Christmas in Wisconsin

Here are a few highlights of our trip back home. It started out with an unexpected 13 hour drive since there were no stand-by seats available.




Our annual gingerbread house contest. I crowned Sarah the winner since hers collapsed and she managed to re-create it.


All of the goodies from our annual bake-off. The chocolate covered licorice were a new addition and one I didn't care for!




The grandkids, dogs included! Mom's new puppy is behind the bulldog but she's hard to see since the bull dog is a nice round ball.


We enjoyed lots of winter activities including sledding, snowball fights......


and a snow angel! Although the only thing Avery has been talking about for the last several weeks is wanting to eat snow. That was the first thing he did when he went outside.


Fun Christmas gifts for Papa and Bama


Mom's Christmas gift- Zoey! She's teething : )


My aunt Linda gave Grandpa 2 really nice wool sweaters for Christmas. He looked sharp in them, but sadly they no longer fit. Notice the sweater Avery is wearing? That is one of the ones Linda gave Grandpa! It appears you can't even wash wool. At least Avery ended up with two nice sweaters.


It's crazy how much things change in a year.....

One proud moment

This is one of those moments that I have been waiting for as a parent. I was so proud of how much Avery's grown up. It was a lot of fun sitting in the audience watching him be a part of the Christmas program at his school. It was one of those moments I always envisioned when I had children and now that it's here I couldn't have been more thrilled! He was so happy I was there, as you can see from his smiles.

One great birthday party!

Since we are heading home next weekend, we celebrated Christmas early this year. It started out with a fabulous birthday cake.






And moved on to opening gifts. Avery loves his new train table. We just put a piece of plywood over our current sensory table and created our own train table. He played with Daddy and I on the table most of the weekend.


He also enjoyed building and creating new things with his tinkertoys. In this picture we created a crane tower. He was able to lift and lower a bucket with a rope using a winch that we made. His favorite part was watching the bucket spiral down to the ground.


Alia loved her ride on toy until she realized it was also a walker. All she wants to do all day every day is walk around holding on to something. The funny part is she's not very coordinated yet and often steps on her own feet.


See how thrilled she is that she can walk with it? She cries when I switch it back to ride on mode.

Alia and Banana 10 months

How big is Alia? So big!