outside fun.

Matt's mom came for her first visit a few days ago. We had some nice weather and took advantage of it by walking down the block to the neighborhood park. Here they are enjoying the swings.

Here is Linc acting like king of the climber.

Cassidy is enjoying a little bike ride in front of the house.

I just loved the gorgeous color of Lincoln's hair in this picture.

in with the new.

We have arrived in the Land of Lincoln (yes, that is the official state slogan of Illinois). How great is that?

Here we are in our new home in Grayslake, IL. As you can see in the picture below, Lincoln is already enjoying the basketball hoop in the driveway. We are slowly, but surely settling in. It's a good thing that I enjoy unpacking and organizing because there is a lot of that to do!

Here are a few pics of the back of the house. I know, super exciting, right? Some of you haven't seen the place yet, though, so these are for you. We've got a nice, big deck to hang out on.

Because the deck is on the larger side, it actually takes up a fair amount of the back yard so this is what we've got for a back yard, which is much smaller than we're used to. We'll have to go to the park a lot with Linc's ball, bat, and bases so we can practice our baseball skillz.

This was taken from the deck.

My parents joined us for a few days when we first moved to help us get settled and to occupy the kids. Here are my mom and Linc watching a movie on the portable dvd player. Living without tv and internet even for a few days was not all that much fun!

Here is Little Miss Helper aiding Papou as he and Matt put our tv stand together.

And the hard part...saying goodbye. We got SO much done while my folks were here but the time came for them to return home to MI. This was an early morning shot of my dad and the kids snuggling. We're very grateful for Skype so we can see each other regularly.

All in all, the move went very smoothly. We are all adjusting well, are settling in, and are making the house our home. We have met a number of neighbors and all have young kids, which is great.

Here's to our new adventure...we hope you'll join us for the ride (if I can keep the dang blog updated!) as we explore our new surroundings.

out with the old.

We bought our first house in Livonia in Dec. 2002, just six months after we got married and were certain we wouldn't be there longer than five years. We'd either upgrade to a larger house in the metro-Detroit area or would move out of state for Matt's job. Over eight years have passed and the latter has option has arrived. We've moved to Illinois! While it was very, very difficult to move away from our family and friends, we know that we're just a 5-hour car ride away (really, everyone...it's a quick drive!).

Here are some pics as we exited our Barbara St. house, or should I say home? Yes, it was most definitely a home. We were newlyweds in this home. We had our first pet in this home. We had two kids in this home. Seriously, so many major life events and fond memories. Even though I often complained about the old kitchen and the tight quarters, I will miss so many things about this home.

Au revoir, Barbara St.

It was such an odd feeling watching all that we've accumulated being loaded onto the moving truck.

christmas 2010.

As has become the norm, Christmas was busy, but was very fun. We had two family gatherings the weekend before Christmas and then spent Christmas Eve with the Mitchell's and Christmas day with the Gough's.

Here are some highlights...

All of the kids at the Mitchell gathering (Cassie, Madison, Lincoln, Sam, Allison, Riley, Nicole). It's so fun to see them grow and change each year.


Linc on Christmas morning checking out the tree.
Cassidy with her new baby doll stroller.

Linc opening RC (the remote control car from Toy Story). He had been wanting this gift since his birthday in June. It was on every Santa list that he made this year. On Christmas Eve we were talking about the whole naughty vs. nice thing and Linc said he knew he had been naughty and wondered what Santa was going to do about that. Luckily, it seems that Santa is a pretty forgiving guy and he believes in the spirit of children and their ability to continually learn and grow. Because of this, he brought Linc exactly what he wanted. And Linc was thrilled.

Cassie got Linc a Superhero Squad Play-Doh set. Cool.

Cassie showing off her Dora the Explorer Dominos while wearing her Dora jammies.

Cassie showing off her necklace.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, Lincoln thoroughly enjoyed everything the holiday season had to offer from making wish lists for Santa to helping pick out a gift for a 4-year-old boy in need and everything in between.

