santa came to our house!

Christmas was a lot of fun this year. Leading up to the big day, Linc had numerous questions related to Santa.
How do the reindeer fly?
Where do they land?
What is a sleigh and how does it work?
Where is our chimney? and That's how Santa gets into our house?
I could go on and on...

On Christmas Eve, we sprinkled reindeer food on the driveway so that the reindeer were sure to lead Santa to our house. This was a concoction of oatmeal and sparkles (courtesy of the kids' daycare). We were also sure to leave cookies out for Santa. And Linc even went to bed like a good little boy. He wanted to be sure that Santa didn't skip our house so we all had to be asleep in order for him to come!

On Christmas morning (6 a.m.) we saw that there were gifts under the tree, but those could've been from mom & dad so we had to check the cookie plate to see if Santa had been to our house. He had indeed...and he ate ALL of the cookies!

Here are a few pics from Christmas in the Gough house this year. First up is Linc in his Christmas pj's opening gifts.

Next is Cassie getting piled high with gifts.

Here are Dad and Linc with one of Linc's new Leapster games.

And here is Cassie on her tippy toes trying to get to some of Lincoln's new superhero action figures. She doesn't mind being the bad guys while Linc is almost always one of the good guys.

And here's the best family pic we got. Note that we are joined by Cassie's new Jessie doll as well as Linc's long time buddies, Woody and Buzz Lightyear.

Linc's favorite gift this year: the Superhero Squad truck that dad picked out. Like father, like son.

Runners up: Superhero Squad action figures and cars, Leapster and games, legos, lots of cool board games and puzzles. The kids got so much stuff that there's no room under the tree. We've been very busy trying to play with it all.

Next year I'll report out on Cassie's favorite gift as she'll be better able to clue us in at that time.

Happy Christmas!

cousins.

Got a cute pic of Linc and his cousins at the Mitchell family Christmas gathering. Cassie was busy playing with the adults upstairs so she didn't make it into the pic. Here are the Mitchell (plus one Gough) kids. Christmas 2009.

Madison, Riley, Allison, Lincoln, Sam, Nicole.

7-11.

Each year, my girlfriends and I get together before Christmas to celebrate the holidays and our friendship. This year, instead of a wild night out, we opted for a gathering at my place with our kids. Seven friends were there and among us we've got 11 kids. Check out the pic below. I don't know how we - the girls from college - have made it to a place where an entire couch is filled with little munchkins. It kind of blows my mind. Long gone are the days of crossing the border to go to Canada or making the rounds at local karaoke bars. We are now having our gatherings at 10 a.m. with our kids. What a change! Not that we don't know how to have fun anymore. We've got Jen's wedding in 2010. We'll be able to tear it up there - thank goodness.

Here's to great friends and our lovely kiddies.

rudolph.

Linc had his debut singing performance this year at The Learning Tree (the kids' daycare) Christmas party.

Here he is all red-nosed before the performance.

And here is a clip of Miss Rhonda's preschool class singing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Linc also got to have a chat with Santa at the Christmas party. My favorite part of the below pic: his nervous little hands all twisted together.

one year.

Cassie will be turning one on 12/15. I don't know why, but it's just not hitting me that a whole year has gone by already. The time is simply flying. It seems not long ago that I was sitting at this very desk working last year thinking, "I might be having contractions, but I'm not sure." I had a doctor appt. that afternoon so I figured the doc would tell me that they weren't contractions, that it was just wishful thinking on my part. Matt met me at the doctor that afternoon. Since I was a few days past my due date, we figured we might talk about being induced (again) and we wanted to talk about the best date for that (yes, let's schedule it on our calendars - haha, babies don't work like that). Well, we got to the doctor, he told me I was indeed having contractions and that we could head over to the hospital. We were going to have a baby that night! Whoa. I wasn't really expecting that. We then rushed around - Matt picked Linc up from daycare and took him to my folks house while I went home to finish packing my bag for the hospital. Yes, I was driving while in labor. We got to the hospital and about 4 hours later our beautiful baby girl was born. Again, the time has flown. It just doesn't seem like that was a year ago.

