Snow Day

On New Years' Eve, we had a decent amount of snow on the ground and reasonably clear weather, so I stayed home from work and we got out to play. Clayton has been wanting to play in the snow but most days have been too cold or there hasn't been snow on the ground. He loved just walking around in the backyard, but also did snow angels (completely unprompted--I think he must have seen it on one of his TV shows).We also built a little sledding hill with launch ramp on the small slope from the side of our house down to the backyard, and Clayton thought it was great a few times. But he got bored of it quickly. So we put Snoop on the sled.
Clayton was all decked out in his winter gear. It is hard to describe how many layers he was wearing. Think of the little brother in "A Christmas Story" for a rough approximation.
And Clayton relaxing at the top of the stairs in his snow bibs. Happy New Year, friends.

Christmas morning

Overall, Clayton was apparently good enough this year to merit a visit from Santa Claus. Santa went with a bit of a sports theme this year, since Clayton seems to be interested in basketball and soccer in particular. He got an ESPN combination sports game for the basement, including a basketball hoop with ball return (see below--and yes, the shot went in). He also got a pop-up soccer goal that is currently in the basement but should also be fun in the backyard in the warm weather. Plus other miscellaneous stuff like a new sled and some race cars. Pretty rad.
Also a big hit was this simple toy, a building which houses Big Bird and Elmo.
And on Christmas Eve, pursuant to family tradition, he got a new set of Christmas pajamas, which he proudly modeled by the tree.

December Disney Trip

We are a little delinquent in getting this updated. The second week of December, we took a trip to Southern California to go to Disneyland and (theoretically) escape to good weather. As it turned out, it was unusually cold and rainy for Anaheim, even for December. We still made it to Disneyland, but we had to deal with some rain and some cold weather. Tina's mom, sister, and niece and nephew also made the trip down.
Clayton has always been a fan of carousels, and this was no exception.
We stopped in Toontown to take a picture.
It was a good time to visit Disneyland because they had all of the Christmas decorations and activities going. Clayton really liked the Christmas parade, which was a little surprising because Tina and I cannot stand parades. But as parades go, this one wasn't really too bad.