Christmas Day 2013

At this point Christmas Day 2013 is in the books and it was a good one. Kristin and I spend a lot of timing emphasizing gratefulness and sharing with the girls this time of year, and as much work as it can be I'm never more appreciative of it than on Christmas when are girls are thankful without being prompted and share their new toys without fighting. It always makes me proud. (Abby actually asked Santa for world-peace this year, though even I thought that was a bit much).

At any rate, Christmas Eve we enjoyed hot-chocolate and marshmallows and then watched The Polar Express.

Since we were up late the girls slept in a little bit (maybe 7:00am) although at some point we realized that they were awake and just didn't know on Christmas morning they could come get us when they woke up. Santa left us many good things in our stockings, and he ate the cookies we left for him so he must have really been here - as Abby informed us.

After a traditional breakfast of home made cinnamon rolls we opened presents. There were many good gifts, princess cloaks were the highlight for the girls. Abby gave me 'Hungry-Hungry Hippos' which we all enjoyed playing this afternoon - Mom is ruthless, she won half the games.

For lunch we had a Christmas appetizer feast. We had Jalapeno Poppers, Stuffed Mushrooms, Mozzarella Sticks, Pizza Bagels, Stuffed Dates, Veggies & Hummus, Cheese Ball & Crackers, Deviled Eggs, and Chicken Nuggets. For dessert there was a choice of Kristin's home-made Christmas cookies: Buckeyes, Rice Crispies, Peanut Butter Blossoms, Mint Sandwich Cookies or Shortbread. Kristin actually claims she was being restrained, I don't know about that but the girls and I certainly enjoyed it.

After naps we all played some board games and the girls worked on some painting. We had another feast for dinner, and worked on Lego's before bed, all told a grand day.

Merry Christmas!

Winter Update

In other family news it's been a pretty full start to the winter. I'm sure I'll leave many important things out but, in no particular order, we've been:

Decorating for the season

Seasonal baking, and attempts at seasonal baking, (yes Dad may have had something to do with the gingerbread design choices)

Putting on Christmas concerts

Braving power outages, playing in the snow, and thoroughly enjoying the Mom-Spa.

Happy Birthday Nora

Happy Birthday to our very own Nora J, four years old today!!

We started the festivities with giant birthday pancakes. After that Mom and Nora went to the indoor park, had fresh pretzel's for a snack, and rode the carousel.

Per Nora's request I took her out to lunch at McDonald's. While we were eating she asked, 'Dad, where are we?'; wish she would have told me beforehand she would believe any restaurant is McDonald's.

We had take-out pizza, carrots, and rasins for dinner (all Nora requests) and birthday cupcakes for dessert.

All told a great birthday for our wonderful girl.

Halloween 2013

Another October in the family history books and another great Halloween to record as well. It was a bit more rushed than usual, seems like a theme for our family lately, but as fun as ever. Mom and the girls decorated sugar cookies, this year we graduated to multi-colored cookies.

The girls also got to paint their own pumpkins this year, while Mom and Dad carved a Mickey Mouse-ish one for the family. Mom also made some awesome mummies and bats to give to trick or treaters.

Abby wanted to be a princess this year, while Nora wanted to be a Care Bear. Personally, I was especially impressed with Nora's creativity. She was also very specific in terms of exactly which Bear she wanted to be and how she should look.

Mom took the girls through the neighborhood while Dad stayed home and handed out candy. Mom and Dad finished the evening with a re-run of Ghost-Busters. All told it was another great family memory.

Pumpkin Patch - 2013

We made our annual pilgrimage to Curtis Orchard this week to pick out our family pumpkin. Traditions like this always remind me of how old the girls are getting. This year, we all picked up Abby after kindergarten and headed over.

Speaking of too old, look at the attitudes on display.

For the first time we decided to forgo the little red wagon, no need to fight over which stuffed animal rode along. We found our pumpkin deep in the back of the patch, well worth the trek.

That's it for now, I'm sure there will be updates once we've carved it and made our costumes.

Lunch Dates and Kite Fyling

We've had a very busy fall for the Champaign VanDuyne clan. Between Abby and Nora's school and Mom's work we're thoroughly done with the lazy days of summer. One of the things I've been enjoying about our fall are 'lunch dates'. Occasionally I'll pick up Nora from pre-school and the two of us will go out to lunch somewhere, and this weekend, never one to be left out, Abby requested a lunch date as well.

Nora usually wants a specific food, this time she wanted french fries, another time I talked her into Buffalo Wild Wings.


And sometimes we go back to my office so Nora can decorate.

Abby tends to request the restaurant specifically, so this time we headed to McDonalds.

While Abby and I were gone, Mom and Nora made raisin-cheese pizza (Nora's choice).

In other family news, Kristin took the girls kite flying in the back yard. They had a great time, Abby keeps referring to it as our 'wind experiment'.

All told it's another great fall.

Kickoff Weekend 2013

We kicked off the 2013 football season this weekend with a Colts win! Had a great lunch and watched too much TV.

As a reward for swapping the afternoon Disney princess movie with football we went to a Joseph show in the driveway after dinner.

All in all a promising start to the fall.

Quick Summer Update

It's been an eventful summer for our family and we haven't kept up quite the chronicle of it we might have liked.  I thought that a brief post was warranted though, and better than nothing, so in short order here are some highlights from our summer:

We started off welcoming Aunt Emily into the family.  I had the dual curse and blessing of seeing my daughters as flower girls, they grow up too fast.

Kristin and I got to go on a few dates, an all too rare event for us.  Here we are at jazz concert in Alerton, and also in front of a few coasters we road at Cedar Point:

Abby and Nora continued their Camp-Grandparents tradition. They had an awesome time visiting both sets.

Somewhere in there we went to a few parties, played in a bounce house, ate ice cream, started learning to swim, and Kristin made some awesome cakes.

And somehow we had time for a few house projects as well: Moving the girls in together, starting on a guest room, and expanding the driveway for a second car.

It was a great summer, I think they'll only be more eventful from here on out.