Our baby girl is now practically toddling around. She has grown and changed so much in the past year, as has her brother. We celebrated Cassidy's first birthday on Saturday with our family. Here are the requisite first-cake-eating pics.

Cassie enjoyed seeing all of her cousins cheer her on!


There was no need to coax Cassie to touch the cake. She pretty much dove right in and explored the frosting on her own.


Mmmm...frosting.


Shoveling it in...


Maybe I can just lick it off the plate...


Here is Cassie spending some time with a younger man at her bday party (6 months younger). Jack is my best friend, Becca's, little boy. Cass liked him, but Jack kept giving her the pouty lip. Maybe he's not ready for an older woman...yet.


Cassie in her jammies with mom and dad at the end of the night.

santa babies.

Here are my little Santa babies.

Lincoln baby...

and Cassie baby.

ho ho ho.

Yia Yia took us to breakfast with Santa this year. The kids got balloon animals, got to sit on Santa's lap, and got to chat with Santa as he worked the room while we ate breakfast. Here is the pic of the kids on Santa's lap. Not too bad. Cassie sat on his lap just fine, though it was for a brief period. I think if we had left them up there much longer, she probably would've started to fuss and wonder why in the heck we had left her with this strange man!


While we ate, Santa walked around the room and talked to the kids. Here he is having a lengthy conversation with Linc & Cassie's cousins (Alli & Nicole). While this was going on, Linc was busy eating his bacon and eggs. He couldn't be bothered with Santa (see the bottom picture). He truly is his father's son. Food always comes first.



"No time for you, Santa, I'm busy eating!"

I guess he did finally finish the food on his plate and he had a chance to tell Santa that he'd like some superheros for Christmas this year.

family room fun.

Took some pics recently of the kids just playing around in the family room. Thought I'd share a few.

I just really like the laughter in her face in this pic.


Cassie loves to play peek-a-boo behind the family room curtains.

Peek.


And here is Lincoln looking all sweet with his friends Ox, Moxie, and Barney.


And here he is as his friends tackle him on the couch.

caroling in the house.

The kids got a wonderful Frosty the Snowman book from our friends, Mark & Katie, for Christmas last year. We read it nearly every night, well, actually we sing it since the book is simply the lyrics to the famous tune. Poor Linc usually has to suffer through my horrible singing. He doesn't complain, but only because he doesn't know any better. So, a friend of mine who has a lovely singing voice was over recently and she had the opportunity to sing the Frosty book to Lincoln. His face was so cute as he listened to her sing. It was as if a lightbulb went off in his head and he was like, "Oh, so this is what it's supposed to sound like." I'm projecting here, but you get what I'm saying. Here are Peggy and Linc enjoying the Frosty book together.

bubbles, bubbles.

Cassie rather enjoys bath time. While she was feeling under the weather a few weeks ago I treated her to a Vicks vapor bath. She loved the resulting bubbles!

She also loves to put anything and everything in her mouth. Below, she's got one of her bath toys acting as a teething ring!

sick, sick, sick.

Is it really mid-December already? November came and went this year with not much to report aside from both kids being sick off and on all month long. Things were a bit stressful trying to tend to the kids (Cassie mostly, as Linc had only one flu-like bug while Cassie suffered multiple fevers and whatnot) and trying to juggle work and taking days off, etc. to manage the illnesses that ran rampant through our home. All I can say is thank goodness our parents are nearby. We're really very lucky that they're willing and available to pitch in to help us out. Here's hoping that November isn't reflective of what winter is going to bring. So far in December, we're just dealing with a couple of colds, which are manageable (still not fun, but manageable). My true wish for Christmas this year is for my family to be healthy. There's really nothing better than that.

fall in northern Michigan.

Since our summer vacation plans to go up north with Grandma went awry, we took a long weekend up north in October instead. Her friend, Allene, graciously offered her cabin to us for the weekend. The weather was less than stellar: 40-degrees and rainy all weekend. The pic below is of the cabin on the morning we left...the one time it wasn't raining!



And here is the lake looking very serene.



