The hard hat

The Squirt team has a traveling hard hat given out to a player that has had a good game. In the most recent game Mathias strolled out of the locker room wearing the plastic crown. The team was soundly defeated 7-1 but Mathias scored the lone goal and had several additional scoring chances.  

Merry Christmas

We're enjoying the visit from Aunt Anna and honorary Uncle Per over Christmas.  They didn't land in any of these photos. By Anna was operating the camera. 

The boys were treated well by Santa. So they must have had a good year. Amazingly, while already having a mountain they were both very excited to get Lego.  That seems to be permanently popular. 

The afternoon of Christmas Day was spent skating at the outdoor skating 'loop' in Mae Grove.  While Johan won't commit yo playing hockey, he does really enjoy ice skating.  

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth

Or at least one...

On Christmas Eve Johan lost a front tooth with little advanced notice. Coincidentally, both Ericka and I had on separate occasions asked him if he had any loose teeth THE DAY BEFORE. The answer then was NO. But in roughhousing with Mathias... out it came, setting up a potential midnight collision between Santa Clause and the tooth fairy. Maybe they know each other. 

Squirt C

After weeks of practices, the Squirt team was divided into an A team, two Bs, and a C. Mathias, as a first year squirt with one year of hockey under his belt landed on the C team. 

Mathias is number 7 in the photos. The team positions are quite varied. But he gravitates towards defense. 

It's a terrific bunch of relatively new skaters. After a couple of big losses in practice games they started on the regular season games, which were much closer. After a couple of nail biters they are currently at two wins and a loss. 

The tree

The tree is chopped down and installed in our living room. A few observations:

• The trees look smaller outside than they do in your house
• Cutting down your tree before the snow and cold weather rolls in is really the way to go
• Having a helper who wants to get down on the ground and cut the tree is recommended
• Standing on a step ladder to put up ornaments is more fun than standing on the floor. Therefore, our tree has a band of ornaments in the middle while the top and bottom are pretty bare…
• All the cool kids decorate the tree in their underwear.  I recall Johan did that last year as well
• Next year we're going for a smaller tree