Holi-dress Up!

 

Kyrie needs very little excuse to dress up. We attended Carols & Lessons at church a few weeks ago and she was probably the fanciest dressed person in attendance. She asked me to curl her hair, which turned out super-cute! She looked beautiful, and, of course, Degen looked handsome even though he was a lot more casual. These are the photos we took before we left. Kyrie had fun posing in front of the Christmas tree!

 

 



 

It's Cat-mas Time!

Bentley stretching out! He is super-duper fluffy with his winter coat!

 

Just a few photos of our kitties!

 

Samson hanging out under the Christmas tree.

The babies cuddling!

Bentley enjoying an early Christmas present!

Samson...getting so big...enjoying another early gift.

Christmas Ornaments 2012

 

As part of our homemade Christmas, I make Christmas ornaments with the kids every year. We give the ornaments to family & friends and keep one for our tree, too. This year, Kyrie made snowmen and Degen made Christmas bells. As the kids get older, I try to find ornaments that have multiple steps that the kids can do on their own or mostly on their own. I got the idea for the snowmen from Pinterest. Kyrie painted the sticks, glued buttons and wrapped pipe cleaners to make her snowmen.

 

 

Degen's Christmas bells were inspired by an ornament that I made when I was in preschool. He painted the bells and put on Christmas stickers. Kyrie strung the bells on pipe cleaners to help him with his project. The last picture is the original bell that I made, which is about 30 years old now. I love this little bell and it makes its way on the tree every year. Though this year, I had to make a small repair and reglue the Santa picture.

 

Christmas Smiles

 

These Christmas photo-ops were at Cosi, and Kyrie didn't want to pass them up. She & Degen took turns giving their best Christmas smiles!

 

Lego Castle Adventure

 

We are excited to have the Lego Castle Adventure exhibit at Cosi! I took the kids to Cosi for a "field trip" last week. We had gone before with Darren last month, and the kids were eager to get back to build some more. This is a great, little exhibit! There are several building stations, as well as some really cool creations from master builders. I hope that we will be able to return before the exhibit closes in January.

 

Degen's expression in this photo cracks me up! I am not quite sure what he is thinking, but it makes me think "Whatchoo doin' with those Legos?"

Kyrie did a great job building this castle with the big Legos.

Degen checking out the Lego treasure.

Degen tried his hand at jousting- look at that form! He is a little knight for sure!

 

O' Christmas Tree

 

Keeping with tradition, the day after Thanksgiving we decorated the house for Christmas. The kids were excited to see the boxes come up from the basement, especially Kyrie. While Darren did some winterizing outside, I Christmasized inside. It is always a joy to put out our favorite decorations: some handmade, some kid-made, some passed down from family. Of course, the centerpiece is the tree. Decorating our tree is like taking a walk down memory lane. Almost all of our ornaments are from our childhoods, made by the kids, gifts from others or collected on family trips. This is a wonderful start to our holiday season!

 

 

I think one of the toughest times to get photos is while everyone is decorating the tree. Everyone is going back and forth from the ornament box and the tree- too excited, too busy to stop for a photo.

 

 

With all the decorations on the tree, everyone was ready to admire our hard work and get a few photos!

 

 

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!