Home Sweet Home

All of the holiday treats have really taken a toll on Mom. We needed to detox in the best way we know how. Lentil soup. We know and can pronounce all the ingredients in it. So, Aunt Becky, we hope that you have fun in the Big Easy while we are back in Indiana cleaning up our digestive tracts.

Our Trans Ohio Christmas

We started out our Trans Ohio Christmas in Northwest Ohio. After a great party at Great Grandma Wagner's house, we had a party at Grandma and Grandpa Seibert's house with all our cousins. Juner in a state of undress. Somewhere along the line, we got the bright idea to dress all the kids the same this Christmas. As Evie and Natalie get older, our years of doing this are limited.
Tessa also get changed, reluctantly.

And the finished product. Annalise was especially excited to hold "Baby" June even though June is almost as big as her. I think they look pretty good and it is only minorly embarassing.

Then present time came and the wrapping started to fly.

Annalise shows us a book that she received.

Then she helps Grandpa unwrap a present from her and Evie.

And to add to the zoo, another giraffe. Thanks Turner Family.

Evie's mind was about exploding when she unwrapped this 101 piece art set (including 9 paper clips). She can't wait to create something.

Aunt Becky made all the big kids art smocks (or bike apron in Oliver's case)

A Clifford book! How did anyone guess that Annalise would like this?

Sr. Mary joined us for the holiday chaos. There weren't too many quiet moments.

It was time to eat. Oliver got to eat first.

Aunt Becky wasn't fast enough so June started in on her shoe.

The "big" kids got to sit at their own table. They did pretty good at having good manners and Jim and Elizabeth were good cafeteria monitors.

Grandma got all the kids these GIANT cookies to eat. Not surprisingly, there weren't any crumbs left when this crew got finished with them.

Then, Evie got her hair cut. We decided to let her grow her bangs out. it's going to be a couple of tough months of hair in the eyes. We promised her some new headbands if she can keep them in. I'm sure it will be driving me nuts until summer.

On Sunday, we loaded up the car to go over the Maumee to Cleveland to Grandma and Grandpa Taller's house.

Of course, we had Christmas presents at their house too!

Annalise delivers packages

And gets to open some too. Maybe she can wear this Panda shirt while she keeps her zoo.

Grandpa really liked the calendar that we made for them.

Grandma also checks out the calendar.

Evie got some new fuzzy pj's with Monkeys on them. Perfect to wear to pajamma day at school.

There was paper everywhere! We had lots of fun with you! Thanks for taking care of the girls while I was sick.

It was a fun few days with Christmas parties every night. It was so much Christmas that Annalise whined all the way home from about Columbus. We almost left her in Springfield. Then, it was a fight to eat dinner and get a bath. We had two tired kids that were in bed with lights out by, no kidding, 6:50 tonight. Of course, they were both sobbing about something, but they were safely tucked away for the night. It's going to be a tough reentry to normal life where you can't get juice and cookies on demand anymore.

Thanks for all the presents, food and hospitality all across Ohio. Next year, you all can come here. We are done driving for a while.

Our Christmas

Santa found us again this year and apparently, two little girls were good enough to receive presents instead of coal.Annalise added to her heard with a new lamb. She named it Lamby. (when she says it, it sounds like Whammy).
Evie opens her first present from Santa.
Annalise loves the Lamby. She has carried it everywhere since Christmas and he has already made his first trip to both Grandma's houses.

Evie received some "tiny balls and sticks"--Magnetix to the rest of us. She really is creative when building with them.

Annalise got a magnetic puzzle with counting and animals. some of her favorite things.

Dad even got a present--something Hickory Farms. See Aunt Becky, I can relax the rules on processed food for the holidays.
This year, we placed emphasis on the fact that you just don't get presents, you give to those you love. Evie carefully picked out present for Annalise and wrapped it herself.

What else could it be but more ANIMALS. We almost have enough to start our own zoo.


Annalise gets to open another present while Evie looks on.

Evie got a Spirograph too. Incidently, we learned that if you press hard enough on the spirograph while making a design, it actually also carves the design into the kitchen table. Now we have a permament record of Evie's first Spirograph design.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to our faithful readers! We attended the 5 pm Mass and had the great opportunity to sit in the chapel behind the altar. At our church, there are these big doors that open the chapel to the rest of the church so as a result, everyone in church could see how straight we were sitting and how well the girls behaved. It wasn't too bad at all. Evie was a little disappointed because all she saw was Fr. Kevin's back.
Two little girls that can't wait for Santa to come. Evie sprinkled out her reindeer food after church. She disappeared around the side of the house so she could put it over by the chimney. Then we read Twas the Night Before Christmas and left a snack for Santa. An apple and some milk. Evie figured that he would like something healthy instead of another cookie. Then off to bed with visions of sugarplums dancing in our heads.

