Caution: Christmas Pictures Below

We had an exciting Christmas week.  We started out the weekend before in Midland and headed back to Perrysburg on Monday.  We spent Tuesday with the Phillips clan and then spent Christmas day mostly at home. 

At Grandma Kathy's Mackenzie got a lot of My Little Pony items, which made her very happy.

 

Isaac received quite a lot of Imaginext items, but I think he was most excited about the Pirate themed Hot Wheels toy along with Jake Hot Wheels cars that he received from Uncle Mike, Aunt Misty and Lexie.  The picture is out of focus because he was jumping around too much to get a picture.  He did this after opening a lot of presents.

 

We did a couple of other fun Christmas things in Midland that were still open, since it was before Christmas Day.  Isaac went to the Santa House in Midland. 

 

Here is a very typical Isaac pose:



Here is Isaac signing Santa's guest book:

And finally, here is Isaac with Santa: 

 

We also went to the Christmas Walk at Dow Gardens.  They had set up a cute photo opportunity out front where they had a giant sparkling ornament that you could sit in.  My iPhone didn't take a great shot, but I think this picture of the kids with my mom is still pretty cute: 

At the walk they had an area covered in luminaries where they had lit a candle for everyone that the hospice team had worked with that year.  There was a candle for my grandmother, my great-aunt and my dad.  It was very nicely done and a very pretty tribute.

Finally, I love this picture.  I have a picture of Isaac laying in a toddler bed with Mackenzie when he was only a couple weeks old.  It is my absolute favorite picture of the two of them.  I couldn't resist taking this shot of the kids sleeping together at Grandma's house:

 At Grandma Linda and Grandpa Butch's we got a shot of them with all of their grandkids.  We held the kids hostage for this one and told them that they couldn't open any presents until they took a good picture.  They are focusing on another camera, but I still think I got a pretty good shot.

We always start out opening stockings.  After we were done, Mackenzie took it upon herself to start putting the stockings back on the mantle and even tried to replicate Grandma's color pattern.

After the stockings the gift opening began.  Mackenzie was really excited about all of her new kitchen toys.  She also got quite a bit of American Girl stuff, which was also very exciting.

 Isaac got a lot of lego sets, but really liked the truck that he put together himself and his hat that lights up.  Isaac and Mackenzie love the Prep and Landing shows.  This year they spent time dressed up as elves (aprons and safety glasses that they got at a Lowe's event) and pretending to make toys.  Now Isaac has a Coal Elf hat as well and likes to pretend to be a coal elf.  It was also useful for him to find things under Grandma and Grandpa's couches :)

Last, but not least, Christmas at home.  Mackenzie got a cat Fur Real Friend and Isaac got Imaginext City from Santa. They got a lot of other great stuff from Mom and Dad and Aunt Tina and Thomas and Nicholas as well, but the Santa gifts were definitely the highlights for them.

We all had Mickey Mouse pajamas for Christmas this year and the kids learned on Christmas day that we are going to Disney!

Finally, if you made it to the end of this long post, you get to read my heart-warming story of Christmas.  When we were at church on Christmas Eve the pastor did a children's sermon.  Mackenzie and Isaac went up and the moral of the sermon was that Jesus was the best Christmas gift that any of us could ever get.  When the kids came back to sit down Mackenzie told me that she told the pastor that her little brother was a great present as well.  The pastor actually repeated what Mackenzie told her during the remainder of the service. 

Happy Holidays!

Snow, Snow, Snow

We have gotten a lot of snow this week and the kids are loving it, especially Mackenzie.

Saturday it pretty much snowed all day.  We stayed home and enjoyed the day together, doing a lot of prepping for Christmas, including making Christmas cookies.

On Sunday morning we took the kids shopping for Christmas gifts for cousins and then we headed to the hill to go sledding.  After sledding for a while, Mackenzie decided to build a snowfort.  In the picture below, you can see Brian in the background, but Mackenzie is hiding behind her fort:

 Here you can see Mackenzie's head poking up from behind her fort:

 

Isaac loved sledding, but when we got home he was ready to get warm.  As we were getting out of the car I said, "Let's head inside and get warm."  I resceived an animated, "No" from Mackenzie.  Isaac and I headed inside while Mackenzie went down the street to get Payton.  The girls used our two sleds to drag big chunks of snow from our front yard, where the folks plowing the snow were nice enought to pile it on top of my flower bed, to our back yard.  They made a nice circular snow fort/house.  Mackenzie informed me that they just need to make the beds now.

