Getting the ornaments ready for the tree

Never ones to want to venture out into the chaos that is Black Friday shopping, we spent that weekend making the change from Autumn to Christmas, getting all the Christmas decorations up around the house and, of course, decorating the tree.  Now that the boys are bigger, they were thrilled to be able to help Cole and Mommy hang ornaments.  They had a lot of fun with each ornament, as you can see in the pictures in the Nov-Dec 2009 album.  As always, the finished tree is beautiful, all ready for Christmas.  Happy Holidays to everyone!

The Vandermarks, Christmas 2008

We hope you and your family are having a wonderful Christmas this year.  We had a really nice one – although it certainly would have been better if a big issue at work hadn’t kept me on the phone for more than half of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Oh well, sometimes work happens.  In any case, we were thankful for the time we did spend together and with my parents on both of those days, enjoying some wonderful meals and some fun times playing together.

This was the first year that Zach and Alex got the concept of Santa, so that was a lot of fun. They had gone to visit Santa at the mall a few times while there to play at the indoor play area, and they had asked him to bring them “dump trucks and Star Wars stuff.” For the days and weeks after that, they’d remind us over and over that “Santa is going to bring us presents!”  And sure enough, he did.  They did indeed get some new dump trucks and some Star Wars figurines, but I think their favorite gifts are their very own flashlights, which also double as light sabers.  They carried them everywhere yesterday and today.  Some times it is the simplest things that bring the most joy…

It’s taken me a while, but I’ve finally uploaded a bunch of pictures from November and December onto the site.  In the Nov-Dec 2008 album, you’ll find photos chronicalling art projects and holiday decorating, as well as some fun in the snow.  In the Thanksgiving – Chicago album, we have pictures from our visit to celebrate the holidays with the Belousek family and with Great Grandma Jean (be sure to check out the video clip of the boys enjoying pie at GG’s house – they were pretty excited about that pie ).  Now here’s hoping it doesn’t take me another month to get the Christmas pictures posted…