Christmas 2011

The kids set out cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for Rudolph (sorry Dasher, Dancer and crew--you're out of luck this year!). When they woke up the next morning, the first thing they wanted to do was check to see if Santa ate the cookies. They came into the living room, glanced briefly at the presents that Santa left them, and made a beeline for the plate. Santa was a bit of a messy eater, leaving lots of crumbs on the plate.

Once it was established that Santa did indeed eat the goodies they left, they turned their attention to the gifts under the tree.

Here's Ethan modeling his new rain boots. He loves wearing them around the house. Seriously, he probably puts them on several times a day. Maybe he's just happy that he has a pair of shoes that he can get on and off all by himself. Now we just need some rain to splash around in.

One of the gifts from Mommy and Daddy was a huge box of art supplies to be shared by both kids. In the box was a foam crown for each kid to decorate, and Kaitlyn couldn't wait to do hers. I think this was the first thing she played with after opening her presents. I like the craft stick embellishments :)

Gran and Papa Bell joined us later in the morning, and the kids had fun opening a second round of presents.

The day after Christmas, we left for Memphis to spend a few days with Jeff's family at Jess' house. The cousins had a grand time playing with each other. And we got to celebrate with Jeff's parents as they had their 40th wedding anniversary! Congratulations, Greg and Linda!

Our kids got to go bowling for the first time. I knew there were bumpers for kids, but who knew that there were these cool ramp things too?!?! The ramps made things a little more fun for the kids and gave the balls enough momentum to knock down several pins. Kaitlyn even picked up a couple of spares :)

With the exception of a couple of elderly leagues, we had the whole place to ourselves :)

After bowling, we went to the Collierville square where the kids could climb on some old train cars that are open to the public.

It kind of looks like a train is bearing down on our unsuspecting family, but I assure you that these tracks were inactive and all the trains were not moving :)

Passing some time on the square by catching up on the daily news...

Mimi and Papa with all four of their grandkids.

December Fun

The Christmas festivities started this year with our annual OC Family Breakfast with Santa. This year, Kaitlyn got to go through the rotations with her BFF Hannah. Everything is SO much more fun when you have a dear friend to experience it with!

We ate breakfast and made reindeer ornaments (which I thought were quite complicated for the preschool set!).

And then we saw the big man himself. Santa! Kaitlyn had no problems with him at all. Ethan wasn't quite so sure. When he first sat down, he insisted on leaning away from Santa and turning his face completely away. In the picture below, we had managed to convince him to at least face forward for a picture, although his body language still communicates his distrust of the strange man in the red suit. But there were no tears, which is a huge improvement from last year! Kaitlyn's requests were a globe, a snowglobe and boots. Ethan asked for stamps (the ink kind, not the postage kind).

What Christmas would be complete without a visit to the Opryland Hotel? I think the kids had forgotten just how spectacular it was because their jaws dropped open and their faces were full of amazement when they first entered and saw all the lights and decorations. They loved the giant trees. It's so fun seeing the world through the eyes of a small child.

Then it was time for Christmas parties and programs at school. For the first time, Kaitlyn and Ethan got to be together in a program! And when they saw each other on stage, they made sure to wave at each other. So cute! Ethan didn't sing a word of the songs, but he did shake his bell with gusto when it was time. Kaitlyn's class was the oldest class on stage, and they were told repeatedly that they had to set a good example for the little ones and sing loud. She took that responsibility to heart and found the courage to sing out on stage for the first time. She was quite proud of herself...and of course we were too! Maybe in two years, Ethan will start singing in his programs too :)

After the program, it was time for class parties. Ethan's party was short and sweet--perfect for a bunch of 2-year-olds with short attention spans!

Here he is with his beloved Miss Julie. I know it looks like he feels the same way about her as he does about Santa, but I promise that he loves her :) He was just being a little shy.

Santa and Mrs. Claus came around to all the class parties. Ethan only got close enough to snatch a candy cane, but Kaitlyn was all about hopping up in his lap.

And here's Kaitlyn with Miss Kristy. We've had several teachers at Otter Creek now, and we've loved every single one of them!

So when school gets out for two weeks, we have to find other ways to spend time with friends and get some energy out. So we had the Brown girls over one day for some welcome distraction. They all wanted to sit together while they ate their snack.

And somehow, they all managed to fit in the closet when they were "hiding" from the pretend tornado that was apparently about to destroy the house. Good to know that we've got tornado safety training covered!

More about Christmas coming soon!

Halloween

This year, we had a princess and an Indian join us for Halloween! (native American? American Indian? not sure what is PC for this costume!) Kaitlyn was quite certain that she was going to be a princess this year, but it was a toss up between Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty for a while. We finally settled on the latter (which thrilled me because it was the princess costume with the least amount of glitter on it--do you know how hard it is to get that stuff out of your carpets?!??!?!)

Ethan could care less what his costume was, and he was happy to wear whatever costume I could find for cheap at the consignment sale :) I'm guessing this may have been the last year that I'm able to get away with that!

The kids had Halloween parties at their school. There were 4 Spidermans in her class! Guess that's one popular superhero! The kids went "trick-or-treating" in Miss Pat's office and upstairs in the church offices. Then they came back down to their rooms to decorate cookies, eat snacks and play games.

Here's Kaitlyn decorating her cookie.

Parents are asked not to come to the 2-year-old Halloween party because it's so hard for the little ones to say goodbye to mommy after a party. But since I was there for Kaitlyn's party, I got to get a sneak-peek at Ethan when his class did their costume parade through her classroom.

A couple of days later, our church had their annual trunk-or-treat. I have never seen so many adorable little costumed kids in one place! Kaitlyn and Ethan could barely carry their pumpkins full of candy by the time they were done.

And these next two pictures have absolutely nothing to do with Halloween. But they were taken on the same weekend, so therefore they are being put in the Halloween post. The John Tune airport had another fly-in, so we went with the kids. We've been to several of these fly-ins now, and we've noticed that each one seems to get better and better. This time, there was a real helicopter and an open-air biplane that the kids could climb in and pretend to fly. And on top of seeing all the pilots arriving for the event in their planes, we got an up-close-and-personal view of a helicopter taking off and landing. Needless to say, the kids (and Jeff!) were enthralled!

First and Last

Our church family said goodbye to a precious place last month. Our congregation moved to a new building a few years ago, but the church preschool/kindergarten has remained at the old site while we built an addition to the new building. The new addition is now complete, so the school moved into the new digs over fall break. The Otter Creek school has been around for 50+ years, so it's hard to say goodbye to such a treasured history in a building. Many children have traveled up these steps and through the fabled red door. I had to snap a picture of Kaitlyn as she walked up the steps for the last time.

And I'm so glad that Ethan had the chance to start at the old building this year. At least he, too, will have a little bit of history at that place. His classroom door is the one with the smiley face :)

Of course, the new school building is incredible and more well-suited to the kids' needs. And it's nice to have the school be back together with the rest of the church. We're looking forward to making more memories there!

The last day at the old building was also the day for Kaitlyn's first field trip. She was beyond excited about going! The only thing that would have made it even better is if she could have ridden on a school bus :) Her class went to Walden Farm in Nolensville, and they got to pick pumpkins, go on a hayride, pet farm animals and run through mazes.

Here's her class posing in front of a wagon.

The crazy face picture...

Kaitlyn with the pumpkins she picked out.

What we've been up to...

We went to the zoo with our friends. I love how Kaitlyn and Hannah insisted on holding hands for a portion of our walk.

The Critter Encounters were a huge hit as always.

The girls liked Stormy the pony.

And so did Ethan!

Normally, we go to Walden Farm every year to enjoy the pumpkin patch and the farm experience. But since Kaitlyn's class was already planning to take a field trip to Walden Farm this year (pictures to follow in another post), we decided to switch things up a bit. So this year we headed to Gentry's farm for our annual pumpkin picking event.

The kids loved the hay ride, complete with a jaunt through the cow pasture where we saw lots of little calves.

And they had fun running through the soybean maze.

Trying to get them both to look at the camera at the same time...

Posing with the pumpkins they selected.

The kids have had tons of fun lately playing "Bear Mountain." This game they created works by piling all of the cushions from both couches into a huge pile in the living room, climbing up on the couch frame and gleefully jumping into the pile of cushions. A twist on Bear Mountain is called Bear Cave (not pictured), where I arrange dining room chairs in front of the cushion-less couch, drape blankets across the chairs and couch frame and create a cozy "cave" inside. If Bear Mountain and Bear Cave are set up at the same time, the kids can be entertained for hours...literally! For this reason, I am a big fan of these games.

Can you see the unbridled joy on their faces??

1, 2, 3, GO! They have so much fun together...

...until they inevitably bump into each other. But they usually recover quickly when I threaten to put away Bear Mountain if they can't get along :)

Other random stuff...

With the weather getting cooler, we've been harvesting the last of our cherry tomato crop. I've only had to pick a handful of tomatoes myself this year because my two helpers love this job.

And here's a picture of Ethan sound asleep. Not even the flash of a camera can wake this kid up when he's zonked out like this! Such a sweet little boy with his bunny rabbit!

More pictures to follow (hopefully!) soon about Kaitlyn's field trip. But seeing how frequently I post, it may wind up being a field trip/Halloween/Thanksgiving post all rolled into one! Ha!