Guess Who Went to the Big Boys School?

                                 Poppa, his happy guitar and pick, and Ryan too!

Poppa got to go play music for the bigs classes last Friday afternoon and it was GREAT!!! The kids and teachers had a blast.  They all loved having something different and fun to do after a few  long rainy days in a row.  I am thankful beyond words for the investments both of my parents have made in our kids and their futures.

Christmas Dinner

The NC Hoppers made it down in time for dinner at my house Christmas evening.  It's always so fun to have family dinners with my parents and Pamie, Dale Dale, and Allie and having my brother and his family here was even better.  

This is what we call Gigi in the glory hole. She loves to be surrounded by and snuggling with her grand babies.   Anna went into super teacher mode to get these 5 wild children to cooperate with us taking a cousins picture.  It was amazing when she told them to sit down for a smiling contest and they all did!!    

The men ate and sat around talking, Allie played and snuggled them, Andrew wrestled (he may have won, but they definitely gave him a challenge!), HJ dressed up, and Tyler loved having a princess to take care of and defend.  

We even had a blue eyed boy band playing for us

Uncle Dale got in on the snuggle and DS time and Gigi did some reading .  

I hope one day my grown kids will remember dinners like this with the same excitement and smiles  I remember Christmas at my Granny's house.  

Witenen NcLean

Ryan isn't much of a movie watcher and has never actually sat down and watched all of any of the Cars movies, but Witenen NcLean is clearly his favorite character followed closely by Tow Mater.  I'm not sure what it is he loves so much about ole NcLean but he does and always has so we just go with it.  Undies, cups, tshirts, toys... he has it all.  So when we found these guys hanging around at Hollywood Studios we all knew it was worth standing in line for (we generally like to see and wave at the characters but I don't think we have ever actually stood in a line to see one).  Luckily it was late and the line was short, but I would have gladly waited much longer for the excitement on Ryan's face when he first got up close and personal with these two.  Even looking at this picture brings a huge smile to his face! 

Our Disney days are now done for a while.  We went down for one last visit before our passes expired last month.  It was a great get away for the Collins Five and great quality family time.  We hit the highlights at Magic Kingdom (including our favorite Electric Light Parade), all of the countries in Epcot as well as Soarin, and enjoyed Hollywood Studios way more than I expected we would.   Our Disney tickets were well used this year and maybe in a few years we will do the parks again! 

We Heart Gigi

Gigi had a list of prints she needed so we printed a few of these along with the rest and put them in with her birthday gift 

Two Wheelin

I'm not sure whether Mike or the bigs was more proud when he spent a morning working with them and got them bike riding on two wheels.  

Rotten?

I've worked in the same store with many of the same customers since I came back to work after maternity leave 6 years ago.  I worked through my pregnancy with Ryan so many of my customers have literally known about Ryan since before he was born.   I shop there, often with the kids,  and Mike brings them in regularly to visit me and shop while I'm working.  Most of our regular customers know the boys or at least know about them so they ask about them.  I love it but I must hear "How are the boys?" a million times each shift.  If I have time and a recent antic I will gladly share it but if we are busy or I just don't have any appropriate funnies on the tip of my tongue my typical response is "they are rotten." That terminology apparently does not translate well for non-native English speakers though.  An Indian lady stopped me in the store recently and said "I hear people say how are your boys and you always say they stink hahahaha" She was laughing so hard.  I didn't bother to correct her because ...well...they are boys and they do kinda stink.  But when I say they are rotten this is much more what I mean:

It's become a Christmas Eve morning tradition that Gigi and Poppa have breakfast and gifts at her house for the Collins 5.  Mike had to work this year so we had to carry on (in our pjs) without him 

We posed for pictures, ate breakfast, and opened more presents than any of us knew what to do with 

This is the kind of rotten I'm talking about.,,SPOILED rotten.  Huge stacks of presents and huge piles of paper and  huge smiles on every face in the room

Even the animals got spoiled a little bit for Christmas

We had our annual Christmas Eve dinner at my house and Christmas morning the boys were spoiled rotten all over again.  This time by Santa Claus...Santa must have been on pinterest this year because he made a wrapping paper curtain outside of the boys bedroom door, which was a huge hit!!! 

Greatest Show on Earth

We decided to go to the circus at the last minute and Pamie, Dale, Allie, and Poppa all had other plans

We missed our usual circus buddies a lot

But that didn't stop us from enjoying the best seats ever , 

Watching the elephants paint during the preshow, eating popcorn, buying souvenirs, and having a great time together!