visits with Santa

We've enjoyed getting into the holiday spirit with a few christmas activities. Prior to Heather's participation in the coldest Christmas parade I have ever seen we stopped for our first Santa visit. Heather and Charlie were happy to sit with him, take pictures and tell him what they wanted. Cameron settled for a five and stood next to the kids (with me not far off) for a picture. The next day Santa was at K-Mart and the kids again talked with him briefly. Since no one was around Cameron studied him for a bit and decided that he would give it a go and sat with him. He was fascinated with the beard and soft suit and pretty cute. This morning the kids school had a breakfast with Santa and we enjoyed pancakes served by elves and reindeer. Santa made his appearance and the kids waited for a visit. Cameron decided he would go first of our crowd and headed right over to sit in his lap. Very cute and I think there may be a picture of all the kids to share. Believe it or not we've actually done some non-santa christmas things including packing boxes for Operation Christmas child for 3 kids our kids ages and making cookies with mom and grandma.

telling the kids "it's a girl"

So we took the kids to a restaurant to tell them about the baby. Jeff had them guessing at different things we might get them for their birthdays in March..."A pet" from Charlie, "close but not a pet" said Jeff, "a person?" from Heather. "yes" from Jeff. Heather looked at my belly, to my head, back down and up with a great, undescribeable look on her face and I started cracking up. Charlie caught on a few seconds later and they were thrilled to find out it was a girl. Heather would have been "not excited at all" if it had been a boy. Now they're busily trying to figure out names and talking about when the baby will come, how long mom will be in the hospital, and who can come stay with them while we go through that time. It's pretty exciting and hopefully we'll find out soon how the baby is doing.

Time flies

I guess we've been busy or I don't have as much good computer access as I used to!! We have been very busy since my last post, enjoying time with family and few weekends alone at home (which has been nice actually!) We took a trip to Athens for a 24 hour stint with my parents which included a basketball game and trip to the park in addition to fun time with grandma and grandpa. The next weekend we headed to my sisters for another 24 hour stint which also included a basketball game, some leaf jumping, another park, and pizza. The kids just love their baby cousin Adam and want to hold him, talk to him, and smother him at all times. Luckily he's somewhat used to it at daycare and he is a great sport about it. We tried to get some cute pictures in the leaf pile of all the kids together but there was minimal cooperation on any part so the pics were pretty limited...A few days later we headed to Cleveland for Thanksgiving with Jeff's entire family. It was nice to all get together and hang out. The kids had fun with their cousins, enjoying time at grandma's and also a museum the next day. Maybe down the road a sleepover will be in order! A 2 am trip to ToysRUs increased the "holiday" feel and Jeff and I had some quality bonding time with the other crazy people (we did stay up playing games with his family prior to that!!) Aside from our weekend trips to family the kids are still doing gymnastics (H), Basketball (C), and 4-H both to stay busy.