Ice Storm

For those of you who have never seen an ice storm in the midwest, here is what our backyard trees still look like 3 days after the storm. The entire city is still encased in ice - every blade of grass, power line, and stop sign. Right now it is -1 outside with a wind chill of -24, so I don't think it is going to melt anytime soon!

Trip to Iowa

We went to Iowa last weekend to go to a Mannheim Steamroller concert with Melissa and Jerad. (We've been to more concerts this month than we have in the last two years!) The concert was so fun and the Megan and Colin got to open their first Christmas presents that they got from their cousins.

Claire gave Megan her first Littlest Pet Shop set

Ryan gave Colin his first train

Cute kids

One morning last week I was grabbing something out the bedroom when I heard the unmistakable sound of something being dumped on the floor. I raced into the kitchen and found that Colin had run out of Kix that he was eating for breakfast so Megan decided to give him some more. He looks pretty excited!



Later that day, Megan crawled into the cupboard (one of her favorite hiding spots) and pulled out all the cookie cutters and turned them into her latest dress-up.

Sarah Brightman concert

Peter and I had the chance to go see Sarah Brightman in concert up in Chicago a few weeks ago. We have both been fans for a long time. We even talked about her the first time we met! We had great seats and Sarah was amazing.

Our thanks again to our friends the Scotts who filled in as babysitters at the last minute. They even put our kids to bed and didn't mind when we knocked on their door at 1:00am to pick them up!

Yes, she is singing while up on a swing!!

If you haven't heard her music before, I highly recommend it. I suggest listen first to "Time to Say Goodbye" and "Nella Fantasia."

Learning to clean

Last week I walked into the living room and discovered this on the couch. Even though that is Colin's hand in the picture, there was no doubt who the culprit was.

We have a rule in the house that the person who makes the mess, gets to clean it up. So, I gave Megan a wet rag and told her to start scrubbing. She did quite well (possibly because she is scrubbing up something almost every day) and even seemed to enjoy it.

And then she just got silly. :)

Until she decided to get down to business and clean all of her books, too.

Thanksgiving and our Christmas Tree

We had Thanksgiving with my sister Melissa's family (they drove all the way from Columbus) and of course, Chris and Dusty. Here are some fun highlights!

Some pre-Thanksgiving meal pics

Clark and Colin playing (I think Colin looks a lot like my brother Curtis in this picture!)

Kevin tries to cheer up a sad Colin

He's our "little turkey!"

Colin and Megan play at the table while waiting for the food to cook

The meal

All ready to eat! (Notice Colin is missing: he was too tired to wait and took a nap)

Colin gets his first Thanksgiving meal a little late, but still yummy

Another diaper picture of cute cousins Clark and Colin
(try saying that five times fast)

You may remember this picture of them...

taken only 3 months ago! What are they feeding Clark?!?

Picking out our Christmas tree

We actually picked it out in about 2 minutes and took the second one we looked at.

Decorating the tree

We decided to put our Christmas tree in the basement this year. It will save my sanity from chasing Megan and Colin away from the lights, ornaments, and presents, not to mention the tree itself. We have only suffered one casualty as Megan smashed two glass ball ornaments together and they shattered (don't worry - no one was hurt!). Besides, the fireplace is down there and I think it will be fun to hang the stockings there and have a warm fire on Christmas morning!

Only those present can understand how hard it was to actually take this picture of the four of us! Two-year-olds just do not stay still very well.

Chris looking angelic next to the tree

Busy month

I know I haven't posted much of anything lately, but things have been crazy and I have been busy with a couple of big projects for the holidays. We also got a new computer last week and all of our pictures were stuck on our old hard drive! So finally, here are some highlights of the past month.

Halloween

Quiz: Which one is Megan and which is Colin???

Pumpkin carving

Halloween night

Colin and Landon are both cute pumpkins!

Cinderella and her pumpkin are ready to Trick-or-Treat!

Dusty makes caramel apples for the first time

Autumn

Does anyone want to volunteer to rake our back yard?

Nice work, Megan!

Every fall our home is infested with ladybugs - we have no idea how they get in and they are everywhere! I wanted to just vacuum them all up but my conscience wouldn't let me, so I have spent considerable time over the past month releasing ladybugs back into the wild.

Fun Stuff

Megan and Daddy dancing to Christmas music

What's a rainy day without a little fort building?

Colin has been doing a LOT of this...

...and even some of this!

I feel like a little kid on Christmas Eve

'Nuff said.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful...

Our thermometer says it's 27.5 degrees outside.

I think it's time to dust off my Carpenter's Christmas Portrait CD.

8 months old

I took these pictures last week when Colin turned 8 months old. He's got all four front teeth in now and is really starting to get around. He's not quite crawling yet but somehow manages to get around by scooting forward using just his legs. This allows him to reach anything in a 5-ft radius and he is becoming quite the explorer.