the left, D on the right (below)

 C on the tree...

 C with his walking stick...

Daddy thought better, he didn't try to cross...

 mr. happy...