The Children's Museum... Again!

We took the girls back to the Children's Museum on Thursday. It was a complete zoo!!! I have never seen it so busy. We will not be going back during the week between Christmas and New Year's Day... or on Spring Break (we now know those are their two busiest times of year). We stayed for three hours, and I could take it no longer! We promised the girls we would take them again in a few weeks when there are less people.

Me and Jason

Chloe and Sophie, our little scientists

Charlotte drawing upstairs in Dinosphere

Waiting in line for the Yuleslide

Sick Days

Monday night Charlotte came down with the stomach flu and continued to feel puny on Tuesday. I don't want to point any fingers at who shared with us, but her initials are Aunt Anna. (I had a teacher who used to say things like that, and I always thought it was funny!) Anyway, she seems to be feeling better now. We're praying that the rest of us avoid it, so we can be healthy for our Nye Christmas celebration on Saturday.

Lost Tooth

Chloe lost a tooth on Christmas: Her first molar! I took a picture of it the day after (somehow I forgot during the hustle and bustle of Christmas Day), and discovered the new tooth was already coming through. See it on the right?


The Tooth Fairy forgot to leave any money under her pillow. I told Chloe that the Tooth Fairy had the night off since it was Christmas (she knows it's me). I got things right the next night.

Christmas Day

The girls were kind enough to let us sleep in until about 8:00AM. That almost never happens, and I'm assuming it was because we were up so late on Christmas Eve. Once we made it downstairs, the girls discovered that Santa had indeed visited our house and stuffed their stocking full of treats. I don't know how it works at your house, but at our house, Santa leaves gifts in the stockings and mom and dad put presents under the tree. Chloe, Sophie and Charlotte lined up on the floor and listened while Papaw read the Christmas story from Luke 2. Jason prayed and thanked God for the gift of His son Jesus on that first Christmas day. The girls were then allowed to open their stockings and after that the gifts from us. Originally, we gave each child three gifts (because Jesus received three gifts from the wise men), but I cheated and did three packages this year. There may have been multiple things packed into one of the boxes, but who can tell for sure? Next came breakfast with the addition of Anna, Audrey, Ruby and Tom... and more gift opening (this time the adults opened some too). Then more guests arrived: Grandpa Hampton and Marilyn, Grandma Harrod, and Aunt Chris and Uncle Stan, and we all sat down to a tasty Christmas dinner. It was impossible not to notice the absence of my Grandpa Harrod. We miss him so much! But as my mom has pointed out many times, this year Grandpa was able to spend Christmas with the real Jesus not just the plastic one in the nativity under the tree. I am so thankful for my family and for the gift of the Savior!

Santa ate all the cookies and drank all the milk.

The stockings were hung with care... and obviously St. Nicholas had been there.

Some of the Christmas presents

Waiting to hear the Christmas story

Papaw reading Luke 2:1-20

Opening the stockings

Digging into the gifts from mommy and daddy

More people and more gifts to open!

Our two littlest family members

Sophie loves these play glasses from Mamaw and Papaw.

Christmas Eve

On Friday night, we went to Mom and Dad's church for their Christmas Eve candlelight service. Jason drove us through a few neighborhoods on the way home to see Christmas lights. Mom and Dad went to their house to load up their things and met us at our house. We have made a tradition of them coming to spend the night with us on Christmas Eve. The girls get to open one gift on Christmas Eve. It's always the same thing, new pajamas (washed and ready to wear). Once we were all settled into our PJ's, I prepared breakfast to stick in the fridge and bake on Christmas morning while Mom and Chloe worked on making chocolate fudge. After we were finished in the kitchen, we headed into the family room to watch Miracle on 34th Street. By the time the movie was over, we were ready to get in bed so Santa could pay us a visit.

Mamaw, Papaw, Charlotte, Sophie, and Chloe

The girls opening their gifts

New, matching pajamas!

Spooning out what was left in the fudge pan

The Children's Museum

Jason took the day off work on Thursday (and doesn't go back until January 3rd). We decided to take the girls to the Children's Museum to see Santa and enjoy the Jolly Days exhibit as well as the rest of the museum. I requested that we go visit Santa first. It was a l-o-n-g line, but the girls did great. Charlotte didn't cry on Santa's lap, but she didn't smile either. That was an improvement over last year! The girls played in the Jolly Days area, the Barbie exhibit, Dinosphere, Polar Bears to Penguins, Take Me There: Egypt, ScienceWorks, and rode the carousel. Charlotte and I rode the carousel three times! It was very busy at the museum, but we had a great time.

Looking in the window display while waiting in line for Santa

Their turn for a picture with the big guy

Barbie dolls... or fashion models

Charlotte and Barbie

Chloe's fashion design

Charlotte and Sophie digging up dinosaur bones

Every time Charlotte heard the dinosaurs, she ran to the edge of the dig area, bent down, and looked for the dinosaur that was making the noise.

Roar!

I'm pretty sure they were pretending to be dinosaurs again.

Pretending to be penguins

The Yule Slide

Frosty the Snowman

He may not have had a corncob pipe or a button nose... or even two eyes made out of coal, but he was pretty cute all the same. Our Frosty had twig arms, sidewalk chalk eyes, nose, and mouth, and a Mickey Mouse scarf. Sometimes you have to improvise! The girls loved him and there were even some tears shed when he fell over later.

Watching The Santa Clause 2

The girls and I decided to cuddle up on the couch and watch The Santa Clause 2 on Monday night. Only Charlotte was awake by the end of the movie! I woke back up when Jay came into the room and realized that Chloe and Sophie were both asleep. Charlotte wanted to lay on me also, so I had Jay snap a quick picture of me with my girls. Life doesn't get much better than this!

Christmas Lights

Every year on the Sunday evening before Christmas, the Schildmeier neighborhoods in New Palestine have a tradition of doing luminaries along the driveways and streets of the homes. It seems that each year fewer people participate, and I think this year the only luminaries were in Schildmeier Woods. However, we try to drive out each year to see the luminaries and look at Christmas lights. There is one particular house in Schildmeier Village that goes all out. We love it! So, this past Sunday we ate dinner at McAlister's with my mom and dad, then all piled back into the van to go enjoy the lights. Here are some of my favorites:

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

Christmas Church Service

Our church had a Christmas service on Sunday morning. We dressed all three girls in their Christmas dresses and posed them for pictures in front of the tree before we left.

Chloe, Sophie, and Charlotte

Jason with his girls

Me and the girls

The children from Joyland sang a couple of Christmas songs for the congregation:

Go Tell It On The Mountain

What Does That Have To Do With Christmas?

And we tried to get a picture of all the kiddos after the service...
This was about as good as it got:

Chaney, Chloe, Sophie,
Charlotte, Ryker, and Tucker

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Saturday morning, we dropped Charlotte off at my mom and dad's house, then headed to the movie theater with Chloe and Sophie to see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. This is the third movie in the series and possibly my favorite. It was wonderful! We all loved it.

Christmas at the Zoo

Friday night (after a rather large fight with Sophie) we headed downtown to meet some friends for Christmas at the Zoo (30 minutes late). It was COLD! Maybe that helped cool tempers because we still had a lot of fun looking at the lights and the animals. Chloe and Sophie are always especially fond of the shark touch tank, and last night the penguins were Charlotte's favorite. Jason enjoyed watching the dolphin show from down below. I liked the White River Gardens. The plants and poinsettias were beautiful, and we got to do a scavenger hunt. Plus, one of Santa's reindeer was there. Her name was Willow. I don't remember her from any of the songs or stories, so she must be a newbie. Always interested in gaining "useless" information, we listened to the zoo employee tell a little about reindeer. Did you know that a reindeer's body heat is so well insulated that it can lie down in the snow and the snow won't melt? Or that reindeer are the only domesticated deer? (Most wild reindeer are found in North America, Greenland, and Iceland while most domesticated reindeer are found in Northern Scandinavia and Russia.) Just sharing some knowledge, folks!

Chaney, Sophie, and Chloe waiting for the sharks to swim over.

Shark!

Me and Charlotte in the penguin area

Polar Bear

Charlotte, Chloe, Ryker, Sophie, Chaney, and Tucker

Jason, me, Amy, Robert, Paislee, Katie, and Josh

Our frozen family!

Willow, the reindeer

White Christmas - Snow Song

When I look out the window and see all the snow, this is what goes through my head. I love this movie... and the snow!

Shopping Day

Jason took a day off of work this week to do a little Christmas shopping with Charlotte and me. We were able to purchase a lot of the things we were looking for. Plus, I really enjoyed spending the day with two of my favorite people!

We took a little break at Meijer so Charlotte could ride the horsey:

Bible Study Christmas Dinner

I organized a ladies Bible study in my home a little over a year ago. I invited three neighbors who are also stay-at-home moms as well as my sister-in-law. We have added two other dear ladies to the group since then. We meet on Thursday mornings to discuss God's Word... and also whatever else might be on our minds that day! Tonight was our Christmas party/Girls Night Out/Gift Exchange all rolled into one (we're moms... we're efficient). It was good food and fellowship. I love these women!

Tami, Amy, me, Laura, Julie, Christy, and Raendra