Christmas Break 2014

Christmas Break this year was so much fun. We flew into Salt Lake a week before Christmas & had a wonderful time visiting family. One of the highlights was taking Linc to see St. Nick. We found where my old lacrosse coach was working as Santa so we got a very personal visit. Rich did wonderful...Linc not so well. ;) He thew up on the drive up to Santa and he's been going through some rough separation anxiety. O-well every kid has a bad Santa picture right? 

Christmas day was so much fun. We started the day with my family then after naps went to the Woodbury's. We ended the day at my grandparents house. 

Lincoln's favorite gift at my Dad's house was Marie's dish brush. ;) 

My dad always plays Christmas songs at our Davidson production. I love it! 

You can't have Christmas without cookies ;) 

The day after Christmas we went down to the ski chalet in Beaver. Ryan loves to ski and spent every minute he could on the slopes. Linc and I spent our time at the condo with Darla. Linc loved the snow and was always wanting to go out.

I loved his hat hair. He wouldn't let me take off his snow pants. He also loved to bring me his snowboots and walk around in them.

For New Years Eve we went down to St. George to attend my uncle's big party. Linc loved playing with all my cousins. How cute is this little under the stairs play place. 

We also spent a Sunday with my Hansen cousins. Linc loved their indoor tire swing. 

We loved all the vistors we had at the condo. 

This little kid was always waiting to go outside. 

After a week at the condo we were excited to get back to Salt Lake. I was excited to get out of the house and go places. We took Linc to the Children's Museum at the Gateway. It was so much fun. I'm so glad we waited to go when Linc was mobile. We wanted to go last summer but Linc wasn't crawling yet and this place definitely needs to be explored. He loved the water table and the balls. 

After 2.5weeks in nice warm Utah we traveled back to snowy Indiana. We landed in Chicago with wind chills of -20. We drove home in a snowstorm, set up our space heaters and bundled up. Here's to a long cold winter. 

Christmas Pictures

We went and got Lincoln's pictures taken at a new studio. It was fun, crazy crowded due to the holidays but fun. I don't know if we'll go there again just because they are very good at up-selling you and we ended up spending more then we wanted, but the pictures turned out great! 

Look closely it took him less then 10seconds to find the one dog in the picture and point to it. I was amazed because this was a book by Jan Brett and her books are so full of life in the illustrations. 

"Are we done yet?"

He was super upset once he realized the cookies weren't real. 

There you have our little photo session. 

Field Trip to the Fire House

Today we took a trip to the Notre Dame Fire Station.  With the weather getting colder we've had to come up with new ideas of places to play. I arranged for a bunch of us moms to take our kids to see the fire trucks. The fire fighters loved having the kids come visit and the kids loved every minute of the fire trucks.

Here is a portion of our group in their fire hats provided by the department. 

I was amazed at how much Linc loved it. He was saying "Truck" the whole time and wanted to climb in with the big kids. 

I'm so glad I have such a strong group of friends who keep us busy even when the weather is cold. 

Thanksgiving 2014

Happy Thanksgiving. I am so grateful this year for my 3 boys. Ryan works so hard for our little family and I'm continually amazed at the depth of his brain. Linc is growing more curious everyday. He loves to bring me books and sit on my lap so I'll read to him. He also loves to explore and play with the big kids. Baby Brother is doing great, growing and keeping Mom slightly sick ;).

This year for the break we took our first day off and went into Chicago to go to the Shedd Aquarium. It is rated one of the top 5 aquariums in the nation. We paid more then we did last time to do more activities and it was worth every penny. They had dolphins, sharks, beluga whales, penguins, sting rays and tons of fish.  Lincoln was in heaven. In the basement you can do underwater viewing of the dolphins and other animals. There is also a massive penguin play place, where kids can dress up like penguins and climb and slide all over. Linc was a little too small to really get into the fun...maybe more for Mom's comfort then Linc's ability. He still dressed up and climbed around. This kid is full of adventure. If I wouldn't have stopped him he would have kept climbing and sliding until his head busted open. No fear.

Here is my little penguin. I promise he was happy, not happy to stop and take a picture though.

 They had this water table near the otters and Linc was soaked by the time we dragged him away. It was full of fake creatures so the kids could play as rough as they wanted.

 This is the basic view of our trip. Linc had his face plastered to each case he could reach. It was so fun to watch him walk in wonder from tank to tank. He would bend his knees and point his hands and make sure his parents were seeing the amazing things he was.

This shark tank was huge. We saw the exclusive Saw Fish, which is the longest fish in the aquarium. 

This isn't my picture but I wanted to show you how weird the Saw Fish looked. 

The aquarium had a water show. They did the new Christmas show for us and it was amazing. They had the Beluga whales and the dolphins doing all sorts of tricks. We sat on the front row and when they brought the sea lion out it was right in front of us. Linc loved the show and was completely enthralled. His favorite part was when they brought out their rescued dog. They showed how anyone can train any animal positively. AKA go adopt from the shelter. It made me laugh how excited that dog got him. Forget whales and dolphins this boy LOVES dogs.  

The aquarium was right on the lake. The stage of the water show looked like it was connected straight to Lake Michigan. So beautiful. We'll be going back very soon. 

Thanksgiving started off with Ryan at the ward's turkey bowl while Linc and I stayed warm inside watching the Macy's Parade. Linc loved all the balloons.

For Thanksgiving dinner we went to the grad student dinner at the North Dining Hall. It was $5 a person and delicious. We've decided thats the way to do Thanksgiving. Forget stressing over all the courses and cleaning up afterwards. Let someone else do it for you :) It was super fun and they decorated it so it truly felt like a big family dinner. Thanksgiving for $10 I'd say that was a hit to be repeated. 

 After a wonderful dinner we got home for naps and then I went out shopping with my girl friends. It was snowing all day and waiting in line for the deals was frigid. 

I felt slightly bad for shopping on Thanksgiving but since we don't have family to go visit I thought it was worth it. We are now completely ready for Christmas and at half the prices. 

It was so cold!!!! 

Happy Thanksgiving from Notre Dame.