Christmas 2023

Christmas involved a lot of our "normal" things, including the countdown paper stockings and mittens with an activity for each day leading up to Christmas.  Things like opening a new advent calendar (Mario themed this year) going to Regal and watching The Grinch, watching Christmas movies, getting a new Christmas book ("The Christmas Pig"), drinking hot chocolate, reading our Christmas books, driving around and looking at Christmas lights, Advent service at church, making cookies, decorating a gingerbread house, seeing "Elf" the musical, seeing the Roanoke Symphony holiday pops concert, seeing the Blacksburg Master Chorale, ice skating, watching Elf with the Empsons, looking at the trees at the Inn at VT, opening new ornaments (Ninja Turtles for Corban and Legolas for Gabriel), and the DCA Christmas program.  We bought tickets to those three shows months before and maybe we overdid it, but it was fun.

 Decorating their individual trees with their favorite ornaments:

Family tree decorating.  Everyone needs their Christmas hat while participating:

Roanoke Christmas Tree

New PJs from Gammer!

Church Advent service.  The little boy standing to Gabriel's right side is one of the kids from nursery who loves Gabriel.  He sat with our family for most of the Advent service.  I did nursery recently and Gabriel couldn't be there and he was not happy because I am not nearly as entertaining as Gabriel (as a side note to that his mom told me that anytime he sees a Rubik's cube or a plaid button down shirt he mentions Gabriel).

Bluey!

Christiansburg Parade

We went down to Georgia for the week between Christmas and New Years.  For once it wasn't a trip that felt rushed.  It sure was nice to not have to worry about working on holidays and missing family activities this year.  Having weekends, evenings, and the whole week of Christmas free was amazing. We had time to see friends and do some things that we don't always have time to do.

Hiking up Stone Mountain with the Bolings:

We spent Christmas Eve at Grandma Cheryl's house and had Waffle House on Christmas Day:

Lots of time playing with cousins:

Getting all cleaned up

Aunt Tracy treated the boys to a day at Andretti's, a boy's dream.  Arcade, laser tag, and racing cars.

Walk with Gammer:

 

Gabriel's 11th Birthday

Gabriel's had a pretty great time celebrating his birthday, except when he woke up on the actual day (Friday after Thanksgiving) and had a stomach virus.  He got to make a trip to urgent care to get some zofran.  The day itself was a little miserable, but we did other fun things surrounding it.  Here are some pictures from the fall and from his birthday celebrations.

Gabriel really likes to go on "dates".  Corban had a communicants class several Saturdays in the fall and we enjoyed doing things together, his favorites being getting breakfast at Panera (bacon, egg, and cheese on an everything bagel for him), playing games, going to GameStop, and eating Mexican food.  One week we went bowling:

No one else wanted to see the Halloween DAK lights, so we packed some
snacks and blankets and watched them out the back of the van together.

Playing at the school Bingo fundraiser.  He decided
his card should have his friend Aiden's name on it.

I can't ever remember what he used to draw this on his face,
but this is how we found him after home group one evening.

School project.  He made a museum display for the Ark of the Covenant.  He made
the pieces out of clay and then painted them.  His attention to detail impressed me.

After months of eye therapy and exercises at home, Gabriel completed his intensive therapy.  He had repeat testing when the therapy stopped and then again 3 months later and the score just kept going up.  I'm so thankful that this was available to him to heal his brain/eye connection after his accident.

Gabriel loves doing nursery with me once a month during Sunday School.  He's so good about getting on the level of the kids and they LOVE him.

Went to a bowling night with his friend Aela's church group. 
He was so proud to come in first place!

Oh just messing with my phone.

 Gabriel is into so many things now that it's hard to list them all.  He does violin and scouts during the week.  He loves games, especially cooperative ones or complicated ones.  He enjoys his Lord of the Rings card game the best, where he can play alone if he'd like and  have all kinds of battle scenarios to figure out.  He likes playing Minecraft and some Wii games from time to time (we like to play Mario Kart together).  He has written several short stories this year that have been very creative and funny.  Legos are still the number one thing that he plays with besides games.  He still gets into Harry Potter and The Wingfeather Saga.  Corban has gotten him (and Dad) into playing Pokemon). He likes being in 6th grade math this year because, according to him, it's much calmer and easier to focus.  He remains witty, creative, fierce for justice, a faithful friend, a leader, and an includer of those on the fringes.

So, his actual birthday things.  We did something with all the boys from school last year, so  we told him we'd do something with just a couple friends this year.  He wanted to take Corban and his friends from church, Caleb and Orin, to the video game museum in Roanoke (they had a cousin in town who came too).  They ate hot dogs at "The Roanoke Weiner Stand" (which they love) and then played games for several hours.  They had so much fun.  There were so many gaming systems, arcade games, basketball hoops, skee-ball, air hockey, etc.

On Thanksgiving we "officially" celebrated with family.  Aunt Tiffany of course made the most amazing cupcakes with a Harry Potter theme.

Once Gabriel was over his stomach thing I took him out for a celebration with Mexican (where we both ate cheese enchiladas, like usual).  The birthday treat there was crispy dough with cinnamon and chocolate.  He's not a huge cinnamon fan, but he's still a fan of sugar and whipped cream :)