Hint Hint

 

Here's a little hint about the baby we are expecting in June :0

Sledding

 

All of us LOVE sledding!! Maggie especially - although she probably has a skirt or dress on under those snowpants she has no problem getting right into the thick of things when sledding. She takes a sled and just goes again and again on her own. Jackson heads straight for the jumps. Hailey will ride with one of us a few times but then she only wants to go on her own. She is always missing a glove at one time or another so we got her some that go way up past her elbows - see in the picture? - but somehow she managed to get one off anyway. They do stay on a lot better though. This last time we went sledding there was quite a sheet of ice under the snow. There was one path where all the snow was scrapped off and it was just sheer ice all the way down. The kids loved it because they could go down easily without sleds. They would just jump on and start sliding.

Merry Christmas!!

 

Christmas was great. We didn't put any presents under the tree before Christmas Eve because we were sure the dog would chew them up - so on Christmas morning the kids were amazed by all the presents. Jackson's first comment was "that is a lot more presents than we had last year!!" Of course that was because John and Kami brought a ton of presents for each other..... :) We opened the stockings and played with what was in those while we waited for everyone else to get up. It was fun to watch the kids open presents. They would say things like "Santa knew I wanted this and I didn't even tell him!" and "This is my favorite present ever!" Hailey was a little unsure of all the chaos so she sucked her thumb and opened presents with other hand. We had quiche for breakfast (Matt's family tradition) and ham for dinner. It's fun to try to figure out how to mix traditions. You realize you have expectations you didn't even know you had! We always had the big dinner Christmas Eve while Matt's family did it on Christmas day. They also never opened presents on Christmas Eve. We opened presents from everyone else but the immediate family - we did those Christmas morning. We also had presents in our stockings while Matt had candy, nuts and oranges. We are so rarely home at Christmas that we haven't had to figure any of this out. It will be fun to see what happens over the next few years as we stay home more often over the holidays

Christmas program

 

Maggie had a program at her preschool just before Christmas. They sang a few songs and then did some craft activities with the parents. She loved it. It was fun to go and watch all the kids. Maggie wanted to dress up - she wants to dress up everyday - but I won't let her wear her nice dresses most of the time. She was very excited to be allowed to that day.