Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas! It was nice to get together with family and friends. And we're not even finished yet. We'll be having Christmas with the Weber side of the family in a few weeks!

We got together at Uncle Bob and Aunt Jenny's on Christmas Eve for lunch. The company was wonderful and the food delicious. Katherine was given a microphone which she absolutely loves. Here is a picture of the "Diva in Training".














We all went to the Christmas Eve service that evening. Katherine sat with Daddy in the congregation and helped him sing. She also managed to get her babysitter who was playing Mary in the Manger Story to giggle. Oh yeah, she also survived her first candlelight "Silent Night". (her Uncle Scott used to catch his hair on fire!)

Christmas was a joy with K-dog. We figured that she'd be more interested in ripping off the wrapping paper and playing with the boxes. Instead, she took time to play with just about every toy she received. Here are a few pictures. There are two of her unwrapping her new piano. And the third is of her new rocking horse.

Christmas Photos

Is it January 6th already?! Isn't this the official 12th day of Christmas when we're all supposed to take our decorations down? Not in this house, we're keeping our stuff up until Easter!

Let me just say that I have officially decreed that we will not be giving Sears Portrait Studio our business for Christmas pictures ever again. We did not have a great experience this year and will probably save ourselves a lot of stress and aggravation by just catching a good picture of Katherine on our own. We were just lucky to have a very patient little girl to entertain while we waited for 2 hours! (even though we had an appointment) Long story short, we managed to get a few decent shots. But because of the time spent at Sears, we had to wait for Santa to come back from his break in order to do that picture. That was o.k. though, we took the opportunity to have dinner at Friendly's. Katherine was very psyched to meet Santa and had her mantra of "ho, ho, ho" that she kept saying. However, when it came time to actually meet Santa, she wanted no part of sitting on his lap. No crying, she just fought to get away. So I sat next to Santa, holding K, and he did the last minute lean in for the picture. Katherine was all smiles once I put her down. She turned and smiled at Santa and told him "bye bye".

After 5 hours at the mall, Katherine was in surprisingly good spirits, which meant that Mommy and Daddy were in good spirits. She missed the Christmas lights on the way home though, since she was sound asleep.

Here are some of the better shots from Sears and the "Scary Santa" picture.

Applewood Farms

We visited Applewood Farms last night. They have sort of a winter wonderland during the holidays. There are real-life reindeer. And there are some of the animals that would have been in the manger with Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus; a donkey, some goats, a horse, a pig, and a duck (not sure if a Pekin Duck would have been in Bethlehem).

Our goal was to ride the train and see the Christmas light display. Although she was very serious, Katherine enjoyed the train ride. She also enjoyed her first taste of hot cocoa in the barn following the train ride. They had some toy trains set up in the barn everywhere you looked. We all had a good time.

Here are some pictures from our evening. The seats on the train were quite cold, so Katherine was initially taken aback. Mommy and Daddy soon buffered the cold seats for her.

Halloween

The big day came and Katherine dressed up as a pink leopard. We tried to teach her how to say trick or treat but it came out sounding like "tee tee". Sometimes she would growl on cue if we asked her what a leopard says.

Here is a picture of Katherine and Mommy at the beginning of trick or treating. I think Katherine was growling for us. The second picture is of Katherine discovering the full sized candy bars at my parents' house. They had a total of 2 trick or treaters, including Katherine. I guess we know what Dad will be snacking on until Christmas!

We hope everyone had an enjoyable Halloween!

Fashion Show

Katherine was in the Halloween spirit in the days leading up to the actual event. Luckily, the weather turned cooler and she was able to wear her sweater. The only shirt that wasn't captured on film (memory card) was the one that says "Ghouls just wanna have fun!". As you can see, she wasn't happy with me during most of the photo shoots. The was tired and cranky and I kept taking her binky out of her mouth.

There is also a picture of one of Miss Jen's hairstyles on Katherine. Miss Jen is our daycare provider and she loves to do Katherine's hair. There are some days she comes home with 10 rubber bands in there. (no exaggeration!)