We had a great week of celebration for Thanksgiving. We are of course very thankful for our wonderfully crazy family, we are thankful for job security for both Tony and I in this difficult economy, and thankful for all that God has provided us with. We are truly blessed in so many ways.
Tony was off work for the entire week and we had a great time. Thanks to an early Christmas present from Nana, we were able to use our new museum membership to check out the new Science & History museum. It is awesome and the kids loved it. We put up our Christmas tree a little early since we knew we would be too busy over the weekend and Sam had been asking for over a week if we could get it out. On Wednesday, we held true to our tradition and made our pre-Thanksgiving visit to see Santa (no lines). Sam told him he wants a Rudolph book and some "surprises." We had a nice Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday with my family, including my Dad and step-mom here from Ohio for the week. We hung out all day Friday with Tony's family and had another Thanksgiving dinner with them including Wendy's family from Houston.
We are indeed excited about Christmas. Tony and I love Christmas so much and are always anxious to get the decorations up and our extensive collection of Christmas CDs out. It has been an endless loop of "Grandma Got Runover by a Reindeer", "The Chipmunks Song", "Linus & Lucy", "Frosty the Snowman" and "Rudolph" in our car.
Sam is starting to show more interest in Clara now that she is awake a little more.
Clara's first bottle
The pulling of the wishbone w/ Jack
Sam had lost the day before at my mom's and was pretty upset, but he won this one and was very proud.
Reese, Ollie, Sam & Jack in Kiki's tub. Looks like there's still room for one more.
New Christmas PJs...and nightcaps?
We started the "Elf on a Shelf" tradition this year. Sam named him "Candy Cane." So far it works like a charm. Yesterday, I walked in on Sam telling him that Ollie had gotten in Clara's pack n' play and sure enough there was Ollie sitting in the pack n' play. This morning when Sam woke up and found him positioned here, he said "that's dangerous, he's sitting on a candle!"
The boys did great with Santa as usual, but I kinda wish I had asked them to retake it, I'm not sure what's going on with Sam here :)
This would be why we did not send out a christmas card picture. I gave up after the first take. 
Making a gingerbread house. Tony's always in charge of these projects.
Clara started smiling this week, but of course our camera is too slow to catch them so here are some pics of her 3 sec after she smiled.
Getting stronger everyday!
I think Ollie thinks he's ready for a big boy bed. I, however, am not.
For quite sometime, Sam has made this face whenever I try to take his picture and now our little copy cat is too. Monkey see, monkey do.
