Seibert Christmas Party

The annual Seibert Family Christmas party took place this weekend. We left the house early on Saturday and made two quick stops before we got "on the road". One for donuts--yum. and the other stop to pick up Marin and her presents and wedge her into the backseat of the car between two booster seats. She was a good sport and watched lots of school house rock. I bet she knows all about adverbs now. The long standing tradition is that one grandchild reads the the Birth of Jesus before we dig into presents. This has been happening for a long time. I think it may have started in 87 with my cousin, Amy. I read in 88. Since then, we have been through all the grandchildren and are working our way through the great grandchildren. This year was Evie's turn and she did a good job reading slowly and loud.
Then the present opening madness began. I heard someone say that they wanted to have the kids do it one at a time, but that just didn't happen. Paper flew everywhere.

Natalie admires Annalise's new Polly Pockets.

Evie then wrapped herself up for Great Grandpa. Funny, he forgot to take her home....

Here's the other part of the room. It was nice to have the comfy couches to sit on.

Then it was time for the posed pictures. Someone said all the "kids". Marin is the youngest of the grandchildren and all the rest are great grandchildren. The two adults have future grandchildren in the oven due next summer.

And then we tried to get pictures of all the families. The Steve Seibert Family (sorry about the closed eyes--this was the best shot I got)

Oh, and Uncle Kevin and Aunt Elizabeth are celebrating their 7th anniversary. They bought each other new car tires. How romantic.

The Doug Seibert Family

The Chris Wilson Family. Somehow, I was distracted by Chex Mix or a kid and missed out on all the other pictures.

Uncle JIm did manage to capture a picture of this unclaimed present. Who wants her??

Another batch of cookies

On Friday, we made another batch of Christmas cookies. This was a reward for Annalise who helped me clean the bathrooms in record time. I let her lick the spoon. Why does she have red and green around her lips?
Because we colored the dough to make candy cane cookies. Oh Family Fun, when will you stop coming up with all of these appealing ideas? The girls had fun rolling out the dough into "snakes" and then twisting them up. They got tired of making candy canes, so we also had wreaths, holly, trees and "candies"

Here is our handy work. Since every bit of dough was touched by dirty kid fingers, we aren't sharing these with too many people as not to spread our kid germs.

Playing

The weather has turned winter like around here. We are talking single digits when you get up in the morning. But, that doesn't promote hat or mitten usage. When will Annalise ever be cold?? Since we are stuck inside for the most part, we have been trying to be more creative when playing. On Tuesday, Annalise's buddy, Stella came to visit. It was a break for me and for Stella's mom because they took off and played all on their own for 3 hours. I think we may have to have Stella over again next week. I did provide a craft and the kids were very neat and tidy about paint treasure boxes.

Evie and Annalise are at that love hate relationship stage. IF they aren't punching each other or putting their feet on each other, they are getting along great. I was making dinner this afternoon and it got really quiet. This is what I came upon:
Some one is getting too big for the fort.

They were just hanging out under the coffee table reading books by the light of the lantern. Let's see how long it lasts.....

Snow, Christmas and More

As they say at Menard's, "Christmastime is here, Good savings and good cheer..." We have been busy doing our Christmas preparations. The tree is up and all the lights are outside. We are less tacky outside than we were last year. This has much to do with the cold weather and the fact that half of our lights died over the hot summer in the attic. I don't think Jim will be testing each bulb, so it is up to me to find a place to recycle all those strands. The girls set up the nativity set. Everyone wants a close look at the Baby Jesus. He's in there somewhere amongst the crowd.
The weather turned delightfully cold and Minnesota like here. We had about 3 inches of snow and the kids played outside for about 2 hours with only brief breaks for bathroom and hot chocolate.

I guess the snow doesn't taste too good.

I had to share this. I made this Christmas Tree Hat for my baby niece, Georgiana. She may live in SC, but she will be all nice and toasty and festive on that bald head of hers.

We visited Conner Prairie and was inspired by the ginger bread houses there. I don't think there is enough time in the world to try to make my own ginger bread and then assemble it with frosting, so we take a shortcut by buying a kit and hot glueing it together for good measure and structual soundness. Check out Annalise's skirt. She wears this every week to church and it always slides off her butt giving everyone around us a view of her underpants. I have to get that fixed this week before church on Sunday.

Two girls sacrificed some of their leftover Halloween candy for the barn. There wasn't anything good left anyways.

Our sweet presents under the tree.