We spent the majority of the weekend inside the cabin, with just a couple of outings. It's a good thing Allene is a grandma, too, because she keeps the cabin stocked with all sorts of toys for the kids to play with. Lincoln had a ball exploring all of the toys! Here we are playing Don't Spill the Beans with Cassie cheering us on.


Here, Grandma and Lincoln are enjoying a Thomas book.



Lincoln's bedroom had bunk beds with a couple of very cute stuffed bear skin rugs. Here are Linc and the two bears peeking over the rail of the top bunk.




And because I just loved the bear skin rugs, I pulled them into the family room for a photo session. Here are the best pics I got...

This bear is no match for Cassie-the-destroyer. She will eat the bear!

To get ourselves out of the house for a bit, we drove to Gaylord for the afternoon one day and went to the Call of the Wild museum. Lincoln got to learn all about animals that live in the wild. Here he is listening to a blurb on ducks.

Dad got in on the action as well.

Here are Linc and myself, well, just posing for the camera!

And here, Linc and Grandma are working hard on checking off items on the treasure hunt list. Linc got a special prize (a sticker!) because he found everything on the checklist!

Finally, here are Linc & Cass modeling some fuzzy hats!

half-staff.

Yesterday, Linc & I were in the car on the way home from daycare while dad was home with Cassie, who has been sick all week. Linc sees a few flags at half-staff and asks why they are that way. We've actually had this discussion a number of times. I tell him it's to honor someone who has died, etc. Because I wasn't in the mood for another long discussion about it, I just kind of say, "I'm not sure why they're that way today." Linc's response was priceless: "Maybe it's because Cassie has a fever." At least he's sort of getting the concept.

Boo!

Happy Halloween, 2009! This year we had a superhero named Super Why! and a buzzing bumble bee in our house. We bought costumes pretty early in October. Matt had mentioned Spiderman one day and Linc immediately decided that that's who he wanted to be for Halloween. We went to the costume store to try a Spiderman costume on, complete with the puffy muscles, and Linc's first question: "Does it shoot webs, mom?" I about died from the cuteness but was sad to tell him that the costume did not shoot webs. Rats. He still liked the costume well enough but as we looked at other options he spotted a Super Why costume. For those who don't know (if you don't have a preschooler, I wouldn't expect you to), Super Why is a show on PBS that is actually quite cute. It's about 4 friends who solve everyday problems by transforming themselves into superheros and entering classic fairy tales. It's all about reading, the alphabet, etc. Totally nerdy and cute. The costume even has a book on the front - perfect. After spotting the Super Why costume, Linc was sold. Here's a pic of the character as well a couple of Linc.





Note that since we brought the Super Why costume, Linc has mentioned numerous times that he wanted to be Snow White for Halloween. I'm not sure that this would've gone over well with Matt. But I have to say that the kid loves dresses for some reason and since Snow White wears a yellow dress (yellow being his favorite color), Linc seems particularly drawn to her.


Since Cassie is too young to choose her own costume, I settled on a bumble bee for her. Thinking practically, it was a warm costume and was something that she could crawl in without being too uncomfortable. Unfortunately, Cass has a fever today so she won't be trick-or-treating. We did get her into her costume for a bit today though and she got to wear it at her Halloween party at daycare. See our little queen bee below.





Halloween morning was spent carving pumpkins. Here are dad and Linc pulling the guts out of one of the pumpkins. Linc is kind of a neat freak (yes, I am working hard to pass this this trait onto my kids) so we were curious to see if he'd help de-gut the pumpkins. He actually did a pretty good job of it. While he didn't exactly have pumpkin guts up to his elbows, he did help to get a few handfuls out.




And here is the end result. On the left is Linc's. He requested a scary face. On the right is Cassie's. She was napping while we did the carving, so Matt made an executive decision to make a face that had boogers coming out of the nose and its tongue sticking out.



Linc did a good job trick-or-treating this year. He was shy at first but got better and better at shouting "Trick or Treat" at each house. We did keep having to remind him about his thank you's though. I don't know how many times we said, "What do you say?" and Linc would shyly respond, "thank you". Here he is showing off his loot at the end of the night.



And finally, here is Super Why waiting patiently at the door for kids to come and say "Trick or Treat" so that he could hand out some candy.