We had a lovely Christmas at home, just the four of us.  I was really hoping for a white Christmas, but alas, it turned out to be beautiful.

Christmas Eve we had our traditional fondue dinner

Then Santa delivered new pjs to the front door

Woody and Buzz!

After bed Santa came again!

I think this was the best Christmas yet, the boys were both really into the whole thing.  It was magic.

Parker couldn't wait to open the big presents

Scooters!!

I think there was a little too much excitement-they both ended up in time outs.  Ha!

The first week of Sam's break was spent in Florida with Sam's family.  We roadtripped it down.  The boys love the car, can't you tell?

We spent the night in Atlanta with some friends.  I love this picture of them.

Once in Florida, we spent a lot of time hanging with the fam, going to the pool, and playing Dance Central.  Well mostly Meg played and we watched.  

Parker having a dance off with Aunt Meg

Of course we had to do Disney one day.  The Schmidts love Animal Kingdom so we started there with the safari.  This giraffe was leading the way walking down the road.  

Later at Epcot we got to meet all the characters.  Parker was being weird and didn't want to see Mickey. 

The one he really wanted to see was Daisy. 

Later that night Sam brought Lincoln back to the hotel, but Parker wasn't ready to go so we had a "date" (his words) and went on a bunch of rides together.  It was the best part of the day.  I love hanging out with this kid.

He's the only one that will go on the teacups with me

Autopia

We also hit up Downtown Disney on afternoon and played at the big Lego store.

Oh my gosh I haven't blogged in 3 months.  Time flies.  My laptop was running low on disk space, so I couldn't import any more pictures from my camera.  What's a blog post without pictures?  I finally bought an external hard drive, so we're back in business.  Unfortunately a lot has happened the past 3 months.  I thought about just skipping over them, but I would be sad if I didn't document.

Flashback to December...

We decided to do an activity advent calendar.  I just made up some envelopes from striped paper and we wrote 24 activities on little cards to go inside the envelopes.  Some were bigger than others, but the boys loved waking up each morning to see what we were going to do.

one day we had an indoor picnic

we rode the train downtown to the Christkindle market

getting some pretzels at the market

afterwards we stopped by Magnolia Bakery for cupcakes (for the boys) and banana pudding (for me)

we visited the Winder Wonderland Express at the Chicago Botanic Gardens (twice actually).   It was awesome-that's downtown Chicago made of plant materials.  

We visited the children's museum where Sam taught Parker some dad skillz

my favorite favorite FAVORITE thing we did was ride the Christmas CTA train.  Seriously it was awesome.  There was tinsel, lights, and elves handing out candy canes inside.  AND Santa and his reindeer ride on an open car in the train so you can get out and say hi at the end of the line.  Magic.

It was a fun month and by the time Christmas rolled around our wall looked more like this.  I love holiday cards.

What a lovely Sunday. We just got home from Thanksgiving dinner round three (none of which I had to cook-score) with some friends at the Bill's house. I spent the morning lounging in bed and cuddling with the kids while Sam did most of the parenting. Church was great. There were three baby blessings and two wonderful talks on service. It was so perfect to hear those words before heading into the Christmas season. I'm already getting too caught up with the secular things (like which electronic device to get for the man), and it was nice to be reminded about what is really important.  

We had a fantastic, relaxing Thanksgiving week. I am feeling especially thankful for the wonderful friends we are making during our time in Evanston. The Mr. had the whole week (!) off from school, and we enjoyed every second having him home. Parker was in baseball (and football, and golf, and basketball) heaven. That kid sure loves playing sports with his daddy. Monday night we had a sleepover in the family room and watched Cars 2, but not until the boys got some jumping in (something we don't let them do when our mattress is on the bed)!

Tuesday was a free day at Shedd Aquarium, so we went down with some friends to make faces at the fish. 

Wednesday night the LDSSA hosted a pie night with 7 different kinds of pies!  My favorite was a toss up between the french silk & triple berry.  Or maybe the pumpkin caramel.  

Thanksgiving morning we took the train into the city with the Jacksons & Marshes to see the Thanksgiving Day Parade.  Woot!  .  

Apparently the Chicago parade is the 2nd biggest Thanksgiving parade in the country. They even had some big balloons floating down State Street. We were laughing, though, that our kids didn't recognize most of them because they are so old (Garfield, Rocky & Bullwinkle). Where's Phineas & Ferb?  We left early to beat the crowds onto the El so we didn't see Santa, but we'll be hitting him up later this month fo sho.  

This band was invited to play at the Olympics in London next year!

We are so lucky to be in Chicago, especially at Kellogg where we have met the most fantastic people who we love hanging out with.  Since we can't be with family, they are definitely the next best thing!

Last month my bestie Bridget was up in Naperville with her in-laws for a couple days and came out to see us for a few hours.  Yay!  Bridget and I have been friends for almost 15 years and it's kind of surreal to see our children playing together.  Lucky for us we had a nice warm day and were able to spend some time playing at the beach.

at least they're all looking in the general direction of the camera

We had a busy Halloween season.  To be honest, I was really glad for it to be over and took down the decorations first thing the morning after.  Between two Kellogg Halloween parties, ward party, and two trick or treats, I was Halloween-ed out! 

ward party costume parade

Lincoln was very successful at the cupcake walk

For our ward party the kids did trick or treating in the hallways of the building.  Families could sign up to decorate a classroom door and hand out candy.  One family brought a fog machine and it set off the smoke alarms-whoops!  Because it's such a big building, the fire department had to come and turn them off.  As we were walking out the firemen were just getting ready to leave and they let our little firefighter sit on the truck and gave him a fire truck card which he loves.  It was definitely the highlight of the night.

dragon and firefighter

not a fan of his costume

The boys were champs and stayed out trick or treating for about an hour.  Once their buckets got too heavy to carry we headed home!  I'm still trying to figure out our Halloween candy policy.  Right now I'm letting them have 2-3 pieces every day, but we seriously have so. much. candy (plus I'm pretty sure it's why Parker has been so cranky and ornery lately).  Do I just toss it?  Let them trade it in for toys?

Speaking of, did everyone see the hilarious Jimmy Kimmel video?  I wish I would have done this.