holiday fun

This year we attended Silver Bells in the City, a parade in downtown Lansing that takes place at night with floats covered with lights.  It was a wonderful night for the parade, although a little chilly with a strong wind.  We all bundled up, brought along some hot chocolate, and had a wonderful time.  It was our first time taking the kids to the parade and they thoroughly enjoyed it (although Drew thought there weren't enough construction vehicles).  In the picture below we had grabbed our spot and were waiting for the parade to begin.

Kate was warm in her scarf and hat, which were needed because of the cold.  I think next year both kids will be in snow pants and boots, especially if it's windy again.

Here's one picture from the parade.  Our camera doesn't do that well with this sort of light, but I think you get the idea.  The fire truck was one of Drew and Kate's favorite vehicles in the parade!

This is a random shot of Kate who is getting bigger and more little-girlish by the day.  Over the past few months her enunciation has dramatically improved and she chats away.  Also, she continues to grow like crazy.  From late August to November she grew an inch.

In the beginning of December we went to the Christmas tree farm to cut down a tree.  This has been an annual tradition for our family and in keeping with tradition, it was a cool morning.  For this trip the kids were decked out with boots, snowpants, gloves, hats, coats, everything we could throw on them to keep them warm.  Drew and Kate did a nice job of posing here for a minute before we headed out into the farm.

Drew didn't enjoy it as much as Kate, but I picked both of them up for a picture (Drew is trying to wriggle away).  Despite their combined 80 pounds of cuteness, they're still my little ones!

After a tractor ride out into the farm, we tromped around through the snow looking for a tree.  Drew and Kate both found sticks and made tracks in the snow (like in The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats).  You can see Kate is holding her stick if you look closely.

I don't think we got a picture of our tree carcass as we lugged it off the farm.  We were a little distracted by Kate and Drew and how much fun we were having walking around outside.  Toward the end, everyone was ready to get back to the car to thaw out!

the things they say

Jana and I continue to enjoy watching Drew and Kate grow up and become increasingly interactive with us and the world around us.  Those interactions, of course, often lead to some interesting conversations and things that Drew and Kate say.  I've got many more pictures on the way, but thought I'd do a brief post highlighting some of our conversations.


One evening over dinner Jana and I were telling the kids about our jobs. Both Drew and Kate like to hear about what we do during the day while they are at daycare. Jana explained that she is a teacher at MSU and that dad is a scientist at MSU. She added in explaining our education level that "both dad and I are doctors." Drew drily replied to Jana, "Yeah, but you're not a REAL doctor like dad, are you?" Both Jana and I were speechless for a moment. I didn't put him up to that! As it turns out the qualificatoin for being a real doctor is a lab coat. I wear one. Jana doesn't! :)
A few days ago on the way to pick me up from work Jana and the kids drove down a street near MSU with several buildings owned by faith communities. We like to drive along and name things and point them out to Drew and Kate. Jana is especially talented at this. Drew and Kate will often chime in with their own ideas for what things are or they'll notice things that we usually miss.  It's more entertaining than it sounds.  As she was pointing things out, Jana noted the local "Islamic center." The building is fairly distinctive. After a pause, Kate very matter-of-factly added, "Llamas go there."

This one is not as amusing but just shows the random yet sometimes profound things Drew and Kate come up with.  This past weekend I was with Drew and Kate in the car and we were talking about the pledge of allegiance, which Drew knows from school. Drew and I started saying it together and afterward Drew said, "Indivisible sounds like invisible. Invisible is something you can't see. Like God. He is invisible." At that point, Kate piped up, "We see God." Drew, who likes to be right, countered in an exasperated tone, "No Kate. We can't see God. HE'S INVISIBLE." Kate shot back, "We see God. In the Bible. We see God when we read the Bible." We weren't quite sure what she meant by that, but Drew had no comeback so it ended the conversation.  No doubt Drew was questioning, as I was, what the nature of "seeing" is.

Finally, I recently got home in the evening and was interacting with Kate.  Suddenly she looked at me with a furrowed brow and said, "Dad, is that a new shirt?"  I replied, "No, it's not new.  Why?  Do you like it?"  Kate looked it up and down one more time and said, "No.  Not really."  Then she walked away.

Kate's first haircut

At our house, I'm the hairdresser for me and for Drew.  We head down into the basement and get a haircut about every month or couple weeks.  It works well, especially since Drew likes his hair cut similarly to mine.  Every once in a while Kate wants her hair cut, so I've taken out my scissors and evened things out a bit.  However, my skills are pretty limited and when it came time for her first official haircut, Jana took Kate out to get it done.

