Birthday Boy

December 23rd is Daddy's birthday. Today we celebrated with cupcakes, cards, presents, snowmen, sledding, a long walk, and a dinner out on the town with the kids. Good times! Happy Birthday Joel!

'Tis the Season

Jude can't wait for Christmas this year! We've been having such fun preparing for the big day. He's been wearing a Santa hat and pretending to be the man all in red.
In the last few days we've been receiving a little of the white stuff. Levi and Jude tested out their snow pants. Luckily we have some that will work for now...most likely we'll be in need of larger ones by the end of the season.

This morning Jude was extatic with the news that Santa was at the mall. He didn't even want to finish breakfast, he wanted to drive right over to see him. Levi, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with the bearded man. We decided not to subject him to more tears and Jude enjoyed every second he got to spend with Santa.

Arts and Crafts

This season has been filled with opportunities for Jude and I to spend together doing arts and crafts. Here are a few pictures of the projects that we've completed.... many more projects didn't make it into the film yet.







He's been experimenting with the scissors and the all-time favorite glue stick!

Thanksgiving Weekend

This year we decided to stay local and celebrate Thanksgiving with some of our friends. There were 10 adults and 10 kids (all boys ages 4 and under). We had a great time! Here's a picture of the kids table....

Instead of getting involved with any Black Friday chaos, we decided to lay low. We had a lazy morning of reading books, then off we went to the Children's Museum.
Saturday morning we hiked nearby at Kingman's Farm. What a terrific place for the whole family (Jack too)!




Later that evening, while I was making dinner, we peared outside to find our first snow of the year. Jude just had to get outside to make sure that his wheels would still have adequate traction. All was good!

Sunday afternoon Jude and Joel joined up with some friends to watch the Dover Holiday Parade. Jude is so excited about Christmas this year that he couldn't take his eyes off of the action!

Trimming the Tree

Jack even got roped into decorating our tree this year. Jude was having a fabulous time lassoing him into the project with the rope we used to tie the tree to the top of our van.


The plastic ornaments were right up Levi's alley....he loves to play with balls.

Jude spent probably close to 2 hours hanging ornaments. He's so excited about Christmas this year. He did a great job clustering all of the unbreakable ornaments close to the bottom of the tree. There is a give and take relationship with Levi, Jude, and the tree. Levi likes to take the ornaments off of the tree, Jude likes to find a new place to hang them back up....

Our First Real Tree

Upon learning that the day after Thanksgiving was going to be filled with rain showers, we hurriedly decided to select our tree the day before Thanksgiving. It was a chilly night, so we chose quickly. We ended up getting a beautiful Frazier Fir. This is our first year putting up a real tree. (We won't be traveling to MI this year, so it'll be easier to care for our thirsty tree.)

Love Your Brother

When they are in the right mood, they are so sweet to one another. I managed to capture such a time while they were dining beside each other....