King For A Day

Uncle Thomas and Aunt Kerry sent us a King Cake from New Orleans and by tradition, a little baby figure is baked in to the cake. The kids decided that whoever got the piece with the baby in it would be "king for a day." Well, Sam got the baby and we made him a crown today with the baby stuck to the front. :)
We also went sledding since the weather finally warmed up a bit (it was 22F, up from -10F in the past few days!). As you can see, Sam had a great time!

15 Jan

Last weekend was busy - on Saturday, Ben took part in a cello workshop that took up most of the day and he really enjoyed it. The boys and I had just enough time after that to get out to the sledding hill - played in the snow until after dark. :)
On Sunday, we all went to a local indoor water park and spent all day playing in the water. The whole family was exhausted after that!
Sarah is doing great - got another round of tumor markers this week and the numbers are staying low, and she's keeping up with her trips to the gym, as well.
This week, we'll just focus on staying warm since we've got wind-chills going way below zero degrees F in Chicago tomorrow and snow everywhere. Brrr!

Christmas

Santa was good to us this year -- lots of presents under the tree, although 7am felt pretty early on Christmas morning!  It was barely getting light out.  You can see Ben and Sam here checking out their stockings.  They both have their matching Christmas pajamas on, which they always look forward to getting each year on Christmas Eve.

Shortly after Christmas, we were also happy to get a visit from Elizabeth.  And then we just celebrated the New Year here in Chicago.  Best wishes for the New Year to all!

Advent

We had a really busy time leading up to Christmas!  Alan's parents were with us for the second half of Advent and celebrated Christmas with us, which was very nice.  Since they live in Texas, the snowy white xmas was a big treat this year! 

The first pic shows Sam in his pre-school holiday music show cracking-up at something.  After that you can see our little shepherds, dressed up for the children's Christmas pageant at our church.  Then there's a pic of us decorating the tree, with Oma helping out.  Finally a quick pic that hints at how hard it was to get the picture we ended up using for our photo xmas card!  (all you parents out there know exactly what I'm talking about!)  Getting both boys to smile at the same time & not make a face or poke each other is always a feat...

But, we got everything done and had a great Advent time. :)