Princess

As part of family tradition, this Christmas dinner included crackers with crowns.  I may not have been part of dinner, or crackers even, but I was part of the crowns - I am a princess you know.

My princess sister joined me.

Most of the royal court.  This Christmas a nasty cold has been running through our house and Jonah had excused himself early from dinner due to illness. 

Pre-Christmas

It's been a while since we've had a picture of just the kids, and since we were all dressed up after attending church, the timing was perfect. 

It's only taken 2 1/2 months, but we finally have a picture of our new expanded family. 

Gran and Uncle Peter are visiting to celebrate Christmas with us, and they got in on the picture action as well.

Christmas Pageant

Although Willow Creek is a huge church, they're breaking into section communities to help it feel smaller.  Our section did a little Christmas pageant after the Christmas service and Noah and I got to be sheep.

We also sang a song from Promiseland, "Oh What a Special Night", and here I am warming up.

Our pageant was entirely unrehearsed, which made it all the more authentic.  Here we are as the barnyard animals around the manger with the shepherds on their way in.

Noah and Luke doing the motions to"Oh What a Special Night".  A shepherd and his sheep, how perfect!

Gingerbread

As a Christmas craft, Liz made gingerbread men and brought a few over for us to decorate.  Noah and I did a great job decorating our gingerbread men with great creativity.

Jonah did much less decorating and much more eating.  Actually, he ate all of his frosting and decorating pieces and then yelled for more "sugar" to be put in his bowl.  When he wasn't busy eating the frosting, he was busy eating the actual gingerbread men themselves.

Liz didn't decorate any gingerbread men, but she was a helper and an idea supplier.

The final products.  As you can see, Noah and I did a nice job with our decorating and Jonah did a nice job eating.  Any frosting that you see on Jonah's gingerbread men was put there by Liz and he just forgot to lick it off.

School Performances

This year at school we did a Christmas play called "The Littlest Christmas Tree".  There were 2 "families" in the play that cut trees down and I was the dad of one of the families.  Here I am cutting down our Christmas tree.

This is my "family" from the play - Olivia and Kira.  I'm not sure who was the mum and who was the daughter, but that doesn't really matter.

Here is my soccer crew - every Friday at recess we play soccer and it's become my favorite sport.  Here we have Dylan, me, Anthony, Braden and Bryce.

I helped make the set and am responsible for the tree sign on to my left.  I'm also demonstrating how my axe works to cut down a tree.

Anna also did a little Christmas performance in her classroom where she sang a few songs with her friends.

2 Months

I'm such a happy little girl and love to smile!

Boy have I been busy these last few months, 2 months to be exact.  As you can see, I've been perfecting funny faces as one of my largest accomplishments.  I did have a doctors appointment which revealed that I'm 11 lb 3 oz  (60%) and 22 5/8 inches (70%) and came with 2 unwelcome shots.

My other big achievement has been an awesome smile.  I give it to anyone who will give me a little bit of attention.  I also love playing with my tongue, which I'll also show you if you play with me for long enough.

Flat Stanley

As one of my school projects, we have Flat Stanley touring the world.  My Flat Stanley went home with Auntie Leslie, but before he left he had a drink with her in Illinois.  I'm hoping that the  adventures that they have in Boston are a big more G-rated to share with my class!

Hanging Out

Like a lot of babies, I'm a little fussy in the evenings.  To combat my fussiness, daddy holds me like this.  It's my favorite way to be held.

Happy Birthday 2.0

I've finally turned 2 and am well on my way to being as big as the other big kids.  Everyone loves presents of course and Noah and Anna wanted to make sure that I had all the help I needed to unwrap my presents.

Sampling my toys - they're awesome!

Julia got in on the action and showed me how to stick out my tounge as my gift from her.

Checking out some more toys.

My birthday cake.

I love birthday treats!  Yummy!

Don't I look like such a big boy?

Thankful

Auntie Leslie came to visit us and help us celebrate Thanksgiving.  It was so wonderful to meet her, and I understand why the family loves her so much.  There was a lot of snuggling, game playing and story reading while she was here.  She also managed to sneak a little speech therapy in with Jonah and food therapy in with Noah.

Everyone was home Thanksgiving week, which leads mummy to believe that to get anything done while all the kids are home there is a required 3 adults to 4 kid ratio.  Luckily for us kids, Auntie Leslie was a great 3rd adult.  She also had the magic touch and almost every time she held me I'd fall right to sleep.

It's taken almost 6 weeks, but finally there's a picture with a guest and all 4 of us kids smiling and with our eyes open.  Another sign of how much we appreciated our visitor.

And time for funny faces.  Even I got in on the action.  Truthfully, we were all very thankful that Auntie Leslie gave of her time to spend Thanksgiving with our family.  She was a welcome addition and I look forward to seeing her again at Avalon if not sooner!

Gran

I finally had a chance to meet Gran this weekend.  It was a lovely visit, and I understand why the other kids love her so much.  I'm already looking forward to when she comes back at Christmas time!

Gran and all the kids.  This has been the most cooperative we've all been for a picture yet.

Me and Gran, I'm sure we'll be fast friends for all the years to come.

Sweetness

Don't I look so precious while taking my nap?

Anna making another crazy face.

I can almost smile.  There are lots of these "near smiles" that are always hard to capture with the camera.

Crabtree

The week after Anna went to Crabtree, I got to go with my class.  One of the mom's in Anna's class got this great picture of Anna with her friend Camryn though that I had to share.

Me learning about the nature at Crabtree.

Me, seeing if I can wrap my arms around a tree trunk.

There are 2 boys missing, but otherwise this is my kindergarten class.

Trying on deer antlers.

Following Mrs. Randle-Hayes through the forest on a nature walk.