Christmas Festivities

We spent several days after Christmas with Jonny's family (Jane's brother) in Mechanicsburg, PA.  Jane's parents drove up from NC with Will so we had a total of 7 adults and 4 children altogether!  

It was wild - here are the photos to prove it. :)

Erik unwrapping his gift from Jonny.

Getting ready to go outside for some snow play!

Romping with Daddy!

This is possibly my most favorite winter photo EVER!

Ellie Belle charming us with her cuteness. :)

Ah..these girls are too precious together.

Eliza Wren taking it all in...amazingly quiet and peaceful with all the chaos and commotion around her.

Cousins = best buddies!

 Granddad and Granna with their FOUR granddaughters! :)

simple toys

We had a lovely Christmas filled with many dear people and many generous gifts.  

And, as always even with all the new toys, great books and games she received, the simplest and most basic "toys" often provide the most fun. :)  After unpacking a large box sent from Grandpa and Grandma Petersons, Meredith and Erik had a blast jumping in and out of the box...throwing the peanuts and pretending it was snowing...etc...SO MUCH FUN!!! :)

Christmas Day!

We spent a leisurely day together as a wee family of four this Christmas.  Our morning began with stockings and gift giving.  

We gave Meredith an easel we salvaged and fixed up especially for her.

 Meredith's favorite part of her stocking was finding the lollypops - Trader Joe's Organic pops! :)

 Daddy and his girls :)

 Erik recently found an old cast iron skillet that needed to be restored and reseasoned...so, as a Christmas gift for me he did it!  It worked out beautifully and now we have a HUGE cast iron skillet - something that's been on my wishlist for some time now. :)  We christened it on Christmas morning with a batch of cinnamon rolls.

 Erik's brother, David, made us a delicious chai mix.  

Chai + cinnamon buns = a delicious breakfast for a winter's morning!

 Then, off on a family walk around our neighborhood in the brisk late morning.  

Do you see Eliza snuggled up?

 One of Erik's favorite gifts from me was a jar of marinated herring. :)  He enjoyed it as part his lunch.

 We finished the day with a lovely dinner with dear friends - the Nothackers.  Meredith is a big fan of their sweet girls and energetic puppy, Tucket. :)

Christmas Eve

We popped down to Tenth Presbyterian Church for their family service at 4:30pm today.  It was lovely - a brass quartet played, children's choirs sang and it ended with us all singing Silent Night by candle light. :)

 Now...this little one is off dreaming of sugar plums and all the festivities coming tomorrow. :)

Halloween 2012

We carried on our tradition of FIVE years now - going to Chipotle for their $2 burritos if dressed in costume.  In the past several years Chipotle has had their own themes - create costumes out of tin foil, be some kind of ingredient in a burrito, dress as your favorite junk food, and be something grown on a farm..

Here is Meredith last year as a caterpillar on the farm:  http://thymefortales.blogspot.com/2011_10_01_archive.html

and, the previous year where she served as our "ketchup" since Erik and I were french fries :)

http://thymefortales.blogspot.com/2010/11/wake-up-daddy.html

This year Chipotle's only qualification was you had to be in costume - the sky was the limit!  However, without some guidelines, I found myself completely indecisive.  So, the eve of Halloween Erik and I sat down to brainstorm.  Minutes later we had the whole family figured out with a theme and the next day I set to work to create/figure out everyone's attire.  SO FUN!

Here are the characters - can you guess this old nursery rhyme?

Cat and the Fiddle

Cow and Moon

Little Dog

Plate and Spoon

Yep - we did the nursery rhyme:

Hey, diddle diddle

the Cat and the fiddle

the Cow jumped over the moon

the little Dog laughed

to see such sport

And the dish ran away with the spoon! :)

We thought that by all dressing up we'd help Meredith get into the idea.  She's been in a funny stage where she'd rather dress me up than dress up herself.  But...it looks like she's growing out of that, because she loved the little puppy dress I made her - especially because it had a tail!  And, she was very interested in having her face drawn on to become a puppy-dog.  :)  She also loves the rhyme "hey diddle, diddle" so that definitely helped!  I'm thrilled that we may be venturing into a new season in the world of dressing up - fun times ahead!

What were you for Halloween?