Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!


(Previous years' pics here.)

In previous years, we haven't had much luck visiting Santa.

Back in 2012 in Winston-Salem, Sarah did this...


And even Nathan didn't want to get too close to Santa...


Then last year in Boston I just skipped it due to Brian's crazy December schedule and knowing that (definitely) Sarah and (probably) Nathan would be more scared then excited. 

But this year??  This year Santa was a hit with the kids!!


Nathan ran up and gave Santa a hug first and (surprisingly) wanted to sit in his lap while he made his Christmas requests.  Here he's telling Santa about the watch he wants, one that glows when you press a button on the side. (We gave him one of these for his 4th birthday but it somehow got lost in Boston.  I kept expecting it to turn up while we were packing/unpacking from our move but since we still haven't found it, Nathan decided Santa could be the answer.)


Nathan's Santa List for 2014

• Box of candy canes and chocolate
• Watch/pocketwatch (this may have been two separate things?)
• Spiderman Lego set (he spotted then when we were shopping for Angel Tree presents - looks like we will be jumping into the world of Legos this year!)

Then when it was Sarah's turn.  Though she gave Santa the biggest, sweetest hug (to my amazement), she then decided that she wasn't comfortable enough to sit on his lap to make her requests. 



Sarah's Santa List for 2014

• Castle
• Box of chocolates
• Doll (She got shy and Santa offered this prompt. I - I mean Santa is going to give her a Minny Mouse stuffed animal that she spotted during Angel Tree shopping.) 

The Christmas countdown has been underway for a while now thanks to Nathan... just 3 days left!! 

Sarah's 3!! (well, three and a month now actually!)

We had a wonderful day last month celebrating our sweet little girl!  Her birthday was on a Tuesday, which meant it started off with a day at preschool.  How I hoped and prayed that she wouldn't cry at preschool drop-off, since I would just feel like a terrible mother to make her cry first thing on her birthday (even though everyone assures me she always has a great time and cheers up almost right away).  And thankfully my prayer was answered!!  I think it was because she was so excited about bringing muffins (with sprinkles on top!) to school for her special treat and that Ms. R got down the "Birthday bear" first thing (a stuffed bear that "sings" Happy Birthday during chapel).  So she was very cheerful when I dropped her off!

Per usual, I spent part of the morning running errands, then headed home to do some party prep.  Sarah had helped me make the muffins for school the morning before her birthday, then the previous afternoon we made the layers for her chocolate cake.  So I was left with making and applying the chocolate frosting, then making the extra frosting, though I left it white until she got back to school and could pick her colors to decorate the cake.  I also pre-made the chicken tetrazzini that I was going to serve for dinner (though that didn't turn out as well as planned - after making, cooling, refrigeration and then cooking, the noodles absorbed WAY more of the sauce then usual so we were left with dry tetrazzini.  Everyone complimented me on it, which was sweet, but next time I'll know better!)

Brian fortunately got off of work a little early that day, so as soon as he got home we pulled out Sarah's presents from us - a Tidemouth Shed (pronounced "tid-muth", where Thomas and all his friends go to sleep at night) and some extra character engines to beef up the kids' train collection.


Since Nathan's birthday present had turned into a joint present for the kids (which we had planned), we made Sarah's birthday a joint present too, with a Tidemouth shed for each kid.  Nathan was so sweet about the whole thing - he was SO excited for Sarah when she opened her present and then when Daddy went back to his closet to retrieve Nathan's (unwrapped) shed, he was so grateful!  I told him that since he had done such a great job sharing his birthday presents with Sarah that we wanted to get him his own shed even though it wasn't his birthday.  He gave me some really sweet "thank-yous" at three different times during the evening, which just made my heart melt!


So once again the kids were busy playing with their train sets all afternoon leading up to the birthday dinner.  We had an almost-identical birthday dinner to Nathan's - broccoli salad, pineapple and chocolate cake with chocolate icing.  Sarah, of course, picked pink and purple icing to decorate her cake with!


