Christmas 2013

Christmas 2014 was spent at home in Strongsville with Matt's mom visiting and just a dusting of snow.

This year Jake really gets the idea of Santa and presents, and Grace still believes (I wonder what she'll think next year?).   At 3am Christmas morning, Grace came in and said she thought she saw Santa's sleigh outside.  I told her to go back to bed.  Other than that, the kids actually slept in (well in our house 6:30 is sleeping in).

They were very excited to see all the presents and quickly tore through their stockings.  Jake was very excited to get his excavator.

We spent an hour or so opening presents, took a break for a cartoon and then brought out the parking garage that Matt made wrapped in a blanket.

We spent the rest of the day cleaning up the mess, eating, playing with toys, and watching cartoons.

Thanksgiving 2013

It's almost Christmas and I'm just getting to blogging our Thanksgiving (I guess that's how this time of year goes).

This year we went to DC for Thanksgiving.  My Dad and Cindi were also there.  All of the adults did the Alexandria Turkey Trot (in 30 degree weather), while a brave babysitter watched the three kiddos.  It was pretty busy for just being there a few nights.  We played at the house, went to a really cool playground and even made it out to dinner with all the kids (and all the iPods!)

Grace and Zachary love hugging each other and reading books together.

Jake and Zachary would play near each other, and they always wanted the same toy.  Jake would usually just grab what he wanted from Zachary, but Zachary was a little sneakier and would wait until Jake wasn't looking and then swoop in and steel what he wanted.  They also liked to play with (harass) the cat together.

The kids enjoyed playing with (or on) Grampa too!

I tried to get a nice picture of all three kids together, but clearly that's not so easy.