Happy 2012! (The week after Christmas)

As I uploaded the pictures for this post, I realized it's the 300th post for this little blog!  Kind of amazing, I think!  Greg started it in December of 2004, and now 7 years, a wife, and 3 kids later, it's hit 300 posts.  Crazy!  Anyway, the week after Christmas, we spent a little bit of time with my uncle, aunt, and two cousins from Michigan.  We (and Mom and Caleb) took them to the new Bass Pro Shop to look around and go bowling.


Sorry for this very poor picture of the bowling alley...it looks/feels like it's underwater.

The bowlers were Caleb, Nolani, Mariah, Nora, Max, Mary, and Greg.  U. Troy, A. Jeanne, and Mom took turns holding Tirzah and keeping the kids from running out onto the lanes when it wasn't their turn. :)  It was a little hectic, but a lot of fun!  We ate at Cracker Barrel afterwards, but it was pretty late and as soon as we finished eating, we needed to take our kids home.

 Greg and I had talked about getting an electric fireplace for our basement since the kids play down there more and it can be pretty chilly.  Well, he surprised me one day by telling me that his dad had picked it up for us and was bringing it to our house!  I really love it!

Max and Nora admiring the fire

Of course, Nora wanted me to take her picture, too.

And she wanted to show off her new socks she got for Christmas. :)

Tim's birthday is the 29th of December, and we celebrated it once he and Melissa got back from Channahon.

Happy 25th, Timmy!

Blowing out the candles...no kids helping this time!

We also got to spend some time with the Schmidgalls, which is always a fun time!

Grace 'reading' Cinderella to Max and Nora before we left one night.

I know I've already written about Nora's bitty baby, but it's so cute/funny to see what she does with her dolls sometimes.  One night she decided to read her dollies a book:

Hey, at least one doll has clothes on her!  1 out of 2 dolls is a start!

Awww, kisses (and note Max in the background...he wanted to listen, too!)

Such a good little mommy!

It was pretty cute to see!

We also enjoyed the weather between Christmas and now...there were some pretty nice days!

Max and Nora even went outside to play a couple of times...I was trying to get a picture of Max pushing Nora in the fire engine, but just before I was ready to take the picture, he stopped and ran ahead.  I took it anyway, thinking poor little Nora looks kind of funny stranded in the year. :)  The weather that day was much different than today's!  More on that in the next post...