And just like her brother, she was beaming ear to ear as we all sang to her and presented her with her cake.



We didn't get a group shot of everyone that made it for Sarah's birthday dinner, but with Nana, Granddad, Granddaddy and Grandmother in attendance our Sarah girl felt so special and surrounded by love. Happy birthday my sweet girl!

Christmas is just around the corner, but I still need to finish birthday recaps - eek!

Here's Sarah's 3 year interview.  Enjoy!



Mommy's Notes:

• Favorite color - Pink (obviously) and purple are definitely her favorite colors for clothes.  I have no idea where "brown" came from.
• Favorite food - She loves "egg and burrito" - more correctly described as scrambled egg and black bean burritos, kind of like a breakfast burrito, though I serve it for lunch.  Its a favorite for Nathan too who has just started asking for picante sauce on top.  She LOVES veggies - pepper sticks, mini peppers, cucumber slices, baby carrots and broccoli salad are some of the biggies. She's usually a great eater at home, though it's hit and miss when we're at a restaurant or someone's house.  She still will sometimes ask to eat my entree over her kids menu order when we go to a restaurant, though that doesn't happen as often since we've moved to Knoxville. 
• Favorite stuffed animal - Kitty Cat, whom she picked out for herself when a generous man in our congregation at Brookline brought in a slew of stuffed animals for the kids (just because).  Since we've moved, Kitty Cat has been indispensable for school and church separations, in addition naptime and bedtime.  Sarah likes to pet the cat with her bare feet (in bed) and Kitty Cat's tail is an excellent kleenex substitute for wiping teary eyes and snotty noses.  We bought Sarah a "spare" stuffed animal (thankfully easy to find on ebay) before Brian and I left for our out west trip, and it has been indispensable.  First off, Kitty Cat wasn't getting washed frequently enough - she looked so dingy next to the new one - so that's been a lot easier for me to tackle since now I can easily throw one in the wash and pull the clean one out from its hiding spot.  Sarah didn't seem to notice there was a new one for a while, then caught on when one was living at our house and one at Nana's, but then I disappeared one after they both made it back to our house and she hasn't asked about it since. The spare is also useful when she's left Kitty Cat at a family member's house, or we can't find her right at bedtime, or the time Sarah threw Kitty Cat into the bathroom trash at church (ugh!). 

Warning: Almost 5 minutes long, and be prepared for some distractions (bad timing on the dryer buzzer - and isn't it always set to "off" anyway??).



And here are my editorial comments for some of his answers:

• Usually when asked his favorite color, he'll say "blue and green and orange and red" and sometimes throw a couple of others in there too.
• Favorite book - he LOVES the Magic Tree House series!  We check them out from the library on cd for Nathan to listen to during quiet time (and anytime he's in the toy room really) and he also loves for me to read the books to him.
• Another favorite shirt that he really likes to wear is the one where the shark is about to eat a hot dog. Every time he puts that shirt on he'll tell me "Granddad looooves this shirt!" because the first time he saw it Granddad laughed about it and said what a nice shirt it was.  
• When we talk about what he wants to be when he grows up, he sometimes says that he wants to work at the hospital with Daddy.  Then the other day he said he wanted to work at the children's hospital with John Little and Sarah chimed in "Yeah, I want to work with John Little too!".  (JL is a physician that goes to church with our families at Hardin Valley who visited us in Boston and we cheered him on during the Boston Marathon). 

Gosh, October is such a crazy busy month around here, with birthday after birthday quickly followed by Halloween!  Of course I didn't help matters by deciding to make both the kids' Halloween costumes again this year. It starts out fun and exciting, and I love being able to give the kids pretty much exactly what they want, but it was certainly time consuming! And then about 10 days before Halloween I realized that they would need the costumes finished early to be able to wear them to the Hardin Valley (our families' church) Fall Festival held on Sunday the 26th.

