Never Enough Time

The entire family took a quick pre-Christmas trip back to Chicago to visit with friends and family for a couple days. We had a blast visiting with the Collins family, Nana, Uncle Shane, Aunt Sunny and cousin Freddie, The Mellman clan, and the High School crew families + Kim--a lot in a short time.  We're sad we didn't get to see everyone else who's so important to us.  Next time hopefully! I didn't capture most of the visit on camera as I spent most of the time catching up with everyone.

Hattie and Heath

Lex adores Hattie

Love these two - serious and then giggles

Love this girl

Finn joining the camera fun

Nana snuggling with Hattie while Finn and Bea focus on the Christmas Charlie Brown Show

The "big" kids saw their first live show while we were there - Pinkalicious.  All in all, it was the perfect first show for them and everyone enjoyed it.

Lexi and Beatrice on stage after the show.

All Things Christmas

Gingerbread houses and Santa are happenings the kids now eagerly anticipate.  This year our gingerbread house decorating efforts vastly improved as my resident artist took great pride in placing the candy in specific locations around the house and telling me explicitly where to put the frosting "glue". There was also a lot more eating going on then decorating, but isn't that why we decorate gingerbread houses in the first place?

Another visit to Santa shows that with the passing of a year in age, the kids had even more anticipation and excitement to see Santa.  Both Finny and Lex practiced what they would tell Santa and both actually told him verbatim what they'd practiced. Heath didn't want anything to do with Santa (or the gingerbread house).

  Waiting to see Santa

Pre-Santa tough guy look.  You can see Finn's shiner if you look closely. We're not sure exactly how he got it sadly.

 

 

Just Yesterday

Seems like it was just yesterday that we were tromping through the snow in search of last year's perfect Christmas tree. It truly is amazing how fast time sometimes passes.

We embarked on our journey for the perfect tree the first weekend in December in chilly weather, but with no snow in sight. This year Maine might have been the last place snow reached. We returned to the same tree farm as last year and had to do a little more "tree hunting" this time to find the "right" tree. For those of you have good memories, this might look a little like the picture from last year, without the slushy mess.

Lexi poses to show-off just how cool the tree farm is.

Lexi believes she's found the perfect tree...

 Team Lennon falling in line after dad in search of the tree.  Heath turns to make sure I'm still in tow.

 

Heath grinning about the idea of cutting down our tree.

No joke - dad shows off his manly skills as he cuts down the tree.

Success.  The one thing I do have to share about freshly cut trees is that they last forever, no needles fall off = a happy mom since there's less to clean up.  It makes you wonder how old the trees we bought from the lots all those years really were.