Mackenzie continues to spend time in the snow each day.  Isaac on the other hand is loving pbskids.org.  He has decided that he really likes hot chocolate if he does spend time in the cold though.

I finished wrapping Christmas gifts today.  I think that I am ready.  I am sure that I forgot something though and I will be frantic on Christmas morning over something.  One more week . . .

Hilarious Conversation on the Way to Gymnastics Tonight

Isaac:  Mom, you are going to be invited to my wedding.
Mom: Great, I would really like to be there.
Isaac: You have to get a pretty dress.
Mom: OK.
Isaac: Mackenzie you will be invited too.  Dad will be invited to my wedding too.  He will have to wear his nicest shirt.  Mackenzie you have to wear a nice shirt too.  Uncle Mike will be invited too and Grandpa Butch.
Mackenzie:  I am not going to where a shirt.
Isaac: Oh, right you have to wear a pretty dress.
Mom: Isaac, do you know who you are going to marry?
Isaac:  No, who?

Happy Thanksgiving

It has been a long time since I have posted.  A lot has been going on, including a change to my work schedule, 3:45 am calls with Malaysia, my 38th birthday, and Thanksgiving. 

Isaac and Mackenzie both continue to entertain us immensely.  They have been having a lot of fun picking out Christmas presents.  Last weekend I took them to Meijer and after grocery shopping I let them wander the toy aisles to pick out what they wanted to ask for from Santa and Dad and me.  They had already checked all of the toy catalogs we had received and circled what they wanted in those and we had shared that information with grandparents and aunts (cause lets face it, they do the shopping).  Mackenzie picked three items out pretty quickly and narrowed it down to two quickly.  Isaac on the other hand wanted everything he saw in the "boy" aisle and it took him a while after we left the store to narrow down his top two.

When we were watching the Thanksgiving parade we saw the Rockettes.  We had gone to the ONU Holiday Spectacular the weekend before and one of the songs performed was "I Want to be a Rockette".  I asked Mackenzie if she remembered the song and she explained to me that she does not want to be "Rockhead".  We explained to her what the Rockettes were and she watched them for a while.  Lately Mackenzie makes up songs and sings them constantly.  She informed Brian that if he needed her, she would perform in one of his shows.

On Tuesday Brian took Isaac up to Grandma Kathy and he got to spend a day and night alone at Grandma Kathy's with Lexie, whose school had been cancelled due to ice.  Brian, Mackenzie and I joined them on Wednesday evening for dinner.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  My Grandma and Grandpa Conklin joined us for dinner as well as Michael.  Misty joined us after dinner.  After the kids went to bed we played some high-energy domino games and drank some of the wine Mom and I got during my birthday trip to Sandusky.  A lot of little things reminded me of my dad over the weekend and I had my moments of sadness.  It was odd to me that what made me most sad was seeing the desk he has setup in the basement to work on his wine bottle lights, lazy susans and other woodworking while I was folding laundry.  However, it was nice to be with family.  The whole holiday was low stress (the most stressful time for me was being in charge of the gravy).  The kids even seemed to get it.  They got along most of the time, went to bed fairly quickly each night, and helped out as much as they could.  Today before we left Isaac helped Grandma put the Christmas decorations outside.  When I called my mom tonight she told me Mackenzie was quite the task master and that they had gotten a lot of decorating done in the house.

Meanwhile Isaac came home with us and we got "Planes" from the RedBox and had dinner in the den, with a fire going and watched the movie.  He watched the movie very intently and when the two main planes had a disagreement he got very sad and started crying.  It is so amazing to get to see the two of them develop.  It is heartwarming to see that he understands the emotions and the relationship between the characters.  When I met with Isaac's teacher last week she explained to me that she loves listening to Isaac during morning prayer time because he speaks to God like he is a friend and he tells him long, detailed stories.  I love that his teachers pay attention to those things.

So things are good, not great yet, but very good.  Brian and I are watching "World War Z" right now.  I have finally decided it is time to forgive Brad Pitt for leaving Jennifer Aniston for Angelina Jolie.  I thought that Brian would like this movie because he has been talking about the zombie apocalypse.  Hopefully I don't have nightmares tonight.

An Extra Halloween!

Well, our rescheduled trick-or-treating was last night and was a huge success.  It was a really nice evening, although it got dark and cold pretty fast while we were out (thank you Daylight Savings Time).

