between Christmases

We had a month of Christmas this year - starting with the visit to Madison at the end of November, and ending with a beautiful week, more or less snowed in at the Lodge. The time in between involved a lot of singing Christmas carols and being good so Santa would come.

Grandpa Mike and Grandma Susie came to visit and they helped us set up our Christmas tree. Here Will, Hallie, and Grandpa are opening the ornaments Erin got for us all this year.

These are some nice family pictures.

We got lots of snow here in Michigan over the past month, so there was a lot of shoveling that needed to be done. Will helped out a lot by raking the snow. Also, he was really excited about the form of "helping shovel" that involved getting a rakeful of snow, then sneaking up on mom/dad and throwing it on us. I told Will from the beginning that if he engages dad in a snow fight, it can only end one way: with Will getting hit with a snowball, right in the tummy. He learned the hard way that I was serious (see below).

Haha, just kidding. Though the above picture was in fact due to me tossing a shovelful of snow on Will - at his request - it just happened that some of the snow got inside his coat.

Much of the month was spent hanging out in jammies and tights in between trips outside - each of which involved about 10 minutes of bundling up. Then after putting on the snowpants, boots, coat, hat, and mittens, Will occasionally decided he needed to go potty (which of course meant taking it all off again, then getting redressed after the potty trip). Fortunately Hallie (the one with the pink chicken legs) was content to pee in her diapers, because having to take off/put back on her cocoon probably would have meant I would have given up even trying to take them outside.