Thankfully the day before the festival was a Saturday, and Brian went to his parents house to work on a car with his dad and took both kids along with him. Since they ended up eating lunch and taking naps at Nana and Granddad's house, I was left with the whole day to finish up costumes. When they got back home that afternoon, the costumes were ready for a test run.  Sarah was so excited that she made sure that I did her make up as well!


Nathan's costume needed just a little more tweaking (finish the hat and modify the tail so it wasn't so heavy), but it was in excellent shape the next afternoon for the Fall Festival.



The kids LOVED all the different inflatables they had at the church.  They first spent lots of time in the bouncy house, but then when I convinced them to try the giant slide they were hooked for the rest of the night.  Nathan must have gone down this slide 20 - 30 times, and Sarah almost as many!  They both loved getting major air as they jumped their way off the top of the slide and Nathan always wanted "Mr. Daniel" (Brooks, who was one of the men monitoring the chaos) to watch him as he went down the slide!



After taking a few pictures, I realized that videos would do better justice to the kids' experience.  Here is a longer one:



And here is one that gives a better view of Sarah.  Unfortunately the only good angle I got of Sarah was the very first video and its pretty jerky since I hadn't figured out exactly how best to record (I took a couple but could never figure out which side which kid would be sliding down).



After all that fun, it was time for the actual Trick-or-Trunk portion of the night.  Just like last year, the kids combined "Happy Halloween" and "Trick-or-Treat" into their own greeting of "Happy Trick-or-Treat!!". 

Now fast-forward to Friday, which was both a school day and Halloween!  The kids were encouraged to dress up for school that morning and Brian and I both got to be there for the kids' Costume Parade.  Here's Nathan...


...and with his preschool class!


And Sarah?  Well, I had commented to Brian earlier in the morning that I wasn't sure how this was going to go with dropping off Sarah (still with tears every day), then seeing her again, then her having to separate again.  As expected, it didn't go smoothly, as you can see from this video where Sarah's class starts out the parade.



She refused to leave my lap and join her class for the rest of the parade or for her class picture.  So I didn't force the issue, but I was so glad that Daddy was there so he could handle dropping her off twice in one morning!

But here we are Halloween night, looking cheerful again!  The weather was cold and rainy, so we decided to take the kids over to the West End Trick-or-Trunk (which, brilliantly, was held inside the building!).  David and Carroll went with us while Gran stayed at our house to hand out candy (though only one lone trick-or-treater came to the door the entire night.  Our house is at the top of a hill on the edge of our neighborhood, so I wasn't counting on many kids anyway).  We had a nice time at West End, the kids enjoyed it (though by that time they certainly didn't need more candy) and te adults got a chance to visit with some old friends.  A wonderful evening was had by all!

Nathan handled the anticipation of his birthday well... of having to wait through the whole month of October plus lots of other birthday celebrations before he finally got to have his big day.  And I'm pretty sure that he'd say it was worth the wait.

And because I love this picture so much, I'm going to jump straight to it...


Yes, our FIVE-YEAR OLD birthday boy was pretty excited about his big day, especially the part where he was surrounded by lots of family for the most important part of the day - singing and blowing out the candle.

But to back up, Brian was on vacation the week of Nathan's birthday (a happy coincidence), so in the morning Daddy offered to take the kids to get doughnuts after a light breakfast.  Though going out for doughnuts was one of Nathan's favorite activities in Boston, to our surprise he turned down the offer of a ride in the truck in favor of playing with his blocks and Duplos upstairs while listening to his "Jack and Annie stories" (Magic Treehouse series) books on CD.  I have been checking out different stories for him to listen to for his quiet time, but he loves listening so much that many mornings he and Sarah will disappear up to their playroom to listen and play (usually nicely, though sometimes with intermittent screaming) together for thirty minutes or an hour or more!  Since that's what he wanted to do on his birthday morning, Sarah got the fun of riding alone with Daddy in the truck to get our treats.  I'm not sure whether the highlight was getting to eat a doughnut in the car on the way home or getting to hold Daddy's hand during the ride (she's such a sterotypical girl in some ways!), but she came home super excited about the trip. Nathan was not reluctant, however, to partake of the Krispy Kreme deliciousness once they arrived back home!

