Thursday, January 01, 2009

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We've gotten way behind with our blog postings, so I thought I'd take some time to bring everyone back into the loop. As you can see, a lot has happened since "Late Nite!" There are still more pictures to be posted, they just haven't made their way off of the camera onto our computer yet. We failed to get out a Christmas card this year, but want you all to know how much you mean to us. We are blessed with such great family and friends. If you could send us your mailing addresses (to bigmike[at]hotmail.com), we'll make sure to get one out next year. We wish all of you health and happiness in the coming year!

Mike, Nicole, Noelle and Oreo

Noelle meets Santa

We had a Christmas party at work and Jolly Old St. Nick showed up. Noelle was extremely excited to get up there and sit on his lap. Once she got up there, she stuck her fingers in her mouth and didn't say a word. I guess it's better than her going up there kicking and screaming!

Here are some video clips of our Christmas morning:

Clip 1

Clip 2

Clip 3

Clip 4

Clip 5

What are these for?

Noelle was happy to help her mom decorate the house for Christmas.

Snow Day!

Nicole's Gingerbread House

Every couple of days we noticed pieces missing.

Visiting the Kau's!

We went up to visit Ammon, Ruth, Vivian, and Gary a couple of months ago. They live up in Kansas City, and whenever we go we have such a good time with them. Noelle and Vivian play so well together. We even played a game that Ammon thought up, Cheetoh Face. As you can see from the pictures below it can get pretty messy.

Train Ride!

Can you tell Noelle is excited? While we were visiting we went over to a little "train station" and rode on the train. Noelle and Vivian loved it. Their excitement became very apparent as we went through the tunnel and they both screamed their glass shattering screeches in the dark. When we came into the light again they would just laugh and laugh. I'm not sure Gary (in the background sitting on Ammon's lap) enjoyed it as much.

After the train ride we went down to throw rocks into a nearby stream.

Somebody made an alligator out of some mud. This thing was right in the middle of the path as we were walking down to the stream. It was pretty impressive.

Zoo Time

One of my favorite things to do in the winter is go to the zoo. You don't get to see as many animals out and about, but we usually have the run of the place while we're there. I've found it's a good way to meet the zookeepers and chat them up. One of these days I'm going to talk us into a behind the scenes tour of the place! There have been several instances where the animals have been much more active in the winter, rather than just laying around.

Raking Leaves

Every year the tree inour front yard dumps tons of leaves into our yard. This is just one of the occasions where I found myself raking leaves after work. I would put Noelle in the trash can to stomp all the leaves down for me, so I could put even more in. She even tried to help me rake for awhile, but that quickly gave way to digging in the dirt.

Halloween

Halloween was a busy night! Noelle got warmed up trick-or-treating at my work (where she got tons of candy), before we were off to my old neighborhood to see Grandma and Grandpa. Before we went over to do some trunk-or-treating at our church we stopped by Aunty Jen and Jan's to see them. As luck would have it, they own a black cat! So we thought we'd take the opportunity to take some pictures of our little witch with a black cat. We were then off to our church to round out the night where Noelle did some trunk-or-treating with her little friend Trinity (the Little Mermaid).

Noelle showed up at my work looking for candy!