In the picture below, we tried to get a shot of Kate pre-haircut.  She wanted none of it!

Look at those shoulders all scrunched up in this picture!  While excited about the haircut, she was not feeling it for having her picture taken.

Jana and Kate went on their own to the "beauty salon" (that's what Kate calls it).  She was pretty thrilled to be there.

The rest of these pictures probably tell the story as well as I can do it, especially since I wasn't there.  Jana and Kate went to a woman we know, who had a child in our daycare.  We asked for a very light trim into a cute bob (Kate's hair wasn't THAT long).  We're thrilled with the results and that Kate loved the experience!

She didn't smile much, but Kate did do a great job sitting still and she enjoyed her experience.  Her hair continues to get longer and thicker . . . it will be fun to see what we're able to do in the future with Kate's hair.  This whole girl hair thing is totally new to me coming from a family of boys!



catching up

It has been quite a while since I've posted more pictures and stories on here.  Don't worry, the blog is not forgotten, we've just been quite busy. 

In the picture below the kids and Jana are watching "Toy Story" (the original).  We don't watch much TV and Drew and Kate have only seen a handful of movies.  As you might guess from their glued-to-the-TV expressions, watching a movie was pretty exciting.  I think I could have waved candy or anything else from where I was taking this picture and it would have gone completely unnoticed!

I can tell this picture was taken a while ago because it was still warm out.  I think I've mentioned this before . . . both Drew and Kate like to mimic things that Jana and I do.  Well, when I get hot I often take off my shirt at home.   Now Drew and Kate do it too whenever they are hot!  While we're not encouraging shirt removal (especially for Kate), it is pretty cute to see them running around in jeans and no shirt in the basement.

It has been a while since I've posted on here because next I've got a series of pictures from Halloween!  Yes, we did celebrate Halloween this year, I've just been really, really late in getting these pictures on here.  In the first one Drew is showing off his police uniform.  He got this at the end of last year and has been eagerly waiting to wear it for Halloween.  Drew has wanted to be a policeman for several years, but we haven't been able to find a good costume.  I guess most children don't want to be a policeman for Halloween.  Finally, after much searching, we found this SWAT officer uniform.  Drew was thrilled.  It has a club, handcuffs, a walkie-talkie, and percussion grenades.  Pretty cool stuff.

Drew and his friend in Mario costume get ready to go out trick-or-treating.  We went out again this year with a group of friends and their children.

This year for Halloween Kate wanted to be a firefighter.  She was originally hoping to be a "princess firefighter," which involved a firefighter coat and hat with princess skirt and shoes, but the princess part got dropped (that was her decision).  Clearly, this is a little girl with an older brother and an uncle who is a firefighter, as this is probably not a common little girl choice for costume. 

Here's the crew getting ready to head out.  With our policeman and firefighter, we had the emergency services pretty well covered.  We were also well prepared in case the MSU students decided to riot :)

Drew was a candy-getting machine.  We had him dressed warmly as it was quite cold out, but we didn't anticipate that he would run the whole time (seriously, the WHOLE time).  By the end, we'd had to empty his bucket a few times because it got too heavy for him and Drew was completely drenched with sweat.  Both Drew and Kate had quite the haul of candy, and both had a great time.

 

The week after Halloween we took a trip to Chicago.  We're such Michigan people that we realized it was the first time Drew and Kate had left Michigan!  We headed down to Chicago to show Drew and Kate the "big city" and also to visit our friend Nora.  For most of the trip we did a terrible job of remembering to use the camera.  We visited the Field Museum and had a blast.  On our way to Nora's place, we drove by Wrigley Field to show Drew and Kate one of Chicago's landmarks.

Both Drew and Kate loved visiting Nora's place.  It's on the 12th floor, which is the highest they had ever been in a building.  They loved the view and they loved the fact that it was so high up.  Drew and Kate aren't too tough to please though.  In the picture below Kate was exclaiming over her reflection in a shiny pot!

Both Drew and Kate clambering onto these ledges running around the apartment and put their hands all over the windows as they looked out. 

After a while Drew and Kate slowed down a bit.  Drew found a toy magazine that Nora had, while Kate pulled out the New Yorker for some light reading (I'm serious; that's what Kate is holding).

As they continued to read, they migrated to Nora's bed and made themselves at home.  At one point, both kids were sitting under the covers enjoying their reading and playing (we made sure Nora didn't mind!).

We're starting to get caught up, but keep posted for more pictures and stories!