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!