Christmas Eve Suprise!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!
This Christmas Eve had in store a wonderful surprise for our little family. As most of you know we had the ultrasound of our baby last week, but decided to have the nurse seal up the photo of the gender of our baby in an envelope and we would not open that until Christmas Eve. Well, it's been a long 7 days later and I'll admit I've actually lost some sleep over that envelope tucked into our Christmas tree containing vital details to my future! But it was worth the wait, and also really quite exciting!
When we FINALLY sat down on the couch last night we asked Nolan if he thought the baby would be a boy or a girl, his reply was "it's a girl"... AND HE WAS RIGHT!!!
We're having a girl!
We're so excited! Kenny is a little shocked-and has already started talking about buying a shotgun for when she starts dating! I had thought this baby was a girl all along, until the day of the ultrasound and after watching how wiggly and jumpy the baby was I was convinved I was having another boy! I was really getting used to the idea though, we'd have the ultimate little boy's room and not have to buy too many new clothes we'd be all set.
Oh well, Break out the student loans-we're going BABY GIRL shopping!

Breakfast anyone?

This lion and elephant was a gift to Nolan from Aunt Allyson. They sometimes don't get along though, and Nolan has to put them in time out because the lion will bite the elephant's trunck or attack him in a not so nice manner (He'll tell the lion "No bites!" and then make him give the elephant a kiss better). This morning though things were going pretty well, and all three of them were having some "nummies" together. Nolan thought it was very nice to share, so each glob you see in front of the animals is their yogurt, and his grin shows just how proud he is of himself.


I also wanted to show his method for drinking hot chocolate...it's very effective.

Thanksgiving Break

We had been counting down to our Thanksgiving break for about a month. Kenny had been SOOO busy with school exams and tutoring etc. that we all just really wanted some time to inhale as a family.
So we decided the Weds before to take a little day trip to Lake Geneva about 60 miles from our house. It was a nice, chilly day and it was a beautiful little ride to remind us that not everywhere in Wisconsin is city. Nolan slept in the car for the first time in a VERY long time (he likes the car ride a lot more since we got our van). Lake Geneva is a nice little town-I think it may be more of a retirement community/tourist trap, but definitely worth a look.
We visited the lake, fed some ducks and took a little walk and had dinner at McDonalds. Nothing too exciting, but it was still really nice.



We spent Thanksgiving dinner with some close friends hosted by John and Karisa McAllister. Everyone brought a few yummy dishes to share and the food was fantastic-but the company was better. Here is the only picture that was taken of the group-thanks to Karisa for being smart enough to have her camera!Too bad we don't have a picture of her though! In the photo are: Todd, Jessica & Malia Pitts, John, Garrett, Kenny & Echo,and Chelsea & Matt Rowan. Nolan and Isabel Rowan are in their repectable seats to the side of the table.

Once there was a snowman...

Nolan is very excited about the snow this year, and after a nice snowfall on Nov. 23rd, we decided to go have some fun. The snow was perfect for snowman building, so Nolan and I built our first snowman together (with him actually helping this time). We had him built in just a few minutes and found some rocks and sticks for his face and arms. Nolan had lots of fun playing with our new friend and would only leave him when his fingers got cold enough through the gloves that he kept saying "It hurts...it hurts...". Thankfully, hot chocolate helped cure that though. Later that day we had to run some errands and when we came home the head had fallen off of the snow man, of course that was the first thing Nolan noticed and we quickly rebuilt him almost to his original glory. We continued to do that each day when little parts of him would disappear, like an eye or nose or ear. Eventually he melted and it's just been too cold since to go out and build a new one. But don't worry, Frosty will be back again to play some day!





A few more modifications....


Perfect!

Hide-n-Seek

Nolan has been learning some new games and doing more and more pretend play lately. He likes to take his trucks, trains, cars and anything with wheels and make long trains with them-he's always very proud of his results.



Another new game is Hide-n-seek, here are some pictures from our first lesson, it was pretty successful. See if you can find him in these photos....it's pretty tricky-Good luck!

The Rest of Halloween...

So I can't move onto Nov & Dec without posting the rest of our Halloween fun photos! So here are a few before it gets really too late!


Our train conductor...


Bruce Leap & Liza M from our Disco murder mystery dinner...


Our "Boo at the Zoo"...


Next year's costume...(We bought on a 60% off sale)


"Hai-Yah!"