Christmas Day

Haley and Grandma Ficklin

Grandpa Ficklin giving Haley and Jeremy a "pre-celebration" snack of dried mango.  Jeremy asks for it all the time!

Jeremy and Grandma Ficklin

Haley enjoying an olive off her finger, one of her favorite things

Jeremy watching his cousin Rocco playing the leap pad, Jeremy definetly needs one now

Watching his cousins Rocco and Nino play their leap pads

Jeremy and his cousin Bella and Ashawna

Jeremy watching his cousin Frannie with her lite brite

Jeremy snuggling with his cousin Mia and her phone, she played games on it with him and found train pictures, he loved it!

Christmas Eve

Jeremy and his cousins Rocco and Nino

Jeremy helping Grandma Steffens open her gifts

Grandma Steffens looking at the photobook of Haley we made for her

The playhouse!

Christmas 2011

  Our Christmas celebrations started with traveling to Springfield the Saturday before Christmas.  Jeremy and Haley both had a great time playing with their cousins in the playroom.  There were trains, so Jeremy never wanted to leave and asked us for weeks to go back.
 Then on Christmas Eve morning my parents came over to our house to open gifts. Jeremy loved opening and his favorite thing to say when he was opening was "what's in there" and "a box".  Haley opened a little and then wandered around playing, she doesn't have much of an attention span yet. That afternoon, they played with their new toys while we watched the Chiefs lose :( The favorite gift of the morning was more trains and a Cars racetrack.
  Christmas Eve evening we went to Tim's parents' house for dinner and opening gifts with them,  Jeremy again was excited to open and Haley wandered around and watched.  Haley got a lot of clothes and Jeremy got a small drum set, more trains and a few clothes.  The favorite gift though was a playhouse for both of them
Christmas morning started at our house with gifts from Santa.  Santa brought a train they can drive, which they loved!!  Then we headed to my parents' house for Christmas with the whole family, 37 total people-14 were kids.  It was a lot of fun and Jeremy again was excited to open gifts.  Haley was falling asleep as we were opening, so she promptly went upstairs to take a nap while everyone ate lunch and played.  Both Jeremy and Haley had fun playing all day and evening with their cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles.
  It was another great Christmas and now we looking forward to Jeremy's birthday next month.  Here are a few pictures from Springfield and Christmas Eve morning at our house, more from Christmas Eve night and Christmas Day will be coming soon

Springfield

Christmas decorations

 When I was young, my parents used to take me to the house on Falmouth street to see all of the Christmas decorations.  This year, we were able to take Jeremy and Haley.  In the car on the way there, Jeremy was asking if they had a train and we weren't sure.  Of course they had several and he spotted them right away and was very excited!

Thanksgiving

 This year we had 4 different Thanksgiving celebrations.  It started in the beginning of November when we had it with our friends at our house.  We had 10 adults who were actually able to eat while the 7 kids sat at their table and ate-this was huge difference from when we tried it last year.  The second celebration was at my in-laws house on the evening before Thanksgiving where we enjoyed all the Thanksgiving fixings and the kids had a great time playing together.  On Thanksgiving day, we went to my cousin Jimmy and Desire's house where there were 35 people (12 of those were kids who ranged from ages 15 months to 12 years).  Everyone had a great time eating fried turkeys, lasagna and ham and playing all morning, day and well into the evening, The next day we went to my parents for a much quieter celebration.  My kiddos were the only kids there, so the adults were able to talk and even play a few games of cards while Haley took a nap and Jeremy watched a movie.w
   The pictures below aren't in order for some reason. I couldn't get it fixed, oh well!

Jeremy and his cousin Owen using the Ipad

Haley eating some pre-meal pasta

Jeremy and his cousins Tyler and Owen

Cousin Mia entertaining the boys with games on her phone

Haley with Grandpa Ficklin.  She learned how to put olives on her finger from her cousin Desire.  She ate 20 or so of them!

Haley saying "stinky"

Enjoying some late evening fruit loops before heading home

Haley taking Grandma Ficklin's cheesecake, especially the raspberries

Jeremy and cousin Suzanne

Tim's job for the day-frying the 2 turkeys

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Just being silly at home

Haley trying to reach for another mini muffin after she already had 5!

Zonkers

 Last week we went to Zonkers, which is kind of like Chuck E. Cheese, but it has rides too.  Jeremy had always been interested in the roller coaster, but had never done it before.  He decided he wanted to try it with me.  He sat down and was loving it for a few seconds until we jerked around a curve.  He didn't cry, but I think he was very unsure of what was going to happen next.  He told me he was "done" a few times, but afterwards he said he liked it.  He only rode it once that day, but has talked about it a lot ever since and wants to watch the video of it a lot.  So we'll see what he wants to do next time we go back.  They do have  a train to ride there, which he loves!  This was the first time we had been since Haley started walking and she had a great time exploring everything!  She didn't do any of the rides yet, but I'm sure that's coming soon. 

Ready to go

Lunch break

Haley and Grandma Ficklin

Jeremy with Grandpa Ficklin