Shortly thereafter, Gran and Pawpaw showed up at our house to take Nathan on his birthday outing.  Their first stop was the store to pick out a Tennessee baseball hat (Nathan really, really wanted me to get him one when we went shopping for preschool "orange day", so at the time I thought this might be the perfect birthday present from another big "Big Orange" fan - Pawpaw!), then it was out to lunch at Chick-fil-a.  Nathan came back with a huge grin on his face, though unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of him and the grandparents with his loot.

After quiet time and TV, Nana and Granddad came over so that Nathan could open his presents early and have time to play before dinner.  Knowing Nathan loves Thomas Train stuff, Nana and Granddad got him a Gordon engine ("Express coming through!").


Then he got to open his biggest present - a wooden train track set (which thankfully Gordon is compatible with, even though he is a Mega Blocks train) and a set of freight cars.  We also ordered two Thomas engines and two Percy engines that came the next day - we figured I would not survive the kids fighting over one Thomas and one Percy, even for the two weeks until Sarah's birthday, so we proactively ordered duplicates of these favorite characters. And it was cute the other day when I heard Sarah say "Where is my "S" Thomas?", since Daddy even labeled the bottoms of the duplicates with the kids' initials!



The kids both have LOVED their new train track sets and we are constantly hearing them make up stories with either other and their engines: "Nathan, I need Thomas to shunt me to my Tidemouth Sheds!" (FYI "Tidemouth" is pronounced "tid-muth"), "Sarah, my wheels are wobbly!", "Express coming through!", etc.

Then most of the rest of the family joined us for dinner - Grandmother and Granddaddy, Gran and Pawpaw, and Uncle David - the only person we were missing was Aunt Bridget.


For dinner Nathan requested hot dogs and broccoli salad, and I added pineapple and potato salad to the menu.  And the cake?  Chocolate cake with chocolate icing, red words on the inside, orange decorative icing on the outside. 


Which brings us back to this...


And I love how since then he'll tell me "This is the first time I've been to school when I'm five" or "This is the first time I've come to Grandmother and Granddaddy's house since I was five".  Being five is turning out to be one special milestone for this sweet boy!

We had a little break after Grandmother's birthday to gear up for Nana's.  This time I wanted to have a special evening for the birthday girl at our house, so we invited Nana, Granddad, David and Bridget over for hamburgers and cake. 

I had planned on the kids helping me make the cake (since they love to do that kind of thing), but life got in the way (sick Sarah, poor nights sleep for me, car battery dead).  So by the time I got around to making it, my motto was "get it done fast or not at all".  So we settled for the kids (one again) picking out the icing colors and then helping decorate with sprinkles and candles.  This time around we had a yellow cake with chocolate frosting - yum!




Unfortunately I didn't think about getting a family picture with all of us there, but we had a nice dinner together and the kids got even more practice blowing out candles. 

Yikes - I can't believe another month has flown by!  Its been a good one, full of fun birthdays, Halloween preparation, fall celebrations, vacations and visits with family.  Maybe November will slow down some so I can catch up on blog posts??  I feel like a broken record about not being able to keep up...  Oh well!

We went to visit Grandmother the day before her birthday bring her presents and a cookie cake.  The kids were so excited about making her lots of "gifts."  Nathan drew "a picture of Grandmother in a doggy costume.  She has on a mask... like a doctor's mask. Those are puppy dog curtains - like a puppy dog on stage."  (I don't have a picture of the completed artwork, and I'm not sure where he came up with the idea for his drawing either!)