Christmas Card Outtakes

For about 2 weeks, I have been trying to get the kids to smile nicely so I can make the yearly Christmas card. At times, one would be too squrrielly, the other would be grumpy and then the punch to the neck would happen. So things weren't looking too good for a picture. I even contimplated just putting a picture of Jim and I from our trip and writing on the card that we do still have children, but they are uncooporative. Today, with the threat of not putting up the outside Christmas lights, we managed to get a decent shot. Not photographer's quality, but at least there was no punching involved. The goofy face picture.
The one really nice picture of Shlee, and Evie is looking away...ggrrrr.

I considered this one to be the card, but we should probably save the eye rolling until they are teenagers.

And we are done. That's all you get mom. After all this, I looked back, and I think Evie may have been wearing this dress in last year's Christmas card. Oh well.

Thanksgiving in Ohio

We were all excited to go to Grandma Seibert's house for Thanksgiving. Not only did this get mom out of the majority of cooking, we also were going to see Grandma and Grandpa Taller! What a treat to have both sets of grandparents in one place. That doesn't happen much. But with all the excitement, the morning came with sickness. I woke up in the middle of the night with a really upset stomach. I probably shouldn't have made the drive, but I did and spent most of Thanksgiving day sipping Siera Mist and laying on the couch. No over eating for me. Unfortunately, Evie also came down with something while we were there. Hopefully, no one else ends up with our germs. We also suspect that Annalise wasn't feeling well because she actually took a nap and was very hard to wake up. She is sitting with her legs crossed under her while sleeping. She must have been very sore when she woke up. But wake her up we did because we had to go to Archbold for the Festival of Lights parade. After hearing about it for so many years, we had to see it for ourselves.
We all got bundled up in our snow pants and winter coats to sit out and wait for the parade to start. We went with Grandpa and Grandma and the Edgerton Meyers and the Archbold Seiberts.

Long parade with lots to see. I sat far from our kids so I didn't really hear many of their reactions. I do know that the people who threw candy just came up into the grass and dropped handfuls on them.

These kids on the front of the crane had the best seat in the parade.

Man, that's a big big tractor!

This was my personal, non agricultural entry in the parade because the jaws of the spider opened and the legs all moved.

This was interesting, a float with a fountain! Love the water and electricity mixture.

Santa on a School Bus! Wish he would come to our bus stop.

The family favorite for best entry. Too bad we can't photo shop out the archbold equipment and make it our Christmas card.

We came home on Saturday because Grandma and Grandpa had a party to go to today and they were probably also tired of listening to the girls have tantrums. I am convinced that they had some sort of bug because they slept until 8 am this morning after going to bed early on Friday. I retreated to the basement with my pizza and beer to watch the Buckeyes and Jim headed up to do a science experiment with Evie. This is their floating whirly gig made with candles. Tomorrow...outside Christmas lights!

Annalise's Thanksgiving program

Tuesday marked the traditional Preschool Thanksgiving program. It was just as adorable in years past with all the kids picking their noses, pulling up their dresses, punching their friends, and just plan old turning around and facing the wrong direction. Adorable. When we started at this preschool, there were 5 classes. Now there are at least 10, maybe 12. They started with the youngest classes, which meant that Annalise's class was 3rd to last. They did a nice job with their songs and poems. Here's her whole class. She's the one in the pink sweater and the falling off skirt. She wouldn't let me fix it with a safety pin. I will have to sew it to take it in when she is sleeping.
In her class, Annalise's best friends are Arielle and Sadie. She is standing between them.

Telling the Turkeys to watch out for Thanksgiving.

4 year olds are so cute. Can't believe this is our 4th preschool program. One more to go until Kindergarten.

Company

This past weekend was a busy one for us. On Saturday, we welcomed our friends, Jen, Moe, Mazie and Adli all the way from St. Louis. We hung around on Saturday just visiting and watched the lights get turned on in Carmel. On Sunday, we opened the Children's museum We covered most of the museum, including the basement!
In the Polar Bears and Penguins, exhibit, the kids all pretended they were penguins. All except Annalise who wanted nothing to do with it.

What's a trip to the Children's musuem without a ride on the merry go round?

Mazie entertained us all with serving us fake food.

Evie, Annalise and I built the high tower together in the construction zone. Thanks for coming, Jacobs family! We had a great time seeing you and would love to come visit St. Louis, even if it is the country's most dangerous city.

Back at the homestead, our artist created this landscape.

After a morning trip to the zoo on Monday with the Jacobs (in which I took no pictures), we met up with Erica and Elle for lunch at my favorite place, Patachou. Then we crossed the street to visit the Indiana state capitol building. Erica and Clay were married there 10 years ago this month.

It was still as pretty as when Erica got married, and empty too! We basically had the place to ourselves.

Evie and Annalise played so nicely with Elle. She was never in need of a playmate. Elle rewarded us all with lots of smiles and giggles. She is such a sweet baby!

Annalise and Elle play before school. Thanks for visiting us Erica and Elle!