Toy Blizzard

Here are a few pics of making cookies for Santa!

The Ossege family had the most blessed Christmas this year…two full days of quality time with family filled with wonderful memories! We are soooo fortunate to be able to spend a whole day with each family. Christmas Eve, we celebrated with the Grothaus family and Christmas day with the Ossege family. One of our favorite family traditions is the day after Christmas: everyone stays in PJ's all day and plays with ALL of the new goodies we got and don't clean up till the next day!!!(soooo FUN!)

Below is a collage of pics from our Christmas celebrations:

Merry Christmas 2009!

Adventures in Winter Wonderland

Christmas break has begun and we aren't wasting a second. First, I'll share a cute pic of Austin carrying Randy's laptop backpack and wearing his safety glasses. Plus the snowmen the girls made!

Monday, we spent a glorious afternoon downtown taking in all the Christmas sights…the trains at Duke Energy, lunch at Tower Place, a candy treat at Murray Bros. and ice skating on Fountain square! The girls then spent the evening making Christmas cookies with Christy and Steph.

Tuesday, Randy and I got 5 hours of kid-free time to Christmas shop and enjoy each other's company; special thanks to my mom! We spent that evening checking out the Festival of Lights at the zoo. The light show on the lake was illuminating and the Polar Express Experience 4-D was out of this world! (definitely worth the $) Austin just LOVED the big choo choo!

Tonight, we are making cookies for Santa, pics to come later!

Choo Choo Birthday!

Austin was so excited when he saw the choo choo train cake I made him! His face lit up and he grinned from ear to ear; enthusiastically yelling "Choo Choo". He wanted to grab all the candy pieces on the train. He received lots of very nice presents and a wonderful homemade birthday sign from Lexus and Kimberly. Grandpas and grandmas from both sides of the family helped him celebrate turning two years old. He made a terrible mess of himself with the black icing and sampled each of the candies I used to decorate with. Sooooo hard to believe our little baby boy is already two years old; but oh they have been two wondrously memorable years we will never forget



!

Happy 2nd Birthday Austin!

Happy 2^nd Birthday Austin!!!

 

Our baby boy is celebrating his 2^nd birthday today! I am making him a "choo choo" cake for him; he is obsessed with trains at the moment. I am hoping to wrap presents during his nap today. Nothing like waiting till the last minute…I become a huge procrastinator this time of year. A month is not long enough to get everything done. I just mailed our Christmas cards, hope they make it to everyone before Christmas. I promise to post pics of Austin's birthday dinner tonight.

 

We are officially on Christmas break! What a great way to start Christmas Break…waking up to SNOW!!! Friday was filled with Christmas for everyone. Randy filled in as room parent for me at Lexus' Christmas breakfast and headed up "Put the star on the tree" at Kimberly's Christmas party. Lexus' chorus sang in downtown Cincy at PNC bank and the Chemed bldg. Our staff x-mas party was last night; It really gave me a chance to get to know my co-workers outside of school.

 

Below is a pic of the x-mas tags I made for my assistants gifts. Aren't they so cute!

 

Our chicks have finally started laying eggs!!! Which confirms we have three hens (thank goodness), I don't think the kids would of accepted having to get rid of one if it was a rooster.

Trimming the Tree

Saturday night, the kids and I were so thrilled to pick Randy up at the airport! We have all missed him a lot the last 2 weeks while he was in Australia. He showered all of us with amazing souvenirs. My favorites are the black opal and the authentic boomerang. Sunday, we made our annual trip to Bezold Pines to cut down our Christmas tree and visit the quaintest little shop down the road. I bought the cutest snowman to adorn our steps this Christmas season.

 

This year the tree was a little fatter than we usually get; on the bright side it gave us more room on the tree to place the bazillion (is that a word?) ornaments we own. Despite one strand of lights not working and a quick run for more, we decorated the tree pretty quickly. Smiles spread on everyone's faces as we reminisced about each ornament and how we acquired it. It just doesn't get any better than that…I promise! We are now OFFICIALLY ready for the Christmas season J

 

Here is the December bulletin board outside my room, I created it after Thanksgiving. Who doesn't love the GRINCH!