Sarah drew pictures of Grandmother and Granddaddy for each of them.  Grandmother "is the one with the hair because girls have hair."  I guess Granddaddy doesn't have enough hair (in her opinion) to warrant adding it onto her drawing.


In addition to their stick-figure pictures, both kids constructed some random, complicated creation that started with coloring page pictures, which were then cut out and pasted on various colors and shapes of foam and then wrapped in some Christmas gift bags that I just happened to find the day before - actually, the same bags that the received their presents from G & G last year!

They were so excited to give Grandmother all their creations immediately after we got to her house!


I baked a pan of (Grandmother's recipe) Chocolate Espresso Bar cookies, so that we would have something to stick candles into.  The kids are still convinced that one doesn't officially turn a year older until the "Happy Birthday" song is sung and candles are blown out.  So I made sure we did that with Grandmother!


Right before we left (and unfortunately just after Granddaddy headed off to bed), I remembered to get a picture of Grandmother with the kids, and was also finally able to get one with Odile (sp?), an old friend of my grandparents who had come for a two week visit from France.  How fun!

We have a lot of special family and friends with birthdays this month.  To get us all started was Gran's birthday this past weekend.  The kids and I headed over to the lake house on Saturday evening (Brian was on call) to celebrate with Gran and Pawpaw.  Per Gran's request (I told her she had to let us make her a birthday cake), the kids and I baked and decorated a cookie cake for her.  They had never heard of a cookie cake before, but it certainly was a big hit!  Sarah helped me with the whole cake, Nathan joining in when it was time to crack the egg and dump the flour into the dough.  Then after the cake was baked, they helped me pick out and mix the two colors of icing and applied the sprinkles to the cake.  A pretty festive result, I think!



Gran had mentioned to me earlier in the week how they don't usually make a big deal out of her birthday, but I told her that one of my goals now that we're living so close to family is that we can and should start making them a big deal!  So hooray for a first fun birthday this month!

We finally got around to taking a family picture in front of our new house to document this latest transition in our lives.  Here we are the night before we left Boston back in July, on the way to dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant, El Centro, with some good friends.   


And now a little over two months later in front of our (first) Knoxville house.  I'm definitely sporting a larger baby bump these days, but otherwise not much change in our overall family appearance.


After two months in our new place we are basically unpacked... until we pull the baby stuff out of the attic in a few weeks and have to figure out where to put it all!  The garage is reclaimed from "stuff storage" to a place to park a car and house the fleet of riding toys we own, there are pictures are on the walls in some of the rooms, and we've even bought and hung new curtains in two rooms.  We are only planning on being in this house for about a year, which will give us time to adjust to a new town, make sure Brian wants to stick with his job, and at least a few months to spend house hunting after the new year.  We are looking forward to all the adventures and changes this next year will bring our way!

One of my great aunts (and therefore the kids' great-great-aunt) is Sister Diane, a nun who currently lives in Kentucky.  Dad and Mom had been planning on bringing her down for a visit to their lake house for a while, and our family had the pleasure of spending an evening with them this past Monday.

Aunt Diane is one of the sisters of my late paternal grandmother, Grammy.  Grammy was the third of eleven children, and the oldest of the five girls in the family (Diane was the fourth oldest child in the family).  Grammy passed away about two months after Nathan was born, unfortunately before I was able to take Nathan to visit her.  Dad and Mom drove me and baby Nathan up to Washington DC for her funeral, right after Christmas in 2009, where we had a wonderful visit with all four of Grammy's sisters who had also made the trip for the funeral.  That was the last time we had seen each other.

Though Nathan was tired when we got to the lake house and wasn't feeling very social, Sarah thrilled all of us by running right to give Sister Diane a hug.  Sister Diane picked her up and Sarah exclaimed "I never met you before!!" with a big grin on her face.


