Happy New Year!

Cora's Collection

Taking a page from her father, Coraline has started her own collection. She decided she's going to collect nutcrackers.

Star-gazing

We've started showing the kids the stars and planets at night, using an 11" telescope. Even though it's very cold, they enjoy seeing the sights.

No Snow

Since we still haven't had snow, we decided to make our own in the kitchen.

Tired Superboy

Nap-time is his kryptonite.

Christmas Morning

On Christmas morning, the kids waited patiently at the top of the stairs before seeing what Santa brought.

Their big toy was the castle playmobil set. They had fun setting it up.

Christmas Eve

We finished up our visit to Grandma and Grandpa's by opening up presents. The girls loved their custom-made "Scraps" doll from the Wizard of Oz. We then drove home, had dinner, and read Christmas stories before bedtime.

And then the kids left out cookies for Santa (and carrots for the reindeer).

Fun at the Science Museum

Aunt Em Visits!

The kids were quite excited to see Aunt Emily, even if it was only for the day to exchange Christmas presents for her. Though she's and her husband have been in China for the past year, she's often in the triplets' thoughts. Just the other day Arthur looked up from his lunch and said, "Aunt Emily is sleeping now." To which Nana said, "That's right. She's on the other side of the world, isn't that funny?" And then Arthur fully explained, "The sun can only shine on one side of the Earth at a time. It's like people talking. Only one person at a time can talk."

Cousins Cooking Christmas Cookies

Coraline's Stocking

Erin just finished Coraline's stocking. Every year she's knit one for the family, and Coraline was thrilled to finally have hers finished. (She even forgo having Erin read her books at night, and encouraged her to knit instead). Now that the triplets' stockings are done, along with Nana and Pop Pop's, I think Erin will start hers next year. It'll be strange to have "Mom" knit into the stocking.

A Christmas Pile

After finishing decorating the tree, the girls piled on top of Arthur. When asked if he was ok, he said, "Yes, I'm fine, but one more sister would have been too much!"

Arthur's Rock Song

We're not sure where this came from, but Arthur claims he created the song himself.

Picking Out A Christmas Tree

Today we took everyone out to a Christmas Tree farm in order to find out tree. The kids thought it was hilarious when Pop Pop tried to cut down the smallest, scraggliest tree of the bunch.

And "monk-sock" helped pick out our actual tree.

And the youngest got to put the angel on the top of the tree.

Arthur's Favorite Place

Arthur decided to draw a picture of his favorite place to visit. So he drew our family at Disney World. (His cousins are with us too, with their ages "4" and "7" backwards over their heads.)

Thanksgiving Rock Band

The message of Thanksgiving might have gotten garbled. Arthur drew this picture of an indian with a sign above that reads, "BWAR INDN."

And then at night all the kids were thrilled to play Aunt Heather and Uncle Tristan's rock band.

Five Cousins for Thanksgiving

We love when all five cousins get together and play. It's always amazing to see their collective imaginations run wild.

The kids had their own table for their Thanksgiving feast.

And then everyone then had fun dancing with Aunt Heather.

Over the River and Through the Woods...

We're still working on learning the second verse.

First Birthday Party

The kids were invited to their first birthday party, one for a girl in their preschool class. They had so much fun that Erin and I left them there for a few hours to play. Definitely a first for us!

First Snow Fall

We hear we've got a warm winter ahead of us, so the kids were thrilled to run out and try to catch the first snowflakes of the season.

Christmas Card Photo

Today we quickly took our picture for our Christmas card. We were quite pleased with how it turned out, and the kids loved wearing their Santa hats.

Three Superheroes!

Halloween, Part 3

Not to be held back from trick-or-treating, Coraline said she felt good enough to go out with us tonight (as a wounded dragon).

We met up with Miss Kristina (who used to be one of their teachers), and we had a lot of fun going around her neighborhood with her kids.

Afterwards, Arthur spent a while counting his pieces of candy, shocked at how much he had collected: