Let's See.....

....curls, playtime, waterpark, train ride, and Christmas tree.....

Lots of stuff in this post! As you know, Abby has a fascination with curly hair. We have figured out if we use the weird little pink squishy roller thingies in her hair when it's DRY, we get massive amounts of curls in the morning. So...we've been sleeping with them a lot lately!  She loves her some curls!  Okay, I can't find the pictures I took of her very curly hair....if I find them, I'll post them!

I also got a picture of Abby and Griff  playing in his room the other day.  He had just gotten up from a nap, and she ran up there to play with him. They were having lots of fun coloring on his chalkboard together.

We went to IL for Thanksgiving.  We decided to leave a day early and surprise the kids by stopping at the Wisconsin Dells for a night.  They were shocked to say the least, and couldn't believe that they were going to a waterpark! We had a great time, and everyone wanted to stay longer.  Abby and Mike went on every ride, and I even went on a few with her.  Everyone loved the wave pool, and I spent most of the time there with H&G. I have a feeling we will go back....great room, great food and super fun water rides!

Thanksgiving was wonderful. We went to Uncle Tim's and tried our best not to trash his new house!  The five of us do tend to take over wherever we go!  It was great seeing all the Newmans, and of course the kids had a blast and loved the attention.  While we were there we took the kids on a train ride. It was just the Metra train, and we only went three stops (Barrington to Arlington Heights), but you would have thought we took them to Disney. They were so excited to be on a "real live train".  We stopped in AH and had lunch and ice cream and then hopped right back on!  Brought back memories of commuting to Chicago every day! On our way back to Uncle Tim's we stopped by the old house in Barrington.  Looked to same except for one major thing.......ALL the apple trees were gone. All 1,374 of them.  

I promised Abby we could start putting up the Christmas tree and decorations on Sunday.  After I got the lights, ribbon and beads on the tree, Abby, Hannah and Griff went to town. They put on every single ornament, except for the very top few.  The tree looks a bit bottom heavy, and there are no ornaments on the sides or the back (!), but they are very proud of their work and I'm not about to change anything. 

That's all for now.....I'm sure there will be gingerbread house and Christmas cookie pictures to post soon!

Yikes

Yikes, I'm not sure I've ever gone two weeks without posting some pictures of the kiddos!  We haven't been that busy, I guess I've just been a bit lazy.  And although I don't like it, the kids seem to be going to bed later and later, which cuts into "my time" to sit and play on the computer :-) 

I don't think I've done a kid update in awhile, so here goes...and there are pictures, too!

Abby

* Loves, and I mean LOVES, reading. Will read anything, but especially loves her chapter books.  She likes the Junie B Jones series, but she is still fascinated with Harry Potter and is reading one of the books (the forth one? I'm not sure) every night before bed.

* Is currently taking ice skating lessons and is having a good time with it.  They just mentioned that the students can participate in an ice show in March, and of course she is all over that! She can't wait to see what the costume is going to look like.

* Is still loving horses, and very much wants to take riding lessons. There is a stable near us that we stop at every once and awhile to see the horses; unfortunately, they don't offer lessons, but we are looking into it. 

Hannah

* Refuses to wear anything but princess dresses.  It wasn't a problem when the weather was nicer, but it's getting a bit chilly to be out and about in her little dresses. We've tried to put clothes on underneath the princess dresses, but of course she doesn't like that.

* Is sleeping SO MUCH BETTER now (another thanks to Grandma Newman!).  We are all actually getting uninterrupted sleep now....so nice :-)

* Loves to stay up "reading" in her bed after I put her to bed. Mike and I will be downstairs watching tv and hear her reading aloud to herself. It's very cute.

Griff

* Wants to play cars all.the.time. And if he's not playing cars,  he's watching the movie.

* Is very sweet towards Hannah. Always wants to make sure she is okay, and is the first to share a toy with her.

* Would stay cuddled up in his bed all morning long if we let him. Seriously, I'll hear him over the monitor, and finally after an hour I'll go up to get him.  He still kicks me out and tells me he's not ready to get up yet!

Fall Fun

We had a weekend full of playing outside in the leaves before Mike got to them with the Leaf Hog....the leaves, not the kids!  Anyway, below are a couple of pictures.  

I'm also trying a bit of an experiment.  I've created another blog to post only pictures that I take. I'm taking so many that I need somewhere to post them all and thought another blog might work. I'll try it for a bit and see how it works out.  So.....I'll be posting a few pictures on this blog, but if you are interested in seeing a plethora of photos, click on over to my other blog, http://jclphotographynewman.blogspot.com .  If this link doesn't work, look to the left of this post and you'll find another link that will take you there.