Preschool Christmas Parties

Today was the last day of school before Christmas break. Both girls celebrated with Christmas parties in their class. I got to partake in Evie's because another mom and I made the take home snack of a polar bear made entirely of marshmellows. Some other mom was in charge of the school snack. She brought in cookies for the kids to decorate and eat.
Then another mom read a story.

And yet another mom supplied the craft idea of making a finger print Christmas tree.

And finally, two more moms ran a game (hey, don't all the parents pay teachers to do this for them?? I think I want a refund on my December tutition).

Evie and her buddy with yet another sugary treat. It's going to be a long, sugary Christmas.

Over on the other side of the school, Annalise's class also had a party. Since some of the kids have separation problems, it was a no moms allowed shindig. Her teacher is really good at taking lots of pictures so we can see what is going on at school.

They each got a bell and sang several rounds of Jingle bells.

Here's a group shot of most of the munchkins. They are pretty cute.

They worked on a nativity scene. Annalise's was mostly focused on the "lambies"

They all sat down for a feast of a snack, oreo, goldfish and green juice.

And as a special treat, they got to watch Frosty the snowman . the teacher said she never saw them all sit so still. Well, yeah, turn on a TV for a bunch of 2 year olds who hardly never get to watch and they probably will even forget to blink!

A week's worth of Holiday goodness

Aunt Becky has been complaining on the lack of updates. Well, we have been busy. Besides dealing with the world's longest lasting cold, we have been preparing for the holidays.

On Monday, Grandma Seibert came down to visit. On Tuesday, we helped her to make some of her Christmas cookies. Helped by licking the spoon.
Another guilty party.

It looks like a hard Candy Christmas, Aunt Becky.

Our friends, Mazie and Jen came on Wednesday and stayed until Friday. We didn't take any pictures of Mazie, but trust us, she was pretty cute. She was also never left alone for more than 5 seconds at our house. While they were here, we went to see the gingerbread houses at Connor Prairie. We need inspiration for next year.

Annalise watched the train for about 30 seconds before running off.

Here's Evie and the most impressive entry. It won 1st place--it was professionally done.


Connor Prairie is kind of like Sauders farm, but instead of hauling in the post office from a local township, they focus on the Connor farm owned by Eli Lilly (who had a daughter named Evelyn!) So everything is farm and pioneer (not the seed company) themed. The girls really enjoyed it. Evie and I are reading LIttle house on the Prairie books right now and it was fun for her to see a real covered wagon just like Laura and Mary rode in. ( Incidently, reading these books as an adult is totally different than reading them as a child. Times were rough out there on the prairie. And that Charles, he was constantly pulling up the roots and moving the family around on a whim. Seriously, Caroline was one supportive wife.)

Here's the future vet riding the tractor over to the sheep pen. At one point, she was carrying around 6 big stuffed sheep--but my batteries died.

Saturday was cold and windy when I went out to help the neighbors decorate the entrance to our subdivison. Cold in Indiana is much different than cold in MN. In MN, you would walk outside and you inhaled the cold. In Indiana, the cold seeps into your bones and you can't shake it as easily. After my deocrating stint, we took the girls to a candy cane hunt. That was a long time to be out in the wind. I just couldn't warm up. I needed a couple of heating pads.

Fortunately, there were two available for me to warm my cold bones up!

Three bugs snug in a rug.

Then we worked on a project to send to Aunt Laura and Uncle JM over in France.

Laura, can we send this to you? One ornery brother.

Evie worked hard on her creation.

Shlee (as she is currently called around here--pronounced just as it looks) works hard on the stamping.

Then on Saturday night, we put on our Pajammies and went out to look at Christmas lights.

They even got to take their blankies along. While out, we discovered this amazing house in a neighboring subburb. These people really loved Christmas because they had their whole house covered Clark Griswald style with LED lights and then programmed the whole display to be in sync with music! There were cars parked up and down the street. It was by far the best use of lights I have seen since the guy at the end of the cul de sac in Stryker decorated his yard and the yards of two of his neighbors (you NWOers know what I'm talking about).

They also "slept" in the car. We had to cut our tour short because SOMEBODY has decided to give up a nap on most days. And we ended up with a lot of whine and no cheese.

Finally, we made our Gingerbread cookies.

Here's the beginning of the rolling of the dough.

Evie cuts the shapes while Shlee practices rolling.

She had the dough pretty thin. her cookies turned out a little rough.

More in process work. All in all, they turned out ok, but not as good as last year. I think they were overcooked by about a minute. Fortunately, the girls don't seem to care. When we get around to decorating them, they will be even more dried out. What lucky teachers they have to receive these gifts from the heart.

And finally, there is one hot blooded kid in this house. She never wears socks and most times, no pants either. If she could have her way, she would just wear an undershirt and underpants. We only can keep her dressed when she is wearing a dress and tights. Look at that big belly.