Christmas Fun Part II

Christmas morning was chilly, but green - no snow. It's ok. It makes traveling easier for everyone. After Christmas Eve church, we came home, set out treats for Santa and his reindeer (peppermint bark and milk for Santa and goldfish and apple juice for the reindeer) and the kiddos went to bed. We awoke to this beautiful tree and lots of presents (there were no presents under the tree until Christmas morning). We made sausage bread for breakfast (see picture below) and for the first time I had help!

After we ate breakfast and got dressed, we set out to see what Santa left us... a Covenant Christian School shirt and dress up clothes - among other things.

Grandma and Grandpa Bauer and Grandma Dana and Grandpa Ken came over soon after and we had an enjoyable day with lots of fun, food, and family.

Katherine learned how to play "grown-up" dominos - and she even won a couple of games! She had fun playing with the grandparents while Elizabeth and Christopher were taking naps. We hope that everyone had a joyous Christmas - on to 2008!!!

Christmas Fun Part 1

The Saturday before Christmas, we went to my brother's house with my parents for the Emery Christmas festivities. For those who don't know, Kevin (my brother), John, and I went to the University of Illinois and my mom and dad went to USC. It just so happens that Illinois and USC are in the Rose Bowl this year, so Kevin got, for John and my Dad, Rose Bowl t-shirts (see below the 3 of them modeling them a bit) and also appropriate attire for watching the Rose Bowl next week. Thanks, Kevin - FUN!

We had a fun day of family time - it's always fun to get the kids together..

We got a pretty good picture of the grandkids with my parents - Kaiser, my nephew, wanted no part of it.

Here's the boy cousins - I think their first picture together!

Kim and Kaiser

Oh, yeah, and there were presents, too!

Daddy-Daughter Time

We had a full weekend of Christmas activities, and they started last Friday nite with some "Daddy Daughter Time" for Katherine & I. We went to a Dierberg's Cooking School Gingerbread House Class. Julie had done the honors of preparing the house pieces ahead of time, and Katherine and I had the fun of decorating the class. Katherine was very creative, working in the mediums of M&M's, jellybeans and wheat chex - just to name a few. It was a fun experience to create something special together and we had fun showing it off to everyone over the holidays!!

Thanks Katherine for a great Daddy-Daughter Date!

Santa Hats and First Snow

It's kind of become a tradition to take pictures of the kids in Santa hats every year - it's fun to see the progression from year to year as they grow up. Here's this year's group of festive Santas!

We woke this morning to our first now of the year - about 2-3 inches. The girls were anxious to get out and play - Katherine especially wanted to have a snowball fight. So, while Christopher was napping (he's not to into the snow this year), the girls and John went out and played and shoveled the driveway. FUN!!

O Christmas Tree

We visited my parent's house last weekend when my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew came down for a visit (no picture of the kids together - UGH) and my mom gave the girls a "foamie" gingerbread house to put together. While they required quite a bit of help, they had a great time and it turned out really cute! We finally (after talking about it the past 2 or 3 Christmases, probably) broke down and purchase an artificial tree. It was a major decision, both because of the expense and because both John and I grew up basically with real Christmas trees. It just got too difficult with 3 young kids to get out to the lot to get the tree (weather factors into that quite often), trying to keep it alive (we like to put our tree up early and it always seems to dry out so quickly), cleaning up the mess of dropped needles almost daily let along the mess when it's brought into and out of the house, and the cost - we paid $80 for our tree last year that barely lasted 3 weeks (there's another story behind our tree last year - basically the straw that broke the camel's back - ask us sometime. Anyway, we love the tree and it will pay for itself very quickly. We got it up in one night and decorated in another night instead of the week long affair with a real tree (John is VERY particular about or tree, so it would take one day to get it and get it into the house and usually a separate night to put on the 1000 lights, then another to put on the ornaments). At least we've gotten rid of one Christmas season stress in our lives. The girls were really into decorating this year and kept asking me over and over again all day when we were going to put the ornaments on the tree - we had to wait until Daddy got home - it was a LONG afternoon!!

The tree is up and pretty much decorated - now we have to find the time to decorate the rest of the house - maybe this weekend?? We are looking forward to a fun Christmas season.

Thanksgiving rest....

It's been a good few days to be home and have some "down time". Our celebration began with Katherine's school play. It was fun for us all to be there and see her shine on stage. She enjoyed saying her line as a pilgrim and did a wonderful job reciting Psalm 100 by memory with her class. What a joy to see her learning so much!

Our celebration continued on Thursday, spending the morning at the annual Covenant church service, and then coming home for a relaxing day with grandpas and grandmas. Katherine specifically enjoyed watching "Mary Poppins" for the first time and trying pumpkin pie!

The rest of the week has been busy, yet restful. John got a good start on our shopping (he was in line at Kohl's at 3:30 a.m.!!) He made the round to a few other places as well, and was home at 9:30 a.m., and exhausted from standing in line at Kohl's, Target, Wal-mart and Toys R Us - quite a haul was accomplished!!!

Saturday, Mom and kids spent some time raking leaves as John made the first (of what may end up being a couple) of attempts at the outdoor lights. The first round didn't go well, so we'll see where things go in the next week or so. In the mean time, leaves were raked, and piles were quickly destroyed as the kids found the joy of jumping and flopping in the leaves. Although Christopher didn't jump or flop, he certianly seemed to enjoy his time in the leaves as well.

Goings on

Just some things we've been doing-

Last Saturday we went to the Faust Park Carousel for a birthday party. The kids got to ride the carousel as many times as they wanted to for 2 hours - FUN! I thought it was going to be Katherine that wanted to go over and over and over again, but to our surprise, it was Elizabeth who wanted to go over and over and over again! Considering the fact that the last time we were there on Katherine's birthay, Elizabeth screamed from the waiting area the entire time that Katherine rode, it was great that Elizabeth even got on the carousel. She loved it so much that she kept wanted to ride, so she and John rode for at least a half hour straight! Katherine rode for some of that time, but I think she got a little tired of going around in circles. They both enjoyed riding the horses that they named Indian and Pilgrim (Katherine's been learing alot about those in school lately). We even got Christopher on for one ride. FUN!

Katherine finished her soccer season last weekend, also, and got a trophy and a small soccer ball. We've been playing almost daily outside, kicking the soccer ball around. She really had a great time.

The newest thing everyone has been enjoying is playing in the kitchen with utensils while mom fixes whatever meal is appropriate at the time (lunch or dinner). Here is Elizabeth playing her violin and trumpet, respectively. Thanks to Baby Einstien "Meet the Orchestra", the girls love to pretend and know all about LOTS of different instruments - in church a couple of weeks ago, Elizabeth said "Mommy, look at the harp!" and they enjoyed listening to a young girl play.

Family Pictures -

We got these pictures taken last week - Katherine is 5-1/2, Elizabeth is 3 and Christopher is 9 months old. We even got a family picture!