Merry Christmas

Our Family Christmas Eve 2010 - spent Christmas Eve at grandma and grandpa's where we got tons of fun stuff.

Santa visited overnight and also brought all sorts of things that we all asked for! Jack bought this puppy for Maddie all on his own from school. She liked it a lot and yelled "puppy" when she opened it up.

Here she is later on Christmas day at grandma's house. She got a new baby and a blankie for her baby. She was "rocking" her.

Sadly, our Christmas tree got taken down the day after Christmas this year. This was the end result after all the ornaments and lights were taken off of it. Hopefully by next Christmas we'll have all the needles from this tree vacuumed/swept/whatever outta here.

Cookie TIme!

We finished up our cookie making today. First Maddie and I finished up making our "green" cookies today (she surprised me by knowing what color it was, but when I started asking what color other things were she kept saying "geen" too, so maybe it was just a coincidence).

Jack has been wanting to make gingerbread men now for a long time, so after school he and I baked them and we let Maddie decorate one....and only one for good reasons.

Jack perfected his decorating skills by the time he was done.

The best part was tasting them after we were all done.

For our first attempt at them, it went really well!

2 very different opinions...

On Saturday we ventured out in the snow for our chance to go see Santa. Jack of course is totally into Santa, sort of. He pulled the "I'm shy" act when we got there, but knowing what's at stake, he warmed up pretty fast. Shortly after his picture was taken he whipped out his list and started to rattle things off....more than Santa could possibly even understand, but at least he got it all out there....

Then we have the little girl who has been infatuated with Santa for weeks. When she sees a picture she yells "Santa!!" On demand she can tell you santa says "ho, ho, ho" and sometimes not even on demand, just walking around.....but that was not the story on Saturday.
Even sitting on my lap and being this close to Santa ticked her off. She willingly gave him a high five and said "buh-bye" a little too enthusiastically, but we took the picture anyway and figured it will bring us laughs.

St. Nick's

We got up WAY early this morning to have plenty of time to play with anything that was put in our stockings. Maddie was less than thrilled.

St. Nick left a transformer for Jack - his first one!

Maddie got some sing along songs and a bottle, nuk, sippy cup and bib for her baby.

Tonight when feeling better and more awake she was loving her babies up with all their new "juice". For a little girl who would never take a nuk, she can't get enough of this one!

Oh Christmas Tree!

After Jack came home from basketball, we headed out to pick out our Christmas tree.

Maddie liked running through the Christmas trees and getting stuck in between all of them.

Jack picked out the perfect one for us.

Decorating was a challenge. As fast as they went on, there was a little girl who pulled them all right back off.

It was serious business!

The end result. It's pretty, but it's fairly obvious a 1 & 5 year old decorated. It's safe to say we won't have a "normal" tree for many years, but that's part of the fun!

Basketball Camp

On Saturday, Jack started his first of three mini-basketball camps. He is learning the basics this time and there will be no games, but he is really excited and enjoyed it.

He's a good dribbler!

Nikki!!

Nikki - this post is especially for you! Maddie's new dress came in the mail today. It's cute, but WAY big, so it will be a LONG time until she's wearing it just as a top instead of a dress. It has a little monogrammed M on the front of it! Very cute!

Thankful for cousins!

We were lucky enough to get to spend Thankgiving evening and the next evening with our cousins. Maddie and Allie had fun playing together and being silly.

Allie taught Maddie how to play Ring Around the Rosie.

Jack, Maddie, and Justin chilling out watching Happy Feet.

A hunting we will go....

On Thanksgiving morning Jack got to go hunting with Daddy. He was so excited and couldn't wait to get up at 5:30, which he made sure that we all knew. The best part of the hunting might have been the chocolate donuts and orange juice, but he did get to at least see a deer. After one hour, he was done, but he had a lot of fun!

Monday Funday

With there being no school on Monday, we decided to take advantage of going to Monkey JOe's for the first time....without crowds....and the result was good! This picture cracks me up because her face looked this happy the entire time we were there. Jack and Maddie were both in Heaven the entire time.

THe climb up was a lot of work....

and even though it's not a great video, and it's sideways, this was the result of all of her hard work - this was her third trip down a big slide all by herself. Jack was a lot of help and did so good there too!!!

Trick or Treat!

Ironman and Tinkerbell

Tinkerbell made her way through two candy packages before we got home.

A successful day for Ironman. Surprisingly he only wanted to go for a little while, but was very happy with what he accomplished anyway.

Carving Pumpkins

For some reason there was much sillyness leading up to this point, but they were a success anyway.

Silly #1

Silly #2

Ironman and Tinkerbell!

Cheese!!!!

What can she say? She prefers Baby Swiss :)

Door County

We took a little adventure to Door County for a couple of days this week. It was beautiful despite being cold and windy.

We made a trip to PC Junction to see the train while we ate again. We made sure to wear our cute t-shirts we picked up last time we were there.

We took a little walk through the woods around where we stayed and looked for things in our made up treasure hunt, but we weren't too good at it - all we found off our list was sticks and leaves.

The playground, as usual anywhere was a hit.

Fall Fun

No real explanation needed for above pictures - had lots of fun all day last Saturday - first at the park, then at grandma and grandpa's. Who knew leaves could provide so many hours of entertainment.

This one does need explanation - a lot of our leaf time was spent using the leaf blower to make huge piles of leaves....and chasing Jack around with them also.

And this is what happens after such an exciting day of leaf fun.

Pretty sure it only took about 3 minutes for both of them to be down for the count once we got in the car.