Christmas Eve

Another tradition of ours is attending the Christmas Eve church service. 

Iria and Katharine are at the candlelight service as I post this, but we all caught the kiddie version together as a family earlier tonight.

Front row seats! And the kids behaved great.

During the service, all of the kids go up and hang ornaments on the tree.

Sometimes with a little help...

We always try and shoot some portraits, taking advantage of the beautiful setting and the kids being dressed up and in a relatively good mood (Christmas is tomorrow, what can be better than that?).

Afterwards we dashed off and did a brief ornament exchange with Gwen and Trinity.

Gingerbread Kids

One of our holiday traditions is to make a gingerbread house along with some extra cookies for the kids (and Santa) to eat.

Curbed

We had a great 5 years, but I finally had to retire my huge TV today.

Built with a defective part and starting to fail, Sony sent me a really sweet replacement set (I'm sure the class action suit filed against them also contributed to that gesture).

The guy who delivered my new TV opted to take the old one with him (which still has a really nice picture, if you don't mind your black and white movies with a slight tint of green). Hopefully he gets some good viewing time with it before it completely fails... and at least I don't have to see it scooped up and dropped into a garbage truck next Tuesday.

Superfriends

Another week, another set of Superfriends drawings (courtesy of Katharine and Lukas).

"Wonder Woman"

"Superman, Flash and Batman"

Tea and Birthday Parties

My parents visited over the weekend, which usually means that there is either a tea or birthday party going on (often times both).

Keira joined Mom, Iria and Katharine for her first tea party.

And we invited the Milettes and Martels over for Lukas's birthday party.

Overall, a very fun and busy weekend.

Thanks for visiting, Mom and Dad!

Happy Birthday, Lukas!

Lukas turned 5 today.

Lukas's favorite color is blue.

His best friends are Gwen and Aiden.

When he grows up, he wants to go to knight school and become a knight.

His favorite place to eat is Chik-fil-A.

He loves his brother and sisters.

His favorite characters to draw are the DC Superfriends.

He loves to listen to the Star Wars soundtrack.

Favorite phrases: "Oh, Man!", "That's not fair!" and "Actually..."

He loves to be tickled, especially under the armpits.

Lukas does not like to get water on his clothes.

He loves cats.

He LOVES snow.

His favorite TV show is "Justice League" and "Cat in the Hat".

He is scared of fire and witches.

At home he likes to play with his playmobile toys, superhero toys, and legos.

At night, he falls asleep really fast.

He is an excellent smeller.

And he sings (and kisses) in the choir.

Don't Need No Mistletoe

Lukas (in the blue sweater) and Gwen were getting a little hot and heavy in front of the congregation and pastor Don before they started singing. Julie and I were cracking up as I shot the video. I wish I had my nice camera with the zoom lens, but maybe some things are best left up to the imagination (although in this case, maybe not).

Bundled Up

Kassidy, being carried out of church.

Sticky Notes for Santa

Tis the season... for more Christmas lists.

Lukas drew these up today:

Lukas (top) - Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer play set, big Spider Man toy, big Iron Man toy, and a Playmobile Castle

Lennon (bottom) - big Robin toy and a Toy Story set

Iria, Erik, and Kassidy too

We had to take some photos of ourselves for a little project that we are working on for Keira.

Sisters