Christmas 2011

I'm going to post a few pictures that were taken during our Christmas trip to Illinois.  We had a very nice time with our family.  On Christmas Eve day we met Laura and drove over to St. Charles, MO to walk through some of the fun shops.  Unfortunately they closed at 2:00 (We thought they would be open until around 5:00) so we didn't get to see nearly as much as we thought we would.  We'll have to do this again sometime when it is warmer and not a holiday so we will have more time.  I didn't have my camera with me on this trip so I don't have any pictures to share of St. Charles. Afterward we went back to Laura's and watched a couple of movies with her.  It was a good day.

My first picture to post is of Jeanette and our "plethora of babies" that day.  They liked her getting down on the floor with them.  (Oops, sorry but I had to delete the picture of the babies.  Laura just noticed that I had put one that included the twins.  It just slipped by me.  Strange since I looked at so many others and said that I couldn't use them.) Jeanette came over a couple of days early since Noah had a doctor's appointment in St. Louis; I got to go with them which was reminiscent of my stay in Salem when Noah was born.  We had lots of doctors' appointments then.  Noah's doctor wanted him to have his eyes checked.  We were very happy to hear him say that Noah's eyes were perfect.

  Also a bit before Christmas, Grandpa and Zach were playing around with the piano.  Zach was playing a little song that he had made up.  Maybe he is following in Alan's footsteps.  Alan wrote a very nice piece for the Temple Workers' Devotional this year.  Everyone was very impressed with it.  Anyway, back to Zach and Grandpa:  Zach played his song and then they started playing "Joy to the World."  Alan showed him how the flats worked so that he could play the song anywhere on the keyboard.  Zach caught onto that really fast and surprised his mom and grandma by playing it in several different keys.  Good job, Zach !!

 

Here's Amy & Mike's tree. It was taken early in the morning while everything was still pretty dark.  I should really learn to work with the aperture on my camera; I could do a lot more with it if I did.

I did get a pretty cute picture of Noah sitting in his high chair, visiting with his mom.

One of the hardest things is taking pictures of the twins and then not being able to use them.  They are so cute that I'd like to be able to share them.  You'll all just have to come visit so you can see them I guess.

Zach opened a game that he was happy with.  Yes, I know he doesn't look really happy in this picture but trust me -- he was.

Amy got some original artwork for Christmas.

It looks like I didn't get a lot of pictures during the afternoon when most of our people were there.  I guess it just got too busy.  Karen's blog has some really cute ones of her kids.  I'll have to copy some of those.  Some of my best pictures are inside my head -- for instance Sierra's excitement when she opened her musical snow globe.  Danny when he got yet another cougar from Grandma.  I think I have given him three.  Dustan and Dominic tower over me these days.  When did that much time go by?  Unfortunately Michael wasn't feeling well and wasn't able to make it to the celebration.  Laura J.S. wasn't feeling too good either but she was able to make it for a while.  Guess I'd better get this posted or it may be Valentine's Day and it still won't be done.  We had a good 2011; 2012 should be even better.  Happy New Year to you all.