Grandparents Week

While we were away, Grandma Laura came up for a few days to stay with them, and then they went to Grandma Paulette & Grandpa Doug's house for a time.

Before we left, we all attended Henry's Celebration at school. It was a special time that ended with one of his class's committees giving him a "custom made" snow globe.

The Monday of that particular week was Chinese New Year, so Grandma Paulette set up some fun for the kids to celebrate.

The week ended with a trip to the cabin, and all the fun that such a trip includes!

Snow!

We had a big snow last week!
Henry & Lydia have been showing some creativity in the art department. Lydia has been drawing some pretty amazing things for a little 4-year-old, and they're both into building castles with blocks, cars & castles with Legos®, and some big general messes around the house!
And beginning about 10 days ago, Henry has been successfully saying his "r" sound. HenRy. TReat. GRetel. Red. CuRious GeoRge. He's made good progress on this front!

Snow Boots to Bed

Crazy times at the Gates home.

After a big Saturday of moving mulch (Lincoln was a all-star helper!), we went to Handles and Lydia and Henry had cones for the first time with their ice cream.
We've been working with Lydia lately at both staying in her bed and at bed time. She's been kind of getting it… here and there… Last night she was quiet, but she clearly got out of bed at least once.

Christmas Build-up

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.


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.


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!

Thanksgiving & Snow

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.
Jenn has been the super volunteer in Lincoln's Kindergarten room, most recently getting set up for the Thanksgiving Dinner last week.
And speaking of Thanksgiving, Lincoln was a part of his school's Thanksgiving concert.

Henry's Third Birthday

We have another 3-Year-Old in the house! We celebrated Henry's third birthday on Saturday with a little cake & presents with Grandpa Doug, Grandma Paulette & Grandma Gates.
Henry's been having a real good stretch. He's communicating well, he's been super silly, you should hear him count (!), and even when he's being pouty and defiant, he's showing us that he's acting his age.
On Saturday evening Jenn and I went to Fleming's for dinner and had two really, really good meals. (It helped that we had a gift card.) It had been a while since we'd had a date-nite, and we were thankful that the Grandparents were willing to keep the kids for the evening.

Last night the snow started.This morning, the kids woke up and surprisingly didn't bother Jenn or me much, but instead congregated in Lydia's room. Henry went to the potty without my telling him, and Lincoln got some underpants for him. And then I heard Lincoln excitedly say, "We have to go tell Daddy!!!"

The kids ran into our room and screamed, "Snow!!!" and continued to run to different windows and see the snow outside. This is going to be a fun winter, and an especially fun Christmas time.

Flip-Floppin' Weather

Last week we were in the 80's, and then it snowed, and then it was warm again. The first photo was on Saturday, the second on Monday.And last week Jenn made dinner with a nautical theme. Octopus On Seaweed!

Photo Catch-Up

Two posts within a week! What is this, 2012?!!!

I had a bunch of photos stuck on my camera that couldn't go to Picasa because Google decided to do some crazy stuff with merging Picasa & Google+... it's a fiasco, if you ask me. So I found a convenient place to store photos for the time being, and here's to catching up.One other thing I forgot to mention: Jenn has been on a fitness and running craze. She's been racking up a bunch of miles per week, and her goal is to run in the Towpath 1/2 Marathon this coming October 13. It's darn impressive to hear her pounding the treadmill in the basement for nearly an hour at a fast pace for her short runs. Right now she's on the Towpath doing her long run for the week, something like 7 or 9 miles... holy cow! The other day, Jenn went running on the Towpath when it was snowing, and we agreed that, as we recalled watching runners in the Clintonville snow and looking at them like they were crazy and "running for fun," Jenn is one of those crazy people that runs for fun.