Here is a shot of the kids and their cousins at our house:

Unfortunately Mackenzie is leaning on her pumpkin, so you can't see its face, the first she has ever cut out on her own.  However, if yo utake a look at Isaac's pumpkin, you can see the blood drop that Mackenzie added to his jack o'lantern.  I am calling it a blood drop because that is what it looks like to me.  Neither of the kids suggested that it was supposed to be a blood drop.

The kids had fun going around the neighborhood trick or treating and most of the houses in our neighborhood participated, despite the reschedule.

I am headed to Tempe, AZ this afternoon for a couple of days for work.  We shall see how much candy is left when I get back :)  To be honest, most of the time when the kids get candy I end up eating some of it and then throwing a lot out.  They are really excited when they get it, but then they forget about it.  I am sure that will change as they get older.

Happy Halloween!

So it has been an interesting Halloween so far.

The weather prediction was for some very strong storms and 60 mph winds here during trick or treating time.  So a lot of areas started postponing their trick or treating.  The Perrysburg Township, where our house is postponed trick or treating until Monday as of early this morning.  Initially the city stated that it was not going to postpone trick or treating no matter the weather, however this afternoon it was announced that they postponed until Monday as well. 

We were scheduled to go to the Rogers household prior to trick or treating for a pizza dinner with Brian's family, and we stuck to the plan.  Here is a shot of the cousins in their costumes:

Isaac wasn't super happy about having his picture taken for some reason.  His robot helmet is also much to big for his head, but it is still pretty cute.  According to Isaac his friend Liam kept trying to pull his antena off at school today.  The hot glue held pretty well.  Mackenzie loved her cat costume, especially the tail.  She asked me on the way home from school if I would cut the tail off so that she could keep it once she outgrew her costume. 

I didn't take any pictures of Mackenzie and Isaac with their pumpkins since we didn't come back to trick or treat.  Hopefully the jack o'lanterns will last so we can get a picture of them.  Mackenzie carved her pumpkin on her own (with me close by) for the first time this year and did an excellent job.  Isaac gave in and allowed Brian to do the carving for him, but later asked Mackenzie to add some flair, so his traditional jack o'lantern looks like it has blood running down it's forehead.

Last night Isaac was unable to sleep for a good portion of the night.  That is really unlike him so we were all a bit tired today.  So far he is sleeping well this evening, but I am going to head to bed early, just in case.

Happy Halloween!

We Love Fall!

Today has been rainy all day.  It is a true midwestern, fall day.  The kids have been busy all day.  We did a lot of cleaning in the morning and then had some fun.  The kids built an awesome fort with all of the couch cushions and pillows, they played cat and dog and had fun climbing under the coffee table, they did spice art (Mackenzie did this at CDC and thought it was pretty awesome) and Mackenzie did some sewing and Isaac played Imaginext.  Brian and I stayed busy as well, I worked on Isaac's Halloween costume, Brian worked on the master bathroom, and we worked together on an awesome dinner of standing rib roast, potatoes, and peas.   We are now in the den watching the Georgia vs Tennessee game.  Isaac wanted to watch football before bed time and unfortunately ND has a night game tonight.  It is supposed to rain all day tomorrow also, hopefully we can stay occupied and find some fun stuff to do again.

We spent last weekend in Midland with my mom.  We had fun going to farmer's market, the nursery and apple picking.  For some reason I can't get my pictures to rotate on the blog, even though they are rotated when I open them on my computer.  I have to go start bath time, so I am just going to attach them for now and hopefully figure it out later.

Posing on the hay bales at the nursery

 

Mackenzie found this cool tree at the farmer's market

 

She would have stayed there all day if we had let her

 

I made apple sauce with the apples that we picked and canned it for the first time.  If the canned jams and applesauce last (as they should) for the winter, I think canning may become a pretty big hobby for me.  I don't know what took me so long, but it is really quite easy.  It is also nice to know exactly what is in them, to not buy canned goods at the store and to have them here when we want them.

 

Finally, I am working a new schedule at work, which allows me to be home when Mackenzie gets off the bus, which I really like.  It means that Brian is on his own with the kids in the mornings though.  He told me about this conversation that the three of them had the other morning:

Isaac: I want a blue house

Brian: When you have your own house you can paint it any color you want

Isaac:  I don't have a big ladder though

Brian: You can borrow my ladder

Mackenzie:  Can girls climb big ladders too?

Brian: Girls can do anything boys can do

Mackenzie: I can't walk around with my shirt off