It's a Christmas Miracle!

Grandma Jane and my brother Tim with his brand new daughter!!

Tim and his wife Sara welcomed beautiful little Evelyn Noel into the world this morning. Grandma Jane and Papa Jim brought their laptop so we could skype and meet her. We are so happy to have another cousin and niece. Micah thought she was very cute and agreed to play with her when she gets a little older. We think she is precious and can't wait to watch her grow and meet her in person someday. We love you all! Hugs and kisses and tears of joy from our side of the pond.

Lydia is going to school!

the school of hard-knocks. She enrolled yesterday when she started pulling herself up on anything she could get her hands on.
First hour: pull up in crib and not know how to get down
Second hour: pull kitchen chair over on top of self
Third hour: repeatedly shut dresser drawer on fingers
Fourth hour: recess
Fifth hour: have brother bounce balls off your head
Sixth hour: see guidance counselor for new major

And...graduation! She did it! And she's happy.

Funny Faces from December

laundry

Winter Festival

We went to a Christmas festival this weekend that was raising money for the earthquake victims out east. It was very fun to do something festive and for a good cause. We helped out by buying and eating lots of yummy snowman cookies and pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Micah got another snake painted on his face...it's the easiest for a squirmy 3 year old, and he likes it. And, they were taking these jolly family photos. Merry Christmas everyone!

Visiting Santa

Ever since last year's international women's Christmas bazaar, I've been waiting to take the kids to have their picture taken with Santa. I got there too late last year. So this is our first official family picture with Santa. Could you ask for better? Lydia is screaming and Micah is expressing his shyness by refusing to remove his hand from his mouth. Santa's beard is falling off and his coat is not even zipped up. Maybe next year.

Micah is 3!

Can't believe it! My little man has passed another age marker! I was all set to attempt a Chuggington cake this year (his latest fave) when he stumbled upon a picture of a cake in his box of shape & color cards. Wow! All of the sudden he wants a chocolate cake with balls and eggs on top (the picture has m&ms on top, but the imagination of a 3 year old sees balls and eggs). I was off the hook! Sure, I can make a chocolate cake with candy on top! Until my oven doesn't work and I make a slight error in standard to metric to reading packaging amounts and not actually measuring....and I have a half-cooked VERY chocolately (3x the desired amount of cocoa powder) cake brownie. We skimmed off the bottom and ate it anyway...and my little man loved every bite. We had pizza, train-shaped garlic-parmesan bread, and cake. We celebrated with two other families and Grandma and Papa. It was a nice low-key evening of chasing balloons, enjoying new toys, and visiting with friends. Happy Birthday little man!

Our New Place!

Here it is...hopefully you can see it well enough by clicking on the photos to enlarge them. We are really thankful for this new place and it is feeling like home now after Mom & Dad helped us get things on the walls and put away. We keep finding more and more reasons why it is wonderful. There are of course things that are not perfect, but we're choosing to dwell on the things that are great. Like, yesterday I found the beach by walking 10 minutes down a new road. A beach! With sand! A bit like the Illinois side of Lake Michigan - pebbly, but beautiful. We have also discovered several restaurants close by with slides and other kid-friendly entertainment inside. McDonalds & Burger King of course, but also a yummy dessert and sandwich/soup restaurant! The trees at our park are the best...still dropping fall leaves mid-December. We are across from a school which means there is a certain vibrancy to the air in an otherwise older neighborhood. We have met two neighbors thus far and both seem very sweet. This building has 16 apartments in it (rather than 4 in our last place), so a good chance to meet more people if we get our oven fixed and bake some cookies. Rick gets to work in less than a half hour and we even have a grocer in the building next to us... a bit like convenience store prices, but fresh produce and really helpful for the things you forgot to get at the bigger grocery stores...like oven bags to cook your Thanksgiving turkey in! We have tons of built-in closets, which is not the norm here...so really awesome for reducing clutter and furniture. And we have these funky window shades that you can raise and lower on the outside to block out streetlights at night and make up for the curtains we took from our old place that are just a few inches to short. :) The oven guy is supposed to come tomorrow, so start making your vacation plans, as we are now set to host!

Grandparent Visit

 Here are the kids checking out our new park with Grandma and Papa. The photo below is one of my favorites of the season. If I can regress to high school for a moment and just exclaim, "I'm totally geeked to celebrate fall with fallen leaves at our new house."

Another reason...

this second child cannot be left alone.

We were really quite spoiled with Micah. He wasn't interested in any of these dangerous activities. Now I turn for a second, and she's emptied the silverware out of the dishwasher and chosen a fork to suck on.

sibling rivalry?

 Round 1: Lydia wins

  

Round 2: Micah wins

Round 3: Everybody wins