Getting ready for the holiday!

We have been busy bees around here! The kids have been loving doing art projects and enjoying our family traditions.

Meeting the man in charge

Everyone loves a little rendition of the Itsy Bitsy Spider, right? Especially when Claire sings "ittyittyitty PIDER!"

I am trying to convince her to see Santa. It was a no-go.

It was a fun trip. We are not typically "mall santa" folks, but Jack demanded that he needed to meet Santa. So we went. The kids were fantastic, stood in line for a long time and didn't make a peep.

thanksgiving

We are so thankful for all that we have - our friends, family, our home, our jobs, and our health. Things couldn't get any better.

After a delicious dinner, I headed out with some girlfriends to go Black Friday shopping. It was borderline scary, but lots of fun. We came home around 4:3 am, exhausted.

Our best purchase? A $5 kitten from the shelter where I volunteer. We named her Friday. Isn't that appropriate? She LOVES the kids and our other cat has been rejuvenated. Here's a terrible pic of her cute face!

Gibby - 2011

Jack attends a small, private preschool. It's a great program and part of the 4 year old class is the class pet, Gibby. Each child gets several turns to take Gibby home. Part of having Gibby in your home is that you must document what your child does with Gibby and print the pictures and enter them into a journal.

We were so lucky to have our Christmas pictures being taken while Gibby was visiting and our photographer was kind enough to take one of Gibby! It looks like this was Gibby's first debut in the pro photog world :)

trick or treat!

The kids had the best time trick or treating. My mother flew in and really enjoyed taking the kids to gather candy!

J and C last about an hour, and then Jack wanted to pass out candy - his favorite part of Halloween. Claire fell asleep soon after we visited Buck I Guy's house. He lives a few houses down from us and had a huge line of kids to have thier pictures taken.

He drives by all the time and blares old school rock and roll, as well as bad 90's rap music. He is the nicest man and anyone who went to Ohio State knows fans like this are a dime a dozen - but he has made it to the news and on TV many, many times. Kind of liek the Neutron Man of the 1990's/early 2000's (only the Neutron man was a jerk!)

halloween.2011

we trick or treat on halloween this year. bizarre! the kids are looking forward to it and so are we. my mom is flying in for it, and as tradition marches on, the kids' aunt will join us.

oops!

I am so sorry! It's been far too long since an update.

My memory card is full from our summer! A trip to New Hampshire and lots of pictures of the kids to be uploaded. Until then, written updates are all you're going to get!

At the end of August we traveled to New Hampshire. And so did hurrucane Irene! She threw a few wrenches in our plans, but it was a great trip. The kids played with lobsters, went fishing, enjoyed swimming, played at the lake, and found red eft newts :) We even took a day trip to the beach and had a wonderful time. It was a long series of car rides, but our kids did great. Even if Claire got 5 teeth and had a 102 degree fever on the way home (enter a blank state here...)

Unfortuantely we had to leave earlier than planned, due to the death of our dear brother in law. After the tragic loss of his daughter just over a year ago, he decided to take his own life and we are trying to pick up the pieces and help his wife in any way that we can. We aren't able to do much, but we think of her each and every day and send our most loving of thoughts.

Jackson has started his second year of preschool. He LOVES school and is now going 3 mornings to the regular program, and one extra afternoon for a literacy-based program. It's a great school and he is growing by leaps and bounds. He is changing so much every day - it's so wild to watch.

Claire is getting older, but no so much bigger. She is such a peanut! She is talking up a storm and we are often wondering if she is part monkey. That girl sure can climb! It is so neat to watch Claire and Jack play together...they have a really funny bond.

Hopefully I can update some photos soon!