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!