December

Annual Santa Visit, a photo by tracyg00 on Flickr.

Seriously, what is my deal? It doesn't seem all that hard to sit down and type out a few lines right? For some reason I can't seem to update this thing on a regular basis. Actually, to give myself a little excuse.....I sat down and wrote out all kinds of details on the month of December with photos, etc and when I went to post it to this blog, I got an error message and "poof" all of my writing was gone. So, I was mad and had to step away from the computer. So, I'm starting over and this time I'll save it before posting. Lesson learned.

We saw Santa at the beginning of December for our annual photo. The kids were already complaining a little bit about having to take the Santa photo, but too bad. I can't imagine how tough this will be when they're teenagers. Yes, I'm gonna make them do it. They'll thank me someday. Hee hee. Of course, when we go to the mall we have to stop at the toy store to add items to the Santa list. The kids started taking pictures with my phone this year to document the "wants". This was actually nice because when people would ask what they wanted for Christmas, I could just send the photo from my phone. Thanks kids.

Aunt Jenny gave the kids the Elf on the Shelf this year. The Elf is said to hang out in your house all day and then when everyone goes to sleep he flies up to the North Pole to keep Santa up to date with the household's behavior. The number one rule is that you can't touch the elf. He will lose his magic. You're supposed to name your elf when he comes to your house. Somehow, Jake came up with the name Harold Sweetcheeks. So, that's what he ended up with.



There were a couple of mornings that we woke up and Harold Sweetcheeks was in the same place as the day before. Jake said, "maybe we should have named him Harold Lazybones".

Both Megan and Jake love to play on the iPad. Jake has taken a liking to YouTube where he finds videos of video games. Yes, that's right. He also likes toy reviews. One time he came across this video of a reviewer that was comparing the packaging of some toys. The guys was giving these funny reviews and comparisons of something and Jake said, "This is dumb. This is just an old guy talking about the package".



QAS had their annual Candles and Carols program on December 15th. We thought we were so slick with seats in the 3rd row. It turned out that we were in the one and only spot that we couldn't see Megan (due to a post and a music stand). Darin ended up moving the music stand just before the end, so at least I got a photo or two. Here's Megan with her friends Logan and Sarah:



The next day (Friday, Dec 16), we went up to the cottage. We brought a dry-erase board and Megan drew her Andy Warhol inspired Pop Art iPhone.



On Saturday, the Cleavelands came up and Darin and Will began working on the lakefront area. They broke out a concrete wall:



Fortunately, it's been a mild winter so they were able to get to it.

We left that Saturday night because we had promised the kids we'd take them downtown to have lunch by the big Christmas tree at Macy's. So Sunday morning we got up and took the train downtown (this is probably one of the highlights of the day):



We checked out some of the windows outside of Macy's:



Then we headed inside to warm up and shop a bit:





We found the Christmas displays and Jake made a fake salad:



By the time we made it up to the Walnut Room, the wait for a table was over two hours. At least we got a glimpse of the tree:



We decided to head over to the Atwood Cafe at the Blackstone Hotel across the street. It was just as fancy and the wait was MUCH shorter!



And they had a tree, too:



After brunch, we went over to Millenium Park since it was pretty warm. We took a family photo by the Bean:



More Bean:



Megan decided that it would be great if we could just move downtown. This girl loves the city:



On our way back to the train, we made a stop at the Comic Book Store. Jake was pretty excited about this place:



And then we headed home on the Blue Line. Here are my little independent travelers:



Jake's class had their Christmas party on Dec. 20. Santa stopped by for a visit:



Here's the whole class:



Darin celebrated 46 years on December 23. Lisa and Will brought the kids over for dinner and cake.



When our guests left, Darin and Megan exhibited their latest favorite pose:



I'm gonna pause here and then do a separate Christmas post in a few.