We had a nice visit and then after dinner Nathan perked up quite a bit.  He challenged Pawpaw to a game of Go Fish, so Gran and I stayed downstairs to chat while everyone else headed upstairs to watch the action.  After a while our curiosity was piqued as there was lots of rowdy noise and laughter coming from the second floor.  We got up there to be greeted by this:


Pawpaw and Nathan in the middle of a rousing card tournament - I love that you can see how much fun they're having in this shot!  Sarah was also playing a game with Sister Diane of "throw the cat, run to retrieve it, then climb back into your lap".  (I love Pawpaw's expression in this picture as well!)  We all had a really fun time!


Also after dinner, Aunt Diane brought out presents she had thoughtfully gotten for us.  Brian and I got a set of cute ladybug mugs and both kids got a a treat bag.  The biggest hit with them was not the candy in their bags but the battery-powered Halloween candle!  The kids immediately switched them on and ran to the secret hiding place, where they could fully appreciate their beauty in the dark little room.  Then, of course, the special presents had to be displayed in the pictures we took before we headed home. 


Sarah's candle was so loved, in fact, that after bed that night Brian had to break out the super-glue to repair and reinforce Sarah's candle. 


We were all so happy about a wonderful evening to visit together!

Sarah's been doing much better at preschool these past few school days, thankfully.  Two and a half weeks ago she decided what she needed to do when she got to class was "sleep with my Kitty Cat".  I told this to her teachers at drop-off and they got her cuddled in a corner with her stuffed animal and said that after a while she came out and happily participated in the rest of the class activities for the rest of the day. Since then if she starts acting too sad when we get to school, I remind her that she can just cuddle with her Kitty Cat until she feels better and that idea tends to help her hang onto her composure. 

I've been packing the kids' lunches in the morning before school, since there's no point in my mind reminding Sarah unnecessarily the night before that there's school the next day.  She'll just start her fussing and whining and telling me with a quivery lip "I don't WANNA go to school!" at night rather then sometime during the morning.  For the first couple days, mention of her school lunch would send her spiraling down the fussy/crying portion of our day, but a few mornings ago she tried a new plan of attack. 

Mommy:  "Kids, what kind of sandwich do you want?"
Sarah: "Anything!" (translated - "I don't want anything" aka nothing!).
Mommy: "Do you want grapes or apple slices for your fruit?"
Sarah: "Anything!"
Mommy: "Do you want carrots or cucumbers?"
Sarah: "ANYTHING!!"

Her refusal to cooperate cheered me up since it was a vast improvement (in my mind) to threatening to break down into tears!  Brian and I are sure that some of the angst and sadness is related to the fact that she's been cutting her two year molars ever since the beginning of September, so we are REALLY ready for that to be over so she doesn't have the added stress of her mouth hurting her. 

Last Friday was "Big Orange" day, so we had to run out and buy some Tennessee orange paraphernalia for the kiddos.  Nathan kept insisting that he needed an orange shirt AND some orange shorts and I finally understood what he was getting at when he said in a confidential tone "But Mommy, if we don't find any orange shorts I don't want everyone to see my underwear!"  A week or two earlier they had "blue day" at school and he embraced it whole-heartedly by wearing blue shorts, blue shirt and blue undies, so this time around he had it in his mind that he couldn't wear shorts that were any color but orange.  Unfortunately for him we didn't find any orange shorts that would fit on short notice, though Sarah did have an orange skirt that she was able to wear to complete her orange outfit!


Last week Nathan did an evaluation with his teaching assistant, Ms. Kaci.  They had told us that they do evaluations with the pre-k class in the fall and spring to determine where the kids are in terms of kindergarten readiness.  Nathan came back from his evaluation saying that "I'm really smart.  I knew all the answers!"  I got the evaluation form back today and it turns out that he did know almost everything that they asked him!



We are so thankful that Nathan (and we believe Sarah too) has been blessed with plenty of intelligence, but we try to avoid calling them "smart".  We believe that it is even more important for them to develop good morals (kindness, compassion, honesty, etc.) and also a good work ethic.  But even so, this Mama's heart did swell with pride when I found out that he did so well on the evaluation!

