The motherland.

We have spent the last week in Ohio doing the following:

1) celebrating Christmas with lots and lots of family.

2) going to Great Wolf Lodge for "Cousin Camp." Pictured above with Phoebe.

3) visiting old friends.

4) playing with Grandma's legendary Lego pile.

5) opening presents and getting spoiled.

6) eating like royalty.

7) feeding the ducks.

Someday I'll update the blog with our adventures. In the meantime, I'm going to go have some fun!

Christmas is coming

 The kids are so excited for Christmas. The day after Thanksgiving, we pulled out the Christmas decorations and put them up. We have been baking holiday cookies at least twice a week and delivering them to a few locals.

 We often bake in small batches for two reasons: 1) if we mess up, we lose a smaller amount of ingredients, and 2) the fun is in the baking so we can bake more often.

 Phoebe may resist cleaning her room and picking up her stuffed animals throughout the house, but she will always help bake cookies.

 This little man has been eating more and more solid food and sleeping for longer stretches too. Last week I warned my neighbors and hunkered down for some sleep training. After two rough nights, I'm happy to report he is sleeping for seven hours straight - not quite through the night, but I feel sooooo much better. This is good because I just signed up for the Boston Marathon! I got a waived entry (so no qualifying time needed to enter) from my track club, so in a few weeks I'll start training for the marathon. I'm not going to impress anyone with my time this year; I think I'll be happy just to finish this time around.The 2014 race is going to be amazing though. I am really looking forward to it.

 Oliver is finally rolling over a bit. He is seven months old now, so it's about time!

 Phoebe provides plenty of entertainment.

 Not only is it the holidays, but there are all kinds of end-of-the-year things going on. Phoebe finished up a ballet class and had a little recital. She enjoyed dancing around in front of mirrors, but when I gave her the choice between ballet or T-ball for next year, she chose T-ball.

 A friend of ours gave Oliver a Santa suit that he wore to the ballet recital and a few Christmas parties. He has the big belly, but is working on the beard.

We celebrated my birthday this week. Scott and the kids picked out a cake and presents, and we had a little family party. I got new running shoes (my current shoes are way too old), a tiny mouse for my laptop, an awesome winter coat (my coat was so old that the inner liner was deteriorating and flaking away every time I took my coat off), and a skirt and tights. Bruce told me he thought I was so lucky to have a birthday in December because then I could get presents twice that month. When I told him that sometimes people would give a gift and say, "this is for your birthday and Christmas," he was appalled. I think he is okay waiting until May for his birthday.

Just because.

Remember that failed Halloween evening of trick-or-treating? Oliver never got to don the lobster costume, so we had to do a little photo shoot.

 He still has blue eyes - like Scott. I am hoping they stay that way; they're beautiful.

Oliver got the lobster costume and this little turkey costume from Grandma. Remind you of anything? That's okay; he is too young to protest, or remember.

 Phoebe decided she wanted to dress up too, so she put on one of her many firefighter costumes. She says the face above is her "brave face." 

Phoebe needs her brave face frequently. To say she is accident-prone is an understatement. She is constantly covered in band-aids from various injuries. Yesterday she stepped off the back of a step-stool while baking cookies and landed on her head on the floor. Last Friday she fell down the stairs while running down them in snow-boots; she split her lip open and got a nose bleed (Scott did a lot of cleanup while I heaved on the garage floor just from looking at the mess - thank you Scott!). A few weeks ago at church she was wiggling on the pew and somehow launched herself head-down onto the hard floor. There was a loud crack, everyone looked our way, Phoebe lay still for a few moments, then she started wailing and I carried her out to the hall to calm her down. The guy behind us later said that he had his phone out and ready to call 9-1-1 because he thought she was unconscious. I'm glad that Phoebe is just as accident-prone at school so that they actually believe me when I say she fell down the stairs! After the first week of school, her teacher said she went through a box of band-aids (read: please bring in another box!), and most of them are for legit injuries.