Fa ra ra ra ra

Tis' the season once again!  I have been anticipating Christmas so much this year.  I think it's because I was making some crafts for Parker that I was pretty excited about.  I'm starting to feel the 'pressure' of starting special traditions with him, so I made him an advent calendar, and a felt Christmas tree with ornaments he can take on and off.  It isn't a total hit, but I think he'll like it in the next couple of years.  

Parker helped pick out our real tree (from Home Depot ;), and helped daddy set it up.  Then we tried to put the tree skirt on him.  Last year he begged to wear it and kept it on for quite a while.  This year...not so much. 

He did help us put the ornaments on.  He put three of them on one branch.

Now our condo is full of Christmas cheer!

Last weekend we had our first ever Ross Family Thanks/Christmas.  We decided to combine the two holidays and have one big, ugly celebration.  Don we now our gay apparel!

Having fun with Grandma and Alaina.

Super Mark and Easton

Great Grandma Ross and her 10 Great-Grand children.
L-R: Parker, Easton, Hunter, Abby, Aliyah, Grace, Christian, Braedn, Alaina and Mark 

Reading books with Great Grandma

Reading books to Baby Aliyah.  So precious!

Today we went to the Arlington Heights Fire Department Christmas Party.  Ryan was on shift, but I am starting to get to know a few other families, so Parker and I went.  Then Ryan brought Santa on a firetruck!  Parker thought that was pretty cool.  We figured he would freak out when we tried to put him on Santa's lap since he has a history of strongly disliking anything that is large and dressed up.  Ryan sat Parker on Santa's lap, and he said, "Did you ride here in the firetruck Santa?"  So cute.

Looking forward to many more Christmas memories!

Galena Getaway

Galena, Illinois - a place one hour from my parents' house, 30 minutes from where I went to college, and up until a few weekends ago, I had only been there for a grade-school field trip, a Ross family get-together, and dinner at an Irish Pub.  When we lived 'close' by, it didn't seem like the place to go.  The suburbs and the big city were the hot spots.  Ironically, now that we've relocated to the suburbs, it seems like everyone goes to Galena for their getaways!  

Long story short, we had our friends, Jake and Andrea MacNamara, over early this Fall after not seeing them all Summer, they told us about a Groupon at Eagle Ridge Resort, and we booked a weekend for early December.  

We arrived at the resort Friday evening and went downtown.  The stores were mostly closed, except for a candy shop, so we had to try it out.  We also got some appetizers at Benjamin's... Let's just say Andrea was laughing so hard she was crying by the time we got our check ;)  It was an interesting experience.

The next morning, we went to breakfast in the resort restaurant.  It doesn't get much better than breakfast buffet's in my opinion.  Omelettes made to order, crepes, oatmeal, fresh fruit, bacon, pancakes, you name it!  We decided to fill up and hopefully last until dinner.  After breakfast, we dropped the boys off at the golf course.  We originally planned for this to be a ski trip, but the weather was calling for 50-60 degrees!  They thought it'd be pretty sweet to golf in December.  Unfortunately, it didn't get much over 40 and it rained a little bit.  Thank goodness the hot-chocolate cart came around ;)  

Andrea and I treated ourselves to a manicure at the spa while they golfed.  Then we headed to the cute shops downtown.

The best part - the samples!  We sampled fudge, popcorn, and several different kinds of dips.  No wonder we weren't hungry for lunch ;)  We headed back to the hotel, picked up the boys and went to town again for dinner.  First, we stopped at Poopsie's where we found an AWESOME tractor book for Parker.
 

Dinner was at a cute Italian restaurant, Vinny Venucci's.  The food was soooo good.

So was the peanut butter cheesecake for dessert.

We felt a little lame getting back to our hotel at 8:30.  We picked up two movies, and I think I fell asleep an hour later.  We could've found something else to do, but to be honest, it was really nice to go away for a weekend, have fun, relax, and sleep!  We had lunch in town the next day and went home feeling re-energized.  Thanks for a great weekend, Jake and Andrea!  We are truly blessed to have friends like you.

Long Sentences

Parker has always been a talker, but we have realized lately that he is putting together some LONG sentences - without any help from us.  Here are some examples...

"Daddy, when you get home, I will show you my parade."
"When you come visit the firestation, I will give you a ride on the firetruck."

Isn't that crazy?  Conversing with him is so fun!  He has also been singing a lot lately.  He has a little prayer doll in his bed that he has recently named Simon.  He tucks Simon in every night, and sometimes sings him Jesus Loves Me followed by the Prayer of Jabez song.  (We have sung both of these to him every night since birth pretty much).  He also know all the words to the Itsy Bitsy Spider, Twinkle Twinkle, the ABC's, Rat-a-tat-tat, God is so Good, and several more.  Listening to a two year old sing is just so sweet.  His little voice brings me so much joy!  And it's cool to know that it is pleasing to his heavenly Father as well.

I've mentioned this several times before, but the kid LOVES parades.  He's recently taken them to a new level.  They are getting incredibly long, and he usually asks us not to put them away at night so he can play with them right away in the morning again.  This particular parade includes every pair of shoes he could find, some vitamins, a calculator and lots of letters.

We had a good time with playdoh a while ago, too.

His imagination is incredible.  He can turn anything into a tractor or combine, the pillows on the couch are horses (most of them named Jane, like Uncle Bill's horse), and he is always pretending to make and bring us food.  He likes to sit behind the cushions of the couch and read, too.  Today he was reading a book I borrowed from my dad.  He read it as "Papa's book, Papa's book."

Knock on wood, so far, two has been terrific =)

Thanksgiving

Parker and I headed home Wednesday morning and spent the day with Nat and the kids.  Her and I made some Christmas crafts while the kids played.  We broke our rule of waiting until the day after Thanksgiving to play the Christmas tunes, but we just couldn't work to our full potential without them ;) Here's what we made.

Then we attempted to make some TeePee's with the kids.

The usual Thanksgiving Day traditions were a little different this year.  We got to spend the entire day with Ryan's family instead of trying to go to two in one day.  The Thanksgiving feast was AMAZING, and so were the leftovers...Turkey and Cranberry Panini's =)

We spent the night at my parents that night, and Nat and I set the alarms for 3:30am for our annual shopping extravaganza.  We both thought we slept about two hours total, due to a series of unfortunate events, but we were on the road by four.  We get a lot of guff for taking part in the Black Friday craziness, but to us, it's a fun time to spend together, we get ALL of our Christmas shopping done in one day, and we treat ourselves to Peppermint Mocha's =)  Sounds like a great day to me!

So that pretty much sums up our Thanksgiving, but I did take some time to reflect on the many MANY things I am thankful for.  God has been SO incredibly good to me, and I have seen His provisions in every stage of my life.  I am humbled by His grace and hope to radiate His love wherever I go.