Happy anniversary to us!

Merry Christmas!

Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Getting ready to go out to a yummy Christmas Eve dinner...

 At the restaurant...

DESSERT!!!

Twas the Night Before Christmas

Meg loves Riggs

Meg loves Riggs...just as much today 

 as she did in June of 2012... :)

Racing around the house

So, the kids have invented this game where you race around a circle in our house as fast and loud as you can, but you have to have a "vehicle" of some sort with you... and they (easily) convinced Brian to race with them. On this particular day, hats were required as well. 

Christmasville Festival

The kids really enjoyed the annual Christmasville Festival today.  They did all the bouncy house stuff, rode the ponies, rode the carousel, and got balloon hats and animals.  We also rode the Ferris wheel and ate some yummy kettle corn.  At one point Scott said it was the "bestest day ever."  

This is Meg in her poofy skirt climbing a-l-l the way up the big slide ALL BY HERSELF!  Do not touch her, she will yell, "NO momma, NO!  Meg do it! Meg do it!" Prepare to wait a little bit longer than it takes the big kids, but - by golly - she can do it all by herself.

Here is Meg tumbling down the slide once.  I missed the photos of her going down the slide several times the right way, darn it.  Amazingly, this did not faze her at all.  She giggled.  Wow. 

Happiness on the carousel.  I did not get pictures of the real ponies because I needed to help Meg not fall off - which was allowed by Meg, since ponies are pretty tall.  Both kids loved the real ponies best. 

Crazy balloon hats and animals.

Christmas tree farm, lights at the park, and SANTA!

These are pictures from our Thanksgiving weekend trip to VA.  The day after Thanksgiving we helped Auntie J and Uncle Kevin find their Christmas tree at the tree farm, then we went to a great light display at the park and saw Santa while we were there.  Fun day!

This is a Meg sized tree among the big ones. :) 

 

The boys posing muscles with the tree. 

Kids racing to burn some late afternoon energy.

Yummy snacks and hot chocolate.

a kiss for Dad. 

These are the great lights at the park.

The cousins enjoying a visit with Santa.

The negotiation - first a high five for Santa and Dad, then a personal high five with Santa, some contemplation (with encouragement about Scott having just gotten off Santa's lap)...

and finally a nice visit with the jolly man himself.  He gave her a small candy cane, and now she is friends with Santa for life. She talked about him the whole ride back to the house.

This display was set up to change with the music, and it was really fun to watch. 

some pictures from Thanksgivng

The rare bloodline GIRLS of Brian's family:

 Wrestle-mania in the basement:

Sibling happiness

Tristan in his happy place

Meg coloring Houston's nails

The gamers

the birthday buddies, Greg and Meg sharing a laugh