Christmas in Raleigh

***WARNING: This is a loooong blog entry***

We drove to Raleigh to celebrate Christmas with Nathan's family. All of us were there except Ben and his family, who we missed much! It was great weather while we were there, for us anyway! One morning Nathan and Marilyn were looking at the weather forecast on the computer and it said that the high would be 45 degrees. Nathan said "Yes!" and Marilyn said "Oh, Man!" I guess it's just your point of view.

The following pictures are from the Children's Museum in downtown Raleigh. Marilyn, who's always thinking of her grandchildren, bought a membership, so all of the grandchildren were free! We went to the musuem twice while we were there.

Sorry, Mirm, I had to include this one, it's so cute!

Even Grandpa got in on the action!

Nathan really enjoyed riding his Dad's Vespa! He was always asking if anyone wanted to go on a ride with him. Andy was a frequent rider.

CHRISTMAS EVE - Marilyn had borrowed some costumes from a friend so that we could perform the Nativity story right. We had a lot of fun with it.
A humble shepard.

Mary quite contrary.

Michael couldn't decide what he wanted to be, here he is a donkey.

Wise man Jack

Angels we have heard on high! Katie loved holding the star!

Andy as a lamb.

My sweet lil' lambie!

Another Wise Guy!

The Stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

Candy - caning the tree.

Christmas morning much have been full of action because I have only this picture of Nathan and the following one of Haley! Oh well. It was a great morning!

Auntie Mimi story time! The kids all gathered together and Miriam read a great story. The kids looked forward to story time every night. Sometimes it was Miriam and sometimes it was Grandma.

A favorite family tradition - Grandma's sugar cookies with frosting and sprinkles!

Grandma Story time, always a favorite with the kids!

On New Year's Eve, Mom and Dad made reservations for all of the adults to go out to dinner at The Cheesecake Factory! It is quickly becoming one of our favorite places to eat! We all enjoy being able to have an uninterrupted conversations with our siblings! It was a lot of fun, thanks Mom and Dad!

Update

Dear Family and Friends, you'll have to humor me....I feel this urge to update before I can share what is happening now in our family. It has been a while since we have written on our blog. So here goes with the update. Our update begins in October with Halloween pictures. Nathan was going to be on his second trip to Russia during Halloween. He knows that I HATE being alone on Halloween, I've done it and I DON'T LIKE IT!! So he took pity on me and asked his mom to come out and help me while he was gone for about 2 weeks.

For Halloween, Andy was Wolverine from "The X-Men", Haley was a "Glamour Witch", Michael was Thomas the Tank Engine, and Nate....well Nate got creative this year. He wanted to be Bumblebee the Transformer, but he wanted to actually transform! I had no idea where to begin with this costume, so I thought I'd wait until Marilyn was here and maybe with her artistic talents she could figure out how to achieve this feat. She worked on Nate's costume for a week solid! She did a great job! He even had working headlights. We learned a few things making this costume. Nate was not able to walk very well in his costume, so we ended up having to take it all off except the mask for trick or treating. The costume only allowed for him to be a car once, so I'm glad that we got a lot of pictures so he only truly "transformed" once. Nate really loved his costume and he was a hit at school, so it was worth all of the hard work, right Marilyn?!

Michael was really cute being Thomas, he wanted to wear his costume the entire week of Halloween and even into the next week. He still asks for it occasionally. When asked what he was going to be for Halloween, he'd respond with "I be Thomas!" It was so cute!

This is what our yard looked like before I had a chance to rake the leaves. Nate called it "Leaf City."


While Grandma Taggart was here, we went on our annual visit to Tweite's Pumpkin Patch. It had snowed the day before, so it was a little wet and snowy, but the kids were troopers and even had fun!

No, Virginia...

Nikole and I were confronted with a dilemma this evening at the dinner table. Nate, having apparently heard something from someone at school, asked us whether we (Nikole and I) are the Tooth Fairy. I glanced at Nikole. She nodded at me. And we explained that yes, in fact, we are the Tooth Fairy.

"So there is no Tooth Fairy?" Haley inquired.

Yes, I explained. (Meaning--"Yes, there is no Tooth Fairy)

"Do you KEEP the teeth?"

No, Nikole stated. Anticipating Haley's next question about what we actually do with the teath, I explained that we feed them to the Tooth Monster that lives outside Nate's bedroom window.

Haley, ever the logical thinker, next inquired whether we also are the Easter Bunny. (Yes, dear, we are.) At this point, making a bold declaration of his faith as if to try to prevent further unwelcome revelations that were rapidly disintigrating the foundation of his reality, Nate proclaimed, "Well, there is one thing that I know for sure is true..."

("Please don't..." I thought.)

"...it's that Santa Claus IS REAL!"

I caught Nikole's attention across the table and raised my left eyebrow, asking for her permission. She again nodded to me.

"Nate," I started. "You and I need to have a talk..."

"Dad! I want a DOG, too!" Haley interrupted, not having been listening very closely to the conversation.

I walked Nate into the back room, recognizing that he was on the cusp of a Bruce Willis-at-the-end-of-The Sixth Sense reality-shattering discovery.

I asked him what it would mean to him if Mom and Dad really were Santa Claus. "I don't know..." he mumbled, his eyes already red and watering.

"Well..." I paused briefly, took a deep breath, and then forged ahead. "We are."

I could only imagine what was going through Nate's mind at that point. And it went something like this:

"I really, really want a Nintendo DS. I told Mom and Dad that I want one for Christmas, but they informed me that they won't be paying $130 so that I can play video games anywhere, at any time of day. And while I was bummed that they weren't going to buy me one, I figured that if I ask Santa for one, he is sure to come through for me. And now THIS? Lame."

Next, I brought Haley in and gave her the same news. She took it less hard than Nate. She just kept asking me, "But where do you get all that money for the presents?" Great question, Haley.

I reassured them both that Christmas will continue to be fun and that "Santa" will still visit the Taggart home each year, but that he would appreciate it if those requesting gifts will remember that he is really trying to save money for various home improvement projects.

We went back to the dinner table, the trauma of the initial shock having diffused. I leaned over to Nate and asked him whether he found any new significance in the words of a song often invoked at our house when the kids are getting unruly:

"He sees you when you're sleeping,
He knows when you're awake,
He knows if you've been bad or good,
So be good for goodness sake!"

Minnesota State Fair

"Minnesota State Fair, Here We Come!" Andy called this out as we approached the ticket booth to buy our fair tickets. The kids were so excited to go to the fair, it was like Christmas morning, they woke up early and were jumping around anxious to go. Nathan and I were excited to go as well, but for different reasons, we were excited to see Nathan's Aunt Marilyn and her husband Jerry. We had a lot of fun: riding rides, playing games, eating great food, and seeing some fun sights!




Andy got a hold of the camera and started taking pictures. He took about 10 pictures before we realized he had the camera. Here's a sampling of what he took.

One of our favorite booths was the "Lego Experience" the kids had fun building things and seeing what had been built. Here's Haley's creation.


I love this picture of Michael! When he's really concentrating on something, he puckers his lips and drools.