Nathan: My hair is tan.
Mommy: Most people would call it blond.
N: Don’t call it blond. Call it tan!
(In previous years he was convinced that his hair color was “gray”!)


Mommy: Sarah, we need to trim your nails. They are long and dirty.
Sarah: But not this one! (pointing to the thumb that she sucks)
M: That’s right because its always in your mouth.
S: (Looking at her other thumb) But this one is dirty.
M: Right, because you don’t suck that thumb.
S: No, I DON’T suck-a this one. (pause) Its not comfortable!
(Later, when trimming nails).
M: We don’t need to trim that nail (referring to her sucking thumb, which always seems to be short)
S: Because I suck it! (Then referring to the other thumb) I don’t usually suck this one, I usually suck the other one!

(Maybe its normal for her age, but it still somewhat surprises me when she uses big words like “comfortable” and “usually”.)


Nathan: (As if making a proclamation) Its Mowing Day!
Daddy: Nathan, Uncle David just mowed our yard on Monday.  What do you mean its mowing day?
N: I need to mow out there (pointing to front yard) with my little mower.  (Turning around to walk away) If you need me, you can open the window and talk to me.
N: (A minute later, he knocks on the window) You need to open the window!
Mommy: Nathan, I'm not going to leave the window open right now.  Its warm outside and cool inside and we don't want all the cool air to go outside.  I can leave the front door open and if you need anything you can open the storm door and ask.
N: Ok...well... if YOU need ME then you can open the door and talk to me.

(Nathan, thanks for making sure I can find you if I need you!)


Sarah: My painting is not dry.  After it dries I will pick it up and hand it to Nathan and he will be de-why-ted to have it.
Mommy: Delighted?! (Surprised at her new word.)
Sarah: Yes.  Happy.  He will be happy to have it!
(Thanks for defining "delighted" for me sweet girl!)

My "little" brother James drove down from Chicago this weekend to visit the family and we sure had a wonderful time hanging out with him.  The kids and I were over at Gran and Pawpaw's lake house on Thursday afternoon when he arrived and then Brian was was able to join us for a dinner of Nunberger wurst and German potato salad.  Then on Friday evening we all met over at Grandmother and Granddaddy's house for a delicious dinner of two types of pasta (bowties with sage and browned butter and gnocchi with Gorgonzola) plus salad, bread and dessert.  Saturday morning we headed back to the lake house for one more visit and lunch (pizza!).

This last visit I finally had my camera with me and brought it out to take some pictures! This, of course, was the one I was really interested in making sure we got.  I thought I had missed out on our opportunity for cooperative kids, since Sarah had a meltdown at lunch right before we were going to take the picture, but she rallied beautifully and both kids were super cheerful when it came time to pose.  Hooray!


But to back up, we had a few pressing tasks to take care of while we were out at the lake house.  Our first activity involved firing up the chainsaw and cutting some birch logs to length to brighten up our fireplace.  I told James that I was taking a picture just to test out the light (which I was), but then I liked this so much I decided to keep it!


Once everyone was equipped with hearing protection, Pawpaw started up the chainsaw and got to work on the logs.  He had a rapt audience!






Then it was time to take rides on the UTV.  Nathan is always thrilled to take rides with Pawpaw!


Next it was Sarah's turn.  She picked Gran's lap to ride in and Daddy as her driver.  She, Nathan and Gran had collected acorns from Granddaddy and Grandmother's house the day before to spread around the property, so her job during this ride was to throw them along the road as they road.  Gran said that she took her job very seriously!


Of course, quite a few games of "pool balls" had to be played for this to qualify as a thorough visit to the lake house!  Nathan LOVES playing with anyone who's up for a game.  


Thanks so much "Uncle James" for coming down for a wonderful visit!  We are eagerly anticipating the next time we'll get to see you!