Amundsons

We spent Christmas with Jacob's family in Wisconsin. This is Charlotte in her Christmas dress by their tree. There was a list of at least 5 other things that she wanted to do besides stand and take her picture (Can you tell?) Christmas eve was on the Cranberry marsh with lots of cousins. This was the party table (a.k.a. kid table) Precious! Jacob's family reads Luke 2 every year and with this many kids it becomes tradition to act out the Christmas story. This was Charlies first year to participate, and she got to be the Christmas Cow. I was a little nervous when the angels came out with their pretty wings, or the wise men with their colorful scarfs that she would get jealous... But she stayed committed to her important role.... and knelt down before the baby Jesus as only a cow can. Jacob's cousin made t-shirts for all the little girls that said "I Love My Papa". It was a really fun idea with a lot of truth behind it. Christmas morning we were back at Grammy

Over Thanksgiving break, Charlie got to spend some good quality time with Nana and Papi. Not being one to take that important bond lightly, we decided to get away and let them have their time together. Yeah baby, we ditched Charlie with the old people (I'm including Adam, Leah, Scott, and Jen in this category since they had just as much opportunity as we did) and took off to hit the slopes courtesy of some wicked lake effect snow in Western NY. Lisa is a great skier but had never been snowboarding before. She did an awesome job and we had a great day sans-badger.

Here are some of the indoor pictures that we spent in NY with my family. We will be in Wisconsin for Christmas so we combined the holidays and got in twice the fun... My mother really really wanted everyone in the same pajamas. I thought it was adorable (guess I am her daughter) my brothers... not so much, but they have learned to play along. Charlie in some of her dress up clothes. And Auntie Jenn getting her ready for the previous video... Charlie got her dollhouse from Nana... My brother Adam and his girlfriend Leah... see this wouldn't have been as cute if they weren't dressed alike. Another round of pie. This was by far Charlotte's favorite activities of the week. Feeding the baby cousin. She was so proud of herself. Decorating the tree. A. ready for Thanksgiving dinner before anyone else was. Playing around. My mom wanted this counter in her kitchen years ago so that she could "feed her grand kids breakfast". Guess I see now what she was talking about.

We had a wonderful time in NY for Thanksgiving. Snow was a plenty and Charlie could not get enough of the fluffy white stuff. Traditionally my family has always headed up the road to the Christmas tree farm the day after Thanksgiving... below are some pictures of the adventure. Eating our weight in snow... Papi got a new sled for the grand kids, and they spent hours on it. And Papi even made Frosty the Snowman to welcome them to the snow. And then the kids had to do their "chores" in the horse barn...

Our Christmas gift from Auntie Jenn... that will continue to give all year round!

Before to heading to NY to see family for Thanksgiving, I was talking to Charlie: Me: Charlie, we are going to see your cousin August. Charlie: We get to see August? Me: Yeah, August is your cousin. Charlie: Yeah August is my cousin, and Barak Obama is my president.

A special message to a special Aunt in China!

On Friday, we all headed out for an evening just to hang out. It was cold and rainy so we kept it short but were able to make it to Borders. We walked in to a busy store for a Friday night and Charlie said, "A party for me?" Laura Numeroff was there doing an in-store reading of a couple of her books and signing copies of her new book, If You Give a Cat a Cupcake. Charlie loves her other books like Pig and Pancake, Moose and Muffin, and of course Mouse and Cookie. She really liked Charlie, you could tell she related to children better than big people. They chatted about puppy, and school, and books. I love it that Charlie is so excited about reading. It won't be too long before she is reading to us for real, I'm pulling for Vonnegut but Numeroff is a great start.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Halloween began with our Church's Harvest Party. It was crazy, there were almost 2,000 people there. What an amazing event. We actually had Barbie batgirl before we got the batgirl costume. Since Charlie is too young to watch Batman (will she ever actually be old enough???) this is the only reason that she knows who batgirl is. But look how hot she is, isnt that enough? This was a supersoaker game at the harvest party. She needed to shoot down the cans. There is no way she would have done as well in a princess costume. And of course hanging out with her Batman. The Cardinal's Red Bird was at the party. At first she was SO excited to go and meet him, and then all of the sudden she freaked out and wouldn't go any where near him. I didn't push it but was surprised because of her love and devotion to Chucky Cheese. A giant rat would be OK, but a big red bird.... anyway it wasn't until we got home that she told me that "Red Bird bite the kids. I don