Thanksgiving, Christmas Decorating and Misc.

We had a very nice Thanksgiving here with our family. The girls actually ate most of their food without complaint and Johnny even had his first taste of food, mashed potatoes. We also had a true 21st century Thanksgiving, we were able to Skype with our family in San Diego so we were able to share the prayer and talking while we ate.

James really is happy, he just didn't look it for this photo.

Here are the girls as well as the spread of our dinner.

On Friday we began decorating for Christmas and we had a lot of fun doing so!

The stockings were hung by the banister with care.  I love these stockings, I really love Jonathan's, it's fun to have a boy one now.

Our new bookcase with my collection of nativities.

Our decorated Christmas tree.

We have a tradition that each year the kids get to pick out a new Hallmark ornament to add to the tree.  I intend that when they are married and have their own home they will have a nice collection to start with.  It has been fun to watch their tastes change over the years as they pick the new one.  We started the girls out with Winnine the Pooh for their first several years.  MacKayla quickly outgrew them and has had Polar Express, Hannah Montana, Princess and this year she picked out Barbie.  Annika stayed with Pooh until this year, she decided to go with Barbie this year as well.  Bella also decided against Pooh this year and she wanted Cinderella, it actually has the saying "Princess in Training" on it, and that fits her.  With Jonathan we decided that until he can choose for himself he is going to have a superhero theme, so to start it out he got Superman this year.

 

Hamming it up in front of the tree.

We have had a lot of snow and cold lately.  James took some photos of the snow and the house.

Miscellaneous photo time

Johnny got a new hat from Great Grannie Crites and had to have him model it.  I think he looks adorable in a ball cap!  The girls of course had to join in as well.

Being Mister Cool here!

Isn't he adorable!

 

A little father and son bonding.

 

The hams wanted into Johnny's picture.

 

He is getting so big!

Santa gives us a message

I found the coolest site that I wanted to share with everyone. This site allows you to enter information about your kids and then they recieve a personal message from Santa. He calls them by name, talks about what they are up to, reminds them to be good and even shows what present they want. The kids really LOVED this. Annika is my little skeptic, so it took a minute for her to believe it, but then the grin was huge as he talked to her. MacKayla is very innocent and believed and talked back right away. I don't know what was bigger, her eyes or her smile, she loved it. Bella was a little taken aback at first, but she loved it as well. If you want to see an example of what I mean here is MacKayla's message from Santa.

The actual site is www.portablenorthpole.tv.

Enjoy!

Taking care of baby

Snow much fun!

We  had our first real sticking snow about a week ago and the girls had a blast playing in it.

 This is their first snowman.  They were very proud of him.

 The first one started to fall so with Bella's help they made this one.  He lasted a while and the bottom of him stuck around for a while.

 Despite what the weather may be outside this is what Bella wears any chance she gets.  I get her up and dressed in the morning and the minute my back is turned she will undress and put on a dance dress, she is such a girly girl.

 Yesterday we were blasted with another mighty snow storm.  After James shoveled the drive he decided to play with the kids.  They had snowball fights.  And in traditional James fashion he taught them how to fight, i.e. to hit the other person when they are down, and or not looking.  The kids had a great time!

 He really gets into his shots.

 Someone always ends up crying though.

 No he's not comforting her, he's putting more snow on her despite the tears.

 He really is a nice dad, he is comforting her now.

 Bella decided to get in on the action.

 One of our neighbors saw the fun and got into the fight as well.  Apparently she has some skills with the snowballs, James said she pelted him pretty well.  She was also devilish in her attacks, she eventually took a snow shovel and would chuck snow on him, and then on his freshly shoveled driveway, just to get his goat.

 Isn't she a cute little snow baby!

 Yay! She got daddy.

 Lest you think we forgot about Handsome, here he is as well.  I love how babies sleep with their arms up over their heads.