A Barenaked New Year's Eve

While Nate, Abby and Sophia drove Grandma Eva and Grandpa Steve nuts with their New Year's noise makers, Paul, Angie, Dan and Teresa rang in the new year with Barenaked Ladies at the Fox Theater in Detroit. Great concert, great drinks and great fun. Happy New Year!

Christmas Whirlwind

Christmas might be "the most wonderful time of the year", but it's also the busiest for us. For the first time since...probably ever...shopping was done before Christmas Eve. (It's a Christmas miracle!) Good thing, because the holiday festivities began Christmas Eve with the Platts at Lisa and Eric's house. Jeff and Lisa came up from Dublin. We had dinner, gifts and family time with everyone together.

Christmas morning started at 7:00 am when Nate's alarm went off. Abby wouldn't go downstairs to see if Santa came until Mom and Dad went down too. She was terrified of the thought of Santa coming into her house. She got over it quickly when she saw the presents he left under the tree. We had to coax her out of the princess castle tent from Santa to open the rest of her presents, and Nate's year was made when he opened up a Nintendo Wii. Mom was a little surprised too, since Dad had kept it secret since he bought it in October.

Then it was off to celebrate with the Lemings at Paul's parents' house. Abby wasted no time digging into the gifts when Sophia showed her the gift she had gotten for her. Nate, Sidney and Lauren took turns aiming at pop cans on the porch with Sidney's new Red Ryder BB gun. Armed and dangerous...a little scary! But no one shot their eye out.

Just when you think we're partied out, we moved on to another celebration with the extended Platt family, and finished off the day after Christmas with the extended Gault family. It was nice to see my grandma and all my aunts, uncles and cousins, but we were ready for some down time after all that. We spent the next two days playing Wii and dressing naked Barbies.

Winter Wonderland?

Two feet of snow. Do I really need to say more? I don't think a white Christmas will be an issue this year.

'Tis the Season

Well, Christmas is in the air...and the malls, the television, the radio, school, daycare...it's everywhere! And no one is more aware of its presence (not to mention presents) than our kids. Nate's busy adding to his Christmas wish list daily. Abby reminds us constantly that Ho-Ho woke up (apparently Santa sleeps until the Thanksgiving parade) and is going to bring her three Barbies. And both of them went to their annual Christmas party at Miss Patty's (daycare) last night. Apparently the kids were learning Christmas carols at Miss Patty's to prepare for the party, so Abby gave us a little holiday Jingle Bells concert. Holy cheese balls, Batman!

Set...Hike!

Nate decided to give up soccer for flag football this fall. He's had a great time learning a new sport with several of his friends on his team, the Vikings. Center and quarterback seem to be frequent positions for him to play, but he likes being a receiver the most. He's getting hooked on going to Lake Orion High School football games with his dad now too. He has his sights set on tackle football in the near future, but he'll have to convince his mom first!