Christmas

We enjoyed 2 days of Christmas festivities--great times were shared with family, and now the kids are still on serious toy overload. The picture above was from our gathering the day after Christmas with the Felton side of the family. We were able to get Parker, Alexis, Jack, and Charlotte to sit still for a few photos, but getting them all to look at the camera and smile at the same time just wasn't going to happen. Maybe next year.

Some pictures of the beginning of the toy explosion on Christmas Day.

Our 2 au pairs, Sarah and Elif, joined us for some of the fun. Elif left the day after Christmas and returned home to Turkey. We'll miss her and we wish her the best!

Charlotte snuggling with a new stuffed polar bear. She loves to cuddle with her animals--gives lots of hugs and kisses.



A cute close-up of Charlotte and Jack when we were taking pictures with all the kids.

Of course Jack loved Grandma and Grandpa's Christmas pyramid because it spins.

Parker and Charlotte

Charlotte and Macie. Wasn't Charlotte cute in the Christmas dress Grandma got her?

Charlotte and Lori

The piano is always a big hit.

We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!

School Christmas Party

On Friday, Grandma and Grandpa Nold came with me and Jack to a holiday party at his preschool. It was pretty informal--just food and getting to see the kids do some of their regular school activities. In the picture above, they're enjoying some reading time. Jack is sandwiched in between 2 of his usual girlfriends Kensie and Joanna (he changes his mind every couple of days about who, and how many, girlfriends he has).

Jack with one of his teachers, Ms. Kathleen. He's holding up a poster of his family that each of the kids made.

Ms. Maria

Jack and friend Max

Jack and his newest girlfriend, Junila (see them holding hands). It actually took several tries to get a good picture of them.

This was more typical behavior.

It was so unbelievably cute to watch the kids and how truly excited they are at this age to have their families participate in activities with them. I'm sure I'll look back on these moments often when Jack is a teenager :)

Trip to the museum

On Sunday, we went to the Museum of Science and Industry with Grandma and Grandpa Nold. The last time we visited the museum, Jack was quite a bit younger, so it was fun to see him experience things on a whole new level this time. We also got to see the museum decked out for Christmas (you can't even see Charlotte's face in the picture above because she's craning her head so far back to look at the Christmas tree). We also checked out the new Dr. Seuss exhibit, which was pretty intriguing, but unfortunately they didn't allow pictures to be taken in that section.

Jack and Charlotte both enjoyed checking out the model city of Chicago and all the little trains.



The museum had Christmas trees from all over the world decorated and diplayed. We took a picture in front of the German tree for Sarah :)

This was an exhibit about weather that was new since we'd last been at the museum, and it was really cool. We spent a lot of time in this area, until some "lightning" went off, which made a really loud noise and terrified all the children.

Tornado!

Charlotte loved running over these lighted areas which showed reflections from dripping water.

It doesn't show up in the picture, but there was something spinning around in this cylinder that really fascinated Charlotte.


Pushing the stroller is always fun.

Jack was in hog heaven with all the lights, spinning things, and buttons to play with. If only there had been monkeys, I think this would have been his definition of paradise.


Racing some remote-controlled cars with Dad.

Jack and Grandpa experimenting with some colored lights.

The last stop was the Idea Factory, a children's zone that we had been to before. Jack was able to do so much more this time by himself. He and Charlotte both had a blast. Charlotte spent some time with Grandma in the baby area before we let her loose around the other activities.



Jack really loved sticking balls into this tube that sucked them up and across the room--as did all the other children; it was hard to get a turn sometimes.

Picking up some magnetic blocks with Dad.

Hard at working pumping the lever to make bubbles.

So many spinning wheels!

The cool water zone. It was nice to have easy access to this area--the last time we were at the museum, I think there must have been a school group in this zone, and with all the kids we could barely do anything here.


Tired girl. Both of the kids took good naps when we got home!

Busy weekend, and welcome Sarah!

Poor Charlotte! Our normally laid-back little girl did not react well to Santa this year.

We've had a a great weekend seeing the sights around Chicago and enjoying holiday festivities. Another exciting event was the arrival of our new au pair, Sarah, from Germany on Thursday. Our current au pair, Elif, is leaving in a week to go back to Turkey. It's hard to believe she's been with us for almost a year. We'll miss her! Jack and Charlotte have been enjoying getting to know Sarah, and showing her around Chicago. Here's a picture of Charlotte and Sarah downtown yesterday at the Christkindlmarket. We thought it would be nice for Sarah to see a little bit of Germany in Chicago, but unfortunately the market was such a madhouse we only stayed for about 15 minutes.

Prior to going to the market, we had been at a Christmas party at Andy's gym, the Buckingham Athletic Club. Fortunately for Charlotte, there were many other things to do besides visit Santa. We had a nice breakfast, and the kids were able to run around and play. Charlotte was fascinated by the pool. Here she is giving some encouragement to the swimmers.

Is it any surprise our little Drago loved boxing?

Jack got a cute monkey painted on his hand.

Today we went to the Museum of Science and Industustry with Grandma and Grandpa Nold. The kids had such a great time, and I have a ton of pictures to sort through for my next blog entry :)

(Another) trip to the ER

Jack had a rough night on Tuesday. He had a run-in with a glass shelf on our TV stand and got a nice gash on his forehead. We actually have those shelves somewhat blocked off, but that did no good when Jack decided to take a running leap and dive headfirst toward them.

I thought he would get stitches, but they put "glue" in his cut instead. Too bad that wasn't around back in my day. Here's a close-up shot of Jack's wound and goose egg.

Before September, Jack had only been to the ER once, when he was 1 and had bronchitis. Last night was the 3rd time he's been in 3 months. (The first trip was for illness; the second was when Jack thought it would be a good idea to shove a little ball down into his ear canal. I think I forgot to mention that in the blog because it was right before we left for Thanksgiving.) Let's hope we won't have any more visits for a while! In the meantime, Jack seems to be suffering no ill effects from his injury, and he has not taken any more dives toward the TV.