Ice, ice, and more ice

Well, If you're not from around here you may not know that every weekend since Thanksgiving it has rained, iced, or snowed. I really like winter weather, but it has really hampered weekend shopping excursions. The worst of the ice inspired me to take a few photos and show off what our little part of the world looked like.

Trains

It seems that we've started another little Christmas tradition for our little family and that is trekking down to Union Station and checking out the Holiday Spirit Train, the model train exhibits, and this year we made a second trip to see the Holiday Express train that Santa brings to KC to check out the naughty and nice list. A couple of years ago we took Jonathon down to ride the train that used to be in the old Wards store downtown (at least that's what I'm told by my parents). We discovered that they also set up huge model train exhibits which really captured Jonathon and I's attention, and has drawn us back every year. The kids (and me) really dig it and we really recommend it to the rest of you. Just check it out.

Christmas Cookies

One of my favorite activities this time of year is decorating Christmas cookies and that ordeal is usually done at my mother's house with the rest of the family, but things were a little different this year. The plan was for us to go over to Mom's after a long day in "How to have a baby" refresher course, but during Jenni and I's class the beginning of the ice extravaganza moved over the city. So instead of letting the ice build up more Mom gave us the necessary supplies and we took it home and made our cookies. The kids really enjoyed themselves and I think they ate enough frosting, sprinkles, chocolate chips, and M&M's to keep out dentist busy for years to come. And of course, here are the photos.

Kids will be kids

Here is just a glimpse of life in this crazy little clan of ours.

Kayla discovered Jenni's makeup the other morning.




And the kids helped me mount my antlers last week as well. Although their version isn't quite as permanent as I'd like it.

Counting Down

Thanksgiving is officially over and we've started the countdown to Christmas and around our house we found the little ones were having a hard time understanding that Christmas was weeks away. So Jenni decided to sit down and make a countdown chain with the kids. Each link of the chain has the number of days left until Christmas and every night before bed the kids take turns cutting off a link. They are really digging it and they're really excited for Christmas day.