Christmas Eve 2011

Well I didn't get caught up by New Year's Day but I am working on it now. Just a few more from 2011 :-) I really want to put them up because I love looking back so it's worth the time to go back and get everything up. And so...a few pics from the days leading up to Christmas Eve as well as Christmas Eve itself.  The Harrisons arrived so we did a few activities with them (which of course included going back to the trains AGAIN). Christmas Eve we opened stockings and tried to head home early. The boys both feel asleep on the way home but Eóin woke up enough to put his stocking out and some cookies for Santa :-) He tried soooo hard to fall asleep even though he was so excited - it was cute to peep in and see him squeezing his eyes closed.

3 Harrison Men (Aidan was off exploring)

True Love :-)

Christmas Eve Shirt (says "for santa, not daddy")

Stockings

Stocking

Noise Makers were a big hit :-)

even with the big kids :-)

Book Review: Love on the Line by Deeanne Gist

To say that Georgie Gail was annoyed when the telephone company send a new man to work with her would be an understatement. After all, she has been managing fine by herself for so long and is proud of her independence.
But there is more to Luke Palmer than meets the eye. In fact, there is so much more to the quiet little town than meets the eye. Somewhere, hiding among the innocent townspeople are a gang of notorious train robbers and it's Luke's job to find them.
Twists and turns abound in this fun and exciting story!

The thing I really enjoy about Deanna Gist is that she finds little gems from the past to base her stories on.  I love that she bases her characters on real people as it makes them so much more interesting - just those little details that bring life to the story.  I really enjoyed Georgie's interest in birds and some of the history about women's fashion and independence from the early 1900's.  A fun read for historical fiction lovers :-)

Thank you to Bethany House Publishers for a free copy of this book to review.

Molly's First Food

We interrupt the holiday pics for a quick video of big girl Molly eating her first cereal. She ate the whole bowl with no problems at all. I knew she was ready because she was getting mad every time she saw us eating and staring at our food :-) She knows what she wants alright!

More Christmas Fun!

No wonder Eóin starts to ask when Christmas is in April - what a lot of fun things to do!

Candy Canes waiting in line to see the holiday express

Such a good girl while we were waiting!

Not so sure about the helper elves!

checking it out from the outside

10 points if you can spot Eóin. They put a tall kid in front of him at the last minute!

 He did a great job singing though!

Picking out some Teddy Bears to send to the Teddy Bear Brigade.

Christmas Activities

Wow - so many pics, so little time! I am determined to get caught up before New Year's Day though :-) Here are a couple of fun things we did leading up to Christmas day. Might have to do this in two posts!

hot chocolate to warm us up after playing outside on a cold day! (Eóin doesn't like it)

driving to see the lights on Jingle Bell Drive in our jammies :-)

my favorite light display - the grinch :-)

Christmas Playland at Crown Center (I took all three by myself and the boys were very good!)

they love slides of any kind!

Visiting with Santa. This was the first year they actually wanted to say hi. 

Eóin asked for a train and Aidan asked for chocolate :-)

A trip to Fritz's for some fries just to watch the train bring them to us.

More Christmas pics to come...