Christmas at the Manor House

The Manor house at Wildwood park was all decorated again for the holidays.  I remember going there when I was a kid, and I still love seeing the rooms just as much.  It's fun to imagine what it would it would be like if the Manor house was my house. 

Our budding scholar

Sydney had a big test to study for, so we found a website that was perfect for the subject she was working on.  She looks so big using the computer!

To be fair, we found Zachary some homework to work on too!

Here comes Santa Claus....

Santa is hitching up his sleigh and bringing lots of presents to all of the good little girls and boys...

Surprise!  Zachary even gets something :)

Naughty kitties!!

I love Pico and Zoe, but they sure do get in a bit of trouble!!  They are mischievous and high energy, a little too much at times.  We made a cool winter project - a "crystal" snowflake.  The snowflake took all night to crystalize and stick to the pipecleaners.  Much to our surprise, when we woke up in the morning, the kitties had been dipping their paws into the water and left the crystalized footprints all over the counter!!  Naughty, naughty, naughty!!

Penguin show!

That boy loves his penguins!!  We got this fun movie at the library today.  I think Zachary would adopt them all if he could!

2010 Christmas Cards

I just loved the pictures I took on our trip up North this year, so I used them to make our Christmas cards this year.  I think the card came out really good!!

The Fine Arts

Tonight we took the kids over to the Valentine Theatre to see the Nutcracker. I love that place, it's so old and beautiful. The kids actually did really well - stayed seated for almost all of the show. We had seats in the first row of the balcony, which were good seats. I'd pick those seats again.

After the show we went over to Mutz for dinner. Mutz is another old historical place, so it was a little "tour" of downtown Toledo. It was also funny because when we got there, we were the only people at the restaurant! But it was nice and cozy so we stayed for some food and tried to the turn the kids into pool sharks!

They had a lot of fun playing pool - especially Zachary!

Decorating the Christmas Tree

As soon as the turkey is cleared away, it's time to deck the halls! The kids have been a huge help this year. They practically ripped the boxes open and put up all of the decorations.



I loved that the kids stopped the decorating to read the Christmas books that we had tucked inside the boxes.

When the tree "skirt" came out, they had to try it on for size.

When the tree skirt was put down, the kids ran around and around in circles, chasing each other.

Zack got the honorary role of the tree assembler. Up it went!

I got to string the lights around, but after that I was only allowed to supervise. No one seemed to care about my decorating rules of putting the bulbs on the outside and inside of the branches, to make it seem "fuller" :)

Finally, the bow was put on the tree and it was ready for another season. Shortly after that, the first bulb was knocked down and broken by those naughty kitties!!

Willford Turkey Trot

In order to burn off some calories from our Thanksgiving feast, I decided to head out for a family run. Sydney was up to the challenge, but Zachary wasn't very interested. Unfortunately Alan couldn't join us because he is still letting his foot injury heel - so it was just us chicks this year. Next year, hopefully we'll all be running! Sydney did a great job and made it all the way around the neighborhood with me - not running the whole time, but it was definately a great start :)

Thanksgiving

Hey there Pilgrims! It's Turkey Day!!

This year I decided to go all out and create a culinary masterpiece! I put herbed butter under the skin of this bird - and stuff it with fresh herbs. It rested on a bed of celery and carrots. Yum! Well, it did turn out pretty good, although turkey really isn't one of my favorite foods. I'll eat it, but large quantities of it just isn't very appealing to me. Not sure if I'll do this again next year, but it was a fun challenge to make something this "fancy"!

Grandma & Grandpa came over and we celebrated out holiday feast with many nutrious and delicious foods :)

The placecards looked a lot like those awesome turkeys we made.

Yeah me!!

Tree lighting at Levis Commons

Tonight was the Christmas tree lighting ceremony at Levis Commons. Also known as, "free outside to see a tree light up and then go to Maggie Moo's"!! It's hard to decide if my favorite part is the tree, and celebrating the start of the holiday season - or the delicious ice cream treats!! Yum!

The mall looked beautiful with trees all lite up and Santa's house all decked out, awaiting little visitors :)

Such crafty birds

I was thinking that poor old Thanksgiving doesn't get it's fair share of holiday decorations around our house. So I saw this cute craft in my Family Fun magazine and decided to give it a try.

I was thinking that this was something that kids could help out with and assemble with me - but those felt "feathers" ended up being a lot of work to cut out! And instead of regular glue, I used the hot glue gun, which hurt my fingers :( but in the end they were quite adorable - even though they couldn't stand up on their own... they are destined to be a treasure for years to come.

A day at the Zoo

Siku has got to be the biggest baby I've even seen! Even though he is almost a month away from turning 1 year old, she is huge! However, it is easy to figure out which bear is the baby when he plays. Jumping in the water, popping up at the visitors, always on the go.

Today was a free day for the kids - it was a teacher in-service day, and we were heading over to have conferences with the kids teachers after our day at the zoo.

It was beautiful weather, a great day!!

Fall Photo op

I love the fall. I love the weather, the leaves, the beautiful colors! The kids were begging for us to make a big pile of leaves to jump in -and I sensed a great photo op! Even though we don't have any large trees in our yard, we get enough blown in from the bordering lots.

It was a bit of work and surprisingly Zachary even wanted to pitch in and help out. He did a great job. It made me proud to see him helping out :)