Type of gifts he received this year include: remote control RC car, magic wand (something he had been asking for), Batcave, Tag book reader and books, a football, tinker toys, a Lightning McQueen sleeping bag, and the Wii game system (so far he really enjoys playing tennis, sword fighting, ping pong, and mario kart).

Surprising gift that offered much excitement: a pair of NFL pajamas. Linc was geeked when he opened these pj's from Grandma. They have the helmets for all of the NFL teams pictured on the jammies and Linc was proud to look them over and name most of the teams! He's a football fanatic just like his dad. How old do you have to be to play fantasy football? I'm sure he'll be ready pretty soon.

While Cassidy didn't care much for Santa this year, she really has come into her own and she enjoyed Christmas. She opened gifts on her own and she's enjoyed all of Linc's gifts as well (she really seems to like the Batcave). Some of her gifts included: dolls and doll accessories, kitchen items, a play piggy bank, and Play-Doh stuff.

Hope you all got things from your wish lists. And, more importantly, we hope you enjoyed the giving spirit of the season and hope you were surrounded by family and friends.

the final visit with santa.

The final visit with Santa this year was at The Learning Tree's family Christmas party (where the kids attend daycare). This year at the party, Santa stopped in for a visit, we got to have dinner in Lincoln's classroom, and had the pleasure of hearing Linc's class of pre-Kindergarteners sing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and The Twelve Days of Christmas. They did a fantastic job.

Here are Papou and Linc waiting to see Santa.

Linc & Santa. We didn't even attempt to put Cassie on Santa's lap. She was content to admire him from afar.

Reading a story with Mrs. Claus.

There's nothing cuter than a class of 4-year-olds singing Christmas carols.

breakfast with santa.

On our second visit with Santa this year, we had breakfast with him! Cassie loves to eat, so here she is enjoying a big plate of breakfast food.

And here she is when Santa came to our table. She's doing all she can to leap out of my arms to get as far away from the breakfast table as possible!

At the other end of the breakfast table, the bigger kids (Alli, Nicole, and Lincoln) enjoyed a talk with Santa. Santa even encouraged the kids to touch his beard, which Linc thought was pretty cool. We found out from Santa that he likes chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin (ick!) cookies and that Rudolph likes carrots. We took a mental note so that we were sure to leave the appropriate goodies for the big guy on Christmas eve.

Linc and his twin cousins.

Linc on Santa's lap:
Dear Santa,

Look at my sweet, innocent smile. I promise that I'm a good boy all the time. I never push my sister down or take toys away from her. I always listen to my mom and dad. I behave well at school. Really. Please bring me a magic wand and a remote control RC (from Toy Story). Pretty please? I also wouldn't mind having some video games and a Batcave.

Your friend,

Lincoln

feeling the spirit.

Both kids helped decorate the house for Christmas this year. They were especially helpful as we put the tree up. I couldn't get the ornaments out fast enough for the kids to grab one and find a branch to put it on. Of course, we had to do a bit of rearranging since we didn't want the tree to have decorations only on the bottom, but it was really very cute to watch them.

Decorating the tree always bring lots of memories to the foreground as most of our ornaments are reminders of places we've been or things we've done, of people who have given us ornaments, of teams and characters that we love, of things from our childhood, etc. I imagine that everyone has feelings of nostalgia as they decorate their tree each year. I often think back on what it was like to decorate the tree with my parents -- my dad putting the lights on first then letting us each put our favorite ornaments on (the ones we made in school, of course!). He'd then put the silver garland on. Fun memories. I hope that as Linc & Cass get older, they'll remember putting our family tree up. I'll surely remember this year...watching their little hands add ornaments to the tree.

In the midst of decorating, Cassie pulled some old stockings out of a box and thought they belonged on her feet. Makes sense if you think about it, I suppose.