Dear Santa

The kids have written their letters to Santa this year!

Henry's letter. Written by himself. How many first graders do you know who can spell "sleigh" correctly? Also, take note of how he incorporated the top of Santa's hat into 'love'. He was proud of that.

"From: Henry

Dear Santa, How have you been? Is it fun

riding in your sleigh? I bet it is!

I can't wait for Christmas! this is

some of the things I want.:

A Elctronic Dinosauar costome,

Snap circuits extreme And

Snap Rover. the stocking

with the bone is our dogs!

His name is: Franklin!

Love, Henry

P.S. I've

been good!"

 

And Clara's letter, transcribed (and influenced) by Henry:

"from: Clara

Dear Santa How Have

you Been? Ist fun 

riding in your sleigh?

I can't wait for 

Christmas. I hope you

can bring the presents I

want! A Doll House.

Love, Clara"

In other news, Fabio is looking fabulous. He's a little ornament-heavy around the lower-mid section, but that's because the kids did most of the decorating. I've been resisting the urge to redecorate.

Fabio (updated)

Guess what we did today! It was very muddy for cutting down a tree. Not as lovely as last year's snowy wonderland, but we enjoyed ourselves and found a good one none-the-less. And the cinnamon donuts taste just as good when there isn't snow on the ground. Clara tried to name our tree, but it kept coming out as something I couldn't quite pronounce. For a while it sounded like "cerado". I suggested maybe we just go with Fabio and she was good with that. His brother Frederico lives on the other side of town at Sharon's house.

 

Update: Fabio is a bit bigger than we realized. He looks very wonky in this picture, but we're still working on his placement and he's still loosening up and settling into his new home.

Christmas Tree Day

The snowy weather created the perfect mood for our planned Christmas Tree day! So we picked up Sharon and the girls, all managed to fit in the mini-van (!) and headed out onto the snowy roads to the Christmas tree farm. (Have I mentioned how nice it is to have Sharon and the girls back? It's so nice to have friends who are more like family in town.)
These photos are roughly in order. We were in the car for a while on the way up there because just as we got close we had to backtrack and detour due to an accident. So in this first photo Henry was asleep and Sinéad had just woken up.
These pictures are mostly from Sharon's camera. After finding a couple of lovely trees there was time for donuts, popcorn and some free hot chocolate! I was also mesmerized by the warning label on the tree shaking-machine (the Shakee). Henry wouldn't stop eating the snow. I hope he doesn't get any sort of weird illness from that. Mostly I think he'll just have chapped lips all winter. He can't keep his tongue in his mouth and Clara can't keep her mittens on her hands. Hopefully today (as I'm typing this at 3AM- awake due to a too-large meal for another friend's birthday) we'll get the tree and other decorations up. We might all pile into the car again tonight to go to a local lights display that we enjoyed together 2 years ago. That time we saw a light-up pooping reindeer and we all have high hopes of another sighting. Plus-it's a great excuse to drink more hot chocolate. I may need to get some peppernuts made first, though. I have lots to do! I should go back to bed.