Pottery Painting

(Such Buddies)
We painted some pottery with Aunt Lindsey, Gracey and Zavier! McKenna fell asleep in the car, which was probably a good thing. So Daddy drove her around and I could just enjoy our time together without worrying about her.

Zavier was hilarious about getting paint on his hand. He DID NOT like it at all!

But he quickly recovered.

Gracey painted a fairy.

Christian painted a frog. That little froggy will be a fun keepsake of our time together.

Thanksgiving Day 2009

Thanksgiving always starts out early for Grammy Mary Ellen! The kitchen is usually smelling pretty good by the time we wake up! Then Aunt Angel arrives and seems to know just how to jump in and help with the cooking!

Aunt Angel with Gracey & Ella.

The siblings! Ryan's the middle child. Angel is the oldest and Robert is the youngest.A rare picture of Ryan and I.

Uncle Bob and Aunt Karen joined us for Thanksgiving dinner.

Aunt Ang and Uncle Beez

Aunt Lindsey and Aunt Angel with cousins Gracey and Ella.

Probably my favorite thing about our week in Illinois was watching these two play together. They love each other and have the best time together. And Gracey doesn't put up with Christian's moodiness for one second (I love that :) I heard her tell him at one point that Santa wasn't going to bring him many presents if he kept being so fussy!

Cousins Emma and Ella

Gracey, Christian and Zavier

Aunt Ang brought her laptop to show Grampy how high speed internet works.

Love this picture of Uncle Ryan and Gracey!

Just the girls! (Taken by Christian)

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving Day! It was actually rather relaxing (other than chasing McKenna around to make sure she wasn't getting into trouble). Grammy and Grampy work so hard to make our visits so fun and easy! Grammy is completely organized and has everything planned out. She had actually found one of Christian's gloves that he left there last year and remembered to give it to me, even with everything else going on! So anyway, it was a great day. We missed seeing Bill and Becky and their families, but we still had a wonderful day.

Pj Pics

Don't you just love pj pictures? They're my favorite!

A wheeling good time!

Do you know what this is a picture of????


Have you guessed yet???


Well, that's a picture of me driving the car (it was stopped at the time of the picture) and that's Ryan and Christian on the four wheeler in the front and Uncle Beez and Gracey in the go-kart right in front of the car! I was following them in the car because they were going to drive up the road to a party at Uncle Rod & Aunt Sue's house. This safety conscience mommy didn't really like the idea, so I insisted on following behind them to light the way and so a car wouldn't come speeding up behind them on the dark road.

There they are. And don't think for one second that it wasn't freezing!

Ryan and Chrish

Uncle Beez and Gracey!

Christian loved 4 wheeling! He would have done it non-stop if we would have let him!

Even Grampy got in on the action and raced the boys in his go-kart!

Christian made so many wonderful memories while we were in Illinois! I love it that it's a magical place to him; filled with good times and wild memories!

Uncle Beez & Aunt Lindsey's House...

...is such a fun place! We got to spend lots of time at their new home!

Grammy and Grampy were there too!

Gracey, Aunt Angel (Ryan's sister) and Chrish

Grampy with his two favorite four year olds.

McKenna was so funny about this little kid's couch that turns into a bed.

She loved it and spent half her time pretending to be sleeping in it. Then she would get some baby dolls to join her. This went on all night.
And then she did the same thing when we were at our new house today for the inspection. They have a little Dora couch like this and she played with it for about an hour. Good thing I just got her one for Christmas :)

It was a special treat that we got to see this gang! Zac, Julie, Jack and Brooklyn stopped by for a quick visit! So good to see them!

Christmas in Illinois

We usually celebrate Christmas with Ryan's side of the family when we're in Illinois! We kicked things off with our cousins Gracey (who is Christian's age) and Zavier (who is McKenna's age).

Isn't this picture hilarious? Technically there are 6 people in it!

Zavier was doing pretty good considering he had had surgery on his eye that morning. Can you even tell? I thought he looked great and we're praying that this surgery (his second one) will resolve his issues with his tear duct!

I had to include this picture and the next one! The daddy's always end up being the ones who actually have to "open" the gift out of their packaging! This is a picture of Ryan's brother Robert, also known as Uncle Beez!

Ryan hard a work!

Christian got these really cool cars that you assemble and then can race. He loves them!

McKenna got a tea set! She's never had one, so it was the perfect gift!

And then there were presents from Grammy and Grampy!

It's a piano horn! Look out! He loved it!

Like - seriously loved it! It deserves it's own blog post, so that's all I'm saying for now!

McKenna's turn!

She got this adorable duffel bag that looks like a stuff horse. She loved it and keeps trying to ride on it.

Oh the excitement! What could it be?

Nothing better than a train for my train obsessed child!

I think Grampy was enjoying this train just as much as Christian was!

The first thing Christian asked for when he woke up at home on Sunday was his train. I had to re-set up his train in his bedroom immediately and he now spends hours up there playing with it. It's been a huge hit!
Merry Christmas Illinois family! We had a great time celebrating with you!