Christmas Celebration 2013

This Christmas season was festive and fun!  In the weeks leading up to Christmas, we enjoyed lots of cheerful festivities - Breakfast with Santa at school, Cassidy's Irish Dance Christmas Show, Gavin's Christmas performance with his class - just to name a few!  Below are some photos of all the fun we've been having...

Gavin's class sings at the school-wide church service

Cassie and Grammy dance together at her Irish Dance Christmas show

Flowers for the special performer!  (Her front teeth popped out a few hours later!)

Gavin preparing to take the stage at his school Christmas show

Gavin is all smiles on stage as they sang

Cassidy and I got dressed up to see our local theater perform The Nutcracker

Then before we knew it, our Christmas celebrations were upon us.  We left on Dec 20 and made our way to Cincinnati for my cousin Lindsay's wedding.  It was a pretty winter wedding and we loved catching up with the extended Reder family.  After that, we drove on to Lexington, KY to have our Reder family Christmas at the Burkholder's home.  It was a relaxing time with a household full of great family.  We squeezed in a lot of activity - Shannon and her girls spent some quality time with Cassidy teaching her how to sew on the sewing machine (thank you!), the adult guys took a tour of Woodford Reserve, a historic bourbon distillery, we played board games, read books and did a giant jigsaw puzzle! We left their home on Christmas Eve, making our way back to Wilmette so we could wake up at home on Christmas morning.  That was a special morning, as always!  Such magic!  We left later that morning for Clarendon Hills, where we met up at Grammy & Grandpa Brown's house to celebrate the Brown family Christmas - another special, festive time with family.  We played in the snow in jammies and enjoyed some delicious holiday meals.  Below are some of the moments we captured!

The Wedding

I loved watching Cassidy watch Lindsay make her way down the aisle...

Kiddie Cocktails!

With the lovely bride & groom, Lindsay and Alex

Christmas in Lexington, KY

All the Reder grandkids together!

Woodford Reserve Tour

Reading with Grandpa

Learning to sew (maybe now Cassidy can teach mommy!)

With her sewing teacher, Aunt Shannon.  They made that lovely peace purse together!

Tyler with Aunt Tracy & Kelsey

All the cousins!

Cassie and Grandma with her special leatherback turtle Grandma gave her

Christmas Morning in Wilmette

It was a magical morning!  Santa ate the cookies, the reindeer ate the carrots, and wonderful gifts were left under our tree!

Christmas Celebration with the Brown Family

Gavin was excited about Matchbox cars and tracks this Christmas!

Tyler loves his new tricycle!

Cassidy had asked for her first sewing kit!

Fun times at the piano

Christmas dinner - the Brown Family Swedish meatballs (it's tradition!)

A toast between Pops and son

Grammy and Tyler swing together outside

He's a happy boy!

Playtime in PJs

We are grateful and blessed with all the wonderment and love that this season brings!

All I Want For Christmas Is My 2 Front Teeth

Who would have thought that a mere 8 days before Christmas, Cassidy would lose her 2 front teeth in the same evening?  That's what happened though, and as you can tell from the picture, our sweet little 6-year old was very, very excited!  Those teeth had been wiggling for weeks.  Double duty for the tooth fairy tonight!

Gobble Gobble 2013

We loved our family-filled Thanksgiving, as always.  We saw both sides of our family, celebrating with the Browns on Thursday and the Hardings/Burkholders on Saturday.  We love getting the chance to see everyone and also don't mind 2 delicious Thanksgiving meals!  This year Cassidy and Gavin made place setting decorations for the tables at each house.  They were little acorns/turkeys that had a blank strip of paper to attach a message.  I let the kids choose what to write, and they were fun and sweet to read.  Their favorite was "Gobble Gobble" while mine was the very simple "I'm thankful."  Simple but true!  Here are some photos of our time with family.

Starting out in Clarendon Hills...

 Finishing up in Lafayette!

 

 

Halloween 2013

It was a rainy Halloween this year, but that did not stop us!  As always the kids loved getting dressed up in costume.  Cassidy was a Wild Kratt (her favorite wildlife adventure TV show), Gavin was Snake Eyes (again!), and Tyler was Yoda.  Erik and I got into the spirit and dressed as Where's Waldo characters, which the kids thought was hilarious.  We went up and down our street with the Hoffmeister family, amidst pouring rain!  We also went to the "reptile house" as the kids call it, the home in our neighborhood that greets trick-or-treaters from their garage with a fog machine and their friendly reptiles.  It's the favorite house every year!  By the time we finally headed home the kids' pumpkin buckets were filled to the brim.  Gavin officially declared Halloween his favorite holiday.

Cassidy's first "Adventure Guides" weekend

Last weekend, Erik and Cassidy took off for an Adventure Guides weekend.  We are new to Adventure Guides this year - it's a program run through the YMCA that offers camping/outdoor recreation overnights for dads & daughters.  They pair the kids by school so you can bunk with friends and classmates.  It's such a neat idea and provides a really fun opportunity for dads to have some outdoor adventures with their daughters (and other fun dads!).

Erik and Cassidy rode to the campgrounds (about an hour away) with her good friend Emma and her dad.  Once there, the girls got to choose from a variety of activities.  Horseback riding and canoeing made their list, which Cassidy really enjoyed, and they also had wildlife speakers with live animals.  The weekend was a big hit and Cassidy is already asking about the spring trip!