Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Honky Tonk Christmas

Christmas Day is here and while I was thoroughly surprised by Jenn's gifts to me, I was not surprised by the kids. Overall they were good, just the usual overload of energy and emotions. They're napping now, Grandpa Dave, Grandma Laura & Auntie Haley have left, and Jenn and I are recharging. I'll share some photos later when I get the posted, there's some catching up to do, but for now...

Monday, December 23, 2013

Gates Christmas Soul

… and I'm still not through…

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Winter Birthday Cake

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We're in Christmas mode here, but that didn't stop Jenn from making a great birthday cake for a friend.

Lydia Strums the Guitar

Stay tuned...

Friday, December 20, 2013

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Christmas Build-up

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Jenn has been busy this early December with shuffling the kids around to school, to Grandma's, getting the shopping done, keeping the house, and designing and baking cakes.  A next step toward going pro, Jenn made a cake for a party thrown by one of my Zoetis reps.  A birthday cake for a good friend's daughter is next on the agenda.


Lincoln can't get enough of playing in the snow.  Yesterday's snowfall was good for making snowballs, so we made his first snowman.  The kids were quite excited.

Snowman

Later in the evening, Lincoln decided he didn't want to leave the hat on the snowman all night long... you know, the wind might blow it off... so I challenged him to run outside in his bare feet to get it.


Oodles is back at our house this December, reporting on the kids to Santa.  I can't say it's made any improvement in their behavior, but they get excited to look for Oodles each day, to see what he's up to.  It's hard to one-up myself each time, so I don't even try.  Some days Oodles is doing something outrageous and funny, and other days he's just sitting somewhere checking stuff out.


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The other night, the kids wanted to sing to Oodles.  (He'd been wrapped up in toilet paper by some snowmen!)


We've been getting a steady dose of The Grinch, as well as some Scholastic Christmas books Jenn got at the end of last season.  I don't recall Lincoln anticipating Christmas as much when he was three, but since he's really into it, the little ones are also getting excited a bit.  I'm not sure that they remember about getting a bunch of presents, but they'll soon be refreshed.

One thing I'm excited about this Christmas season is that I got Jenn's presents wrapped before she found them hidden somewhere.

One more week until the Christmas Extravaganza really begins!

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Thanksgiving & Snow

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With the recent snow blast and Thanksgiving being a bit closer to Christmas this year, the kids have had a crash course on winter recently, and they're loving it.
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Jenn has been the super volunteer in Lincoln's Kindergarten room, most recently getting set up for the Thanksgiving Dinner last week.
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And speaking of Thanksgiving, Lincoln was a part of his school's Thanksgiving concert.
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