Visit From The Brothers

On Christmas night my brother Ben and his family drove up from Indiana to visit us for a few days.  The next day my youngest brother Jordan flew out from Utah.  We were packed in our house with nine people, but we sure had fun.  Our days consisted of entertaining the four kids and our evenings consisted of games and lots of laughter with the five adults.  Great memories were made; that's for sure.

Marshall adores Uncle Jordan.  Marshall was on his lap within minutes of him walking in the door.

We spent a morning at the downtown library.  It was a hit.

Santa gave this gift to Marshall.  I think everyone else has played with it more than him.  :)

Back at the library, Anna was not feeling well this trip so she was not herself, but still quite cute.

Lisa and Anna up in the lighthouse.

Richard and Marshall reading the over-sized books. 

Bridget and the lighthouse.

Benson and the beads.

All of the boys went bowling one afternoon leaving the girls home to sleep.  All four of us appreciated a quiet house.  :)

Our last day together we spent a day in Chicago.  Jordan, Bridget and I did the Skydeck at the Willis Tower.  We were 103 stories up standing in a glass box.  Unfortunately it was cloudy and snowing so obviously the view and the thrill was not so great, but still pretty cool.  I will definitely do this again.

We spent the rest of the day at the Museum of Science and Industry.  It was jam-packed, but we still had fun. 

Unfortunately the visits ended with the four of us and Jordan getting a stomach bug.  Our last two days were spent inside watching a lot of movies and playing video games.  The plus side was that the vacation ended in a very relaxing way.  :)  Thanks for the visits everyone!  We love you all!

Christmas Day

Marshall began our Christmas morning at 5:00 am.  Lucky us.  :)  We pulled him into bed with us which meant that all three of us dozed off and on between 5:00 and 7:00.  I told Richard we have now entered 15 years of early Christmas mornings.  By 7:00 Marshall couldn't wait any longer so we let him at it before Bridget woke up.

It didn't take Bridget too long to wake up and join in on the fun.  She seemed to be more captivated with Marshall's presents.  :)

After our breakfast of Christmas cereal from Santa we moved onto the presents under the tree.  

Marshall with his Christmas loot.

Bridget and her Christmas gifts.

Richard and his HUGE Christmas gift, plus a few other things.  :)

I spent the rest of my afternoon relaxing while Richard attempted his first ever completely homemade apple pie!  It was a definite success!

We ended our Christmas night with a delicious Christmas dinner of ham and potatoes at the McAllister's.  It was a great meal and even better company.  We sure are blessed with fantastic Milwaukee friends!

Photo courtesy of Benson McAllister.  Not bad for a four year old!

Christmas Eve

We had a low-key Christmas Eve this year.  Richard had to work, but made it home by about 4:00, which was a complete delight to all of us.  We had a non-traditional Christmas Eve dinner of homemade Asian food, but it was still delicious and surprisingly both kids ate quite a bit of it.  Dessert was our usual Christmas sugar cookies, which Bridget obviously loved.

Thankfully this kid is finally starting to smile with his eyes open!

After dinner we moved on to the traditional Christmas Eve pajamas.  

 

 

Melting my heart!!!

Fun was then to be had on the couch.  Bridget stood her ground, but Marshall had a ball.

 We tried some timer pictures to get all four of us in.  Obviously not successful, but still a lot of fun.

 After that we called it a night by reading the Christmas story and watching a video to go along with it.  By some miracle both kids fell asleep quickly and the night went smoothly...until 5:00 am when Marshall woke up to open presents.  :)

 

Stagefright

Marshall had his preschool Christmas program the other night.  He has been singing these songs around the house for weeks; he even performed some of them for my parents.  When it came down to it though, his mouth didn't move at all and he did all the actions very small.  He can be such a shy little guy.

Stagefright-Video 2