A Little Catching Up

Just a few happenings around here from the past couple of weeks...

I took the girls to a breakfast with Santa fundraiser - Santa at a children's hospital with firemen serving pancakes. It was like a medley of Curious George plots. It was fun too!

My brother, my sister-in-law and my little nephew came to visit us from California. They were here almost a week and it made me SO happy! Little Nate is the cutest - they came just in time to help us decorate the tree

and meet baby Wyatt

We always have a bunch of finger foods and appetizers for dinner on tree decorating night - yum! I know I blog about eating healthy, and we usually do, but to be honest I secretly want Bagel Bites for dinner every night.

The weather outside was frightful (I had told my brother weeks before that "it never snows before Christmas" so of course we had snow!) so one day while the girls were at school, we went to The Wonder Place. I know I've blogged about it before, it's just a fun indoor play place that lets the kids run around when they can't go out

Henry and Nate had so much fun!

Wyatt snoozed the whole time.

Then we took the boys out to barbecue and they both approved

Nate is the CUTEST!! I am so sad right now that they are so far away!

Henry also approved of Daddy's birthday cake - see that big bite taken out of the side?! Ha ha!

We had shepherd's pie for dinner that night and Henry ate SO much - you can see it all over his face and the tablecloth. He definitely likes his food!

Henry, Henry - I miss my little buddy now that I'm back at work! We had so much fun together when I was on maternity leave, while the girls were at school and Wyatt was sleeping. He is just SO sweet right now - I love the way he says "Mommy?" And he's learned to say "please" and "thank you" which pretty much makes every one of his requests completely irresistible to me. When I'd take him to story time at the library, they sang "open shut them, open shut them" and now he makes us do it ALL. THE. TIME.

I think maybe it's time for me to stop cutting his hair and bring in someone who knows what they're doing.

I miss Wyatt too, especially now that he's really smiley. He still spends most of his time snoozing, though. The sweetest thing in the world.

He is a well-loved baby, that's for sure!

We did break out the baby swing recently, and he loves it

All bundled up and ready to go - sadly he gets dragged around a lot, like I'm sure all fourth children do.

By the way, having a new baby at Christmas (a first for me) makes me spend a lot of time thinking about Mary and what it must have been like for her. I am loving this new perspective on the Christmas story.

Last weekend we had our annual gingerbread house decorating party - I just let each of the girls invite one friend and let them go to town with a bunch of candy and royal icing. Amelia and her sweet tooth got excited about the candy!

Amelia still wears her princess dresses 90% of the time when she's home.

I asked a friend's 11 year old to come help too - she helped Henry with his. Actually she just tried to make a house while Henry ate the candy off of it.

The girls had their Christmas programs at school, too. My friend took pictures, so as soon as I get those from her, I will post - they were really sweet. Now the girls are out of school and counting down the hours until Christmas!