Cornaments and Dingle Bells

As is tradition for me - I typically spend my after-thanksgiving days helping my mom put up her Christmas stuff. And that's exactly what happened. We worked for hours with my dad putting up lights, trees, decorations etc. Nathan brought the kids by in the afternoon and they ended up staying until after 11pm. So we had a lot of time to entertain those guys - and I put them straight to work! We had a smidge of trouble when they first got to grandma and grandpa's house. Isabelle and Robert in particular weren't very excited to be there. But a few minutes of warming up, and a tree to decorate brought out the Christmas spirit in everyone. They were so good to help unwind lights (or in Isabella's case to twist them all over me) and help put up Ornaments on the tree. Robert was especially enthusiastic..."More Cornaments please, more cornaments please!" And I'd hand him a few. He'd scamper over to the tree and layer them all on his special branch (not two or three - one!) "More cornaments please" he'd say. I hand him a jingle bell ornament. He rings it, and, gasping with delight, exclaims "yes! it's a Dingle bell!"


Ok...has there been a cuter kid?? That is so hard to say because they are all just adorable.




Isabelle is the very special type of person whose excitement and happiness runs over you and makes the whole world golden just because she smiled, waved her little hand in her "hold me" sign and snuggled up next to you. However, that kid can throw a tantrum like I have seldom seen. It was just too cute! When she started crying for her dad, I put her down so she could run over to him. Instead, she bent over at the waist holding her head like "how could you do this to me?" Then she promptly fell to the floor and rolled from side to side in obvious emotional agony over the terrible things she'd been forced to suffer (I think this was the time I tried to take off her jacket. I have no idea why she is so attached...but she got to keep it on the rest of the night, obviously. This is cute once - not all night!).

Since my mom has often showed pictures of me throwing a tantrum when I was about this age, I thought I'd retaliate and show a few pics myself.


From Thanksgiving day - the group of us who did the turkey trot fun run!