Christmas Eve morning

Merry Christmas Eve!  Since we will be celebrating with our extended DuPuis family tomorrow, this morning Dan and I celebrated with the kids.  The kids woke up and were very excited to open their stockings!

They were especially excited about their new Webkinz.  They even ate breakfast with us!

 

After eating breakfast, reading the Bible, and singing Christmas carols together, we went back to the living room to open presents together.

 

 

 Even Abbey had a Christmas present to open!

Caleb gave us his present that he made in preschool.  He had a pretty special homemade gift bag too!

Caleb and Lillian made the same ornament in preschool.  It's hard to tell in this picture, but Caleb's hand print is quite a bit bigger than Lillian's!

We had a fun, snuggly Christmas Eve morning!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Trees, trains, and tubes

This morning we surprised the kids and brought them to Frederik Meijer Gardens to see the Christmas trees and trains.  We got there early before the crowds and had a great time!

 

We didn't realize it until we got there, but Frederik Meijer Gardens was without power and running on generators.  As a result, only one of the trains was running, but our kids didn't seem to mind!

 

 

We had fun looking at the beautiful plants and Christmas trees too!

 

The ice from Sunday's ice storm is still around and now the snow has clung to the branches as well. The trees were beautiful all along our drive!

 Later on I took Liam to an appointment with an ear, nose, and throat specialist.  He has had recurring ear infections this fall and has had fluid in his ears since the end of September.  After talking through lots of medical history and taking a close look at his ears, the ENT doctor recommended Liam get tubes put in and his adenoids taken out.  His procedure is scheduled for late January.  While we certainly weren't planning on our little guy having surgery, we are thankful that this should bring relief and prevent any damage.  And, Liam is just thankful that the doctor's office keeps toys on hand!

Ice day #2

Last Friday was an ice day from school, but today turned out to be an ice day of a different kind.  More than 600 churches were closed today, including ours.  Dan and his team had put in many extra hours to prepare several new Bluegrass arrangements of Christmas carols for this morning's service.  To say that Dan was disappointed would be an understatement.  We tried to make the best of it, however, and have a little fun at home.

Thanks to our friend Kelly's recommendation on her blog, we gave the self-timer on our camera a try.  It worked like a charm!  The flashing green light was totally mesmerizing and we wound up with some good pictures after only three tries!

We decided to take a silly picture too, which is definitely one of my favorites!

We also started what may turn into a yearly tradition, the making and decorating of a gingerbread house!  We had a kit from a Christmas or two ago (don't worry, we won't be eating any of it!) and finally gave it a go.  We had a lot of fun!

 

 

 

Although we still wish we had been able to have church this morning, it turned into a pretty great day after all!

Snow/Ice Day #1

Today was supposed to be the last day of school before Christmas break.  Instead, it is our first snow/ice day of the year!  I knew their was "wintry mix" in the forecast but was still surprised to get the phone call at 5:30 this morning and to see over 600 closings listed!  We celebrated with our traditional homemade doughnuts, this time in the shape of snowmen!

Thankfully Lillian had already had her Christmas party at school yesterday.  She was disappointed to miss out on all of the 1st graders watching "The Polar Express" together, so I promised we would all watch it later today!  Today is the perfect day to enjoy the ice covered view from inside our warm, cozy home!

Thanksgiving #1

Today is Thanksgiving!  We started the day with breakfast and a little watching of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  For the first time in our ten years of marriage Dan and I took the plunge (and got a really good deal) and got cable.  So, this was the kids first real experience watching the parade!  We took pictures of some of our favorite floats: a hippopotamus, Toothless the dragon, and minions!

 

 

Later on we went to my parents' house for a BIG gathering of family.  All in all, I think there were 42 of us.  It was quite the event!

 

 Everyone found something to eat!  It was a great day together!

Pictures and storms

I decided that the boys needed to wear their adorable matching ties to church this morning.  I bought them for Easter last year and they simply must be worn more than just once or twice!  Since the boys were looking so dapper I figured today would be a good opportunity to try to get some pictures taken of the kids for our Christmas cards.  After multiple attempts at church and at home I managed to get some pretty cute ones.  Of course I can't share the official shots, so I'll share some outtakes instead.

 

 

 

Why, yes, our son has a pine cone in his mouth.  We like to build up his immunity.

We lovingly refer to this as Lillian's "purple minion" face.

What you can't tell from the pictures is that immediately after they were taken we rushed inside and spent the afternoon in the basement as huge storms rolled across the Midwest.  Thankfully we did not receive any damage, but as most people know, several towns in Illinois were not so fortunate.  On a lesser note, I am thankful that the kids have taken to Dan's fascination with storms (mine, too) and never seemed afraid.

Painting elves

Lillian and Caleb have two days off this week because of parent/teacher conferences.  Yesterday they got to stay home in their pajamas all day with Daddy.  Today it was my turn to stay home with them and we had a blast!  I suggested painting turkeys while Liam was napping (one year-olds and paint don't always mix well!).

The kids loved the idea and continued painting for hours after that!

 

By the time Daddy got home they had quite the gallery to show him!

We also had something else to show him... it is a yearly tradition of ours to create an Elf Yourself video and this time we did so a little earlier than usual.  Even though I woke up with no voice today I still managed to laugh out loud at this one!  Feel free to check it out here!

Crazy hair day

Lillian's school is having Spirit Fridays for the month of November.  Last Friday was pajama day, which was perfect timing right after Halloween.  Today was crazy hair day and Lillian had her first experience with temporary hair dye!

 

 

As a bonus, today is one of my Fridays off (I work every other Friday) and I was able to volunteer in Lillian's classroom and see all of the crazy haired kids!

Caleb the star!

Today Caleb had his second turn as the star helper in his preschool class.  He was so excited that he literally jumped out of bed this morning!  He loved all of his special jobs in class today and I loved being there with him!

 

Snapshots of Liam

In honor of Liam's ridiculously cute outfit (thanks, Kevin and Trisha!) and the fact that today is one of my days off, I took way more pictures than usual to capture our cute, curious, crazy little man.  The first shot is absolutely adorable to me because Liam dragged Lillian's toy high chair out of the bedroom and tried to make the teddy bear sit in it!

 I am indebted to the person who invented the "child lock" feature!

I love it when the boys play together!

Liam loves to drag chairs and toys around to help him reach higher!

See?

And he loves climbing in general!

Oh, Liam Daniel, at 1 1/2 years old you are so full of life, joy, and curiosity!