Two days after Christmas, we headed to NC to my Grandma's house. Addison and Fischer were excited to go see Great-Grandma, Grandpa and Grandmommy Suttle.

It was also my Grandma's 80th birthday, so that was fun. We all went in together and got her a new TV for her house. I think she was surprised!

We stayed for a few hours and got to visit with family while the kids played. They found my Grandma's stash of thread and had the best time with that. Remind me why we buy them toys?!

We played outside a lot too, where the kids "fished" on the little hill in Grandma's front yard. Grandpa Suttle joined in on the fishing too.

Fischer wore himself out and took a little rest in Great Gma's bed. So funny. :)

It was time to head home because Scott's sister and her family were coming to visit us that day too.

It's safe to say all 3 kids were worn out (Lucy is curled up in the middle)!

Christmas was so fun this year! The kids were SO excited, and I was too!

Fischer got up early, as usual. He wanted to go see if Santa had come, so I let him go look (but not touch!) at the stuff in the living room before forcing him to lay in our bed and watch a show. Luckily Santa wrapped his gifts so Fischer still didn't know what he was getting... he must have known that the kids wouldn't get up at the same time!

Addison got up a little bit later, and also wanted to see if Santa had come. They actually waited to open gifts until after breakfast. What can I say other than our kids love food more than they love presents. :)

First we did stockings. Lucy got her very first stocking too! Next we moved on to Santa's presents. I am a BIG believer in opening one thing at a time so I made sure we did that so I could see how the kids reacted!

Addison's "big thing" from Santa was a collection of dress up/princess dresses! We teamed up with Santa and got her some coordinating shoes and accessories.  She also got a princess nightgown and the game "pop the pig" was to both kids from Santa. Also, a floor puzzle that's all about ballerinas, as well as a jewerly making kit that doesn't require string, which was from us.

Fischer's "big thing" was a set of all the guns from Toy Story. He has Woody's gun, Buzz's gun and 2 others... he also got a pair of Jake and the Neverland Pirates pajamas, which he loves.

A few other things they got were a big Play-doh candy factory toy. I realized the night before we didn't have the proper batteries for that so we ended up scrounging on Christmas morning and Scott was able to find what we needed. Fischer also got a Captain Hook set, that makes it look like you have different hooks as hands, which I think is pretty cool. You can remove several different attachements and add others. Super fun!

Oh, and the final thing from Santa was being hidden in the garage. They each got 2 new tricycles... we call them "monster trikes." They are made so they can easily be ridden off-road, which is much of our yard/land so it will work well for them! They actually didn't get these until after nap time - we "lured" them out into the garage and they saw them hidden under a tarp.

We finally finished up and then had some lunch. Later that day the kids actually napped! Merry Christmas to us! :)

Christmas is also Jim's birthday so we had htem over for dinner.They came a bit early so the kids could show off all of their new stuff. They've had so much fun playing with everything since Christmas, and they aren't already counting down to next year. They like the presents, as most kids do, but they also liked the trees, lights, parades, and all of the other fun stuff that comes during the Christmas holiday!

On New Years Eve Day, we had a surprise visitor! When Brian went out to start loading their van for their drive home, he looked over and saw this girl walking up to him.  (This picture is from yesterday, not the day we found her).

She was/is SO skinny, and shaking so bad. She walked back to what she'd made "her spot" up against our house and laid back down. It was a cold morning so we got her a blanket and covered her up. We gave her some food and water and left her alone.

She was still there later that morning and continued laying there all day. She ate several small meals, and stayed covered up with the blanket. Our local shelter would be closed for 3 more days because of the holidays, and we weren't sure what to do!

Scott got ahold of our vet that afternoon, who gave us a name of a local woman who runs a dog rescue organization out of her house. I called her and while she said they didn't much room for another dog right now, they couldn't turn her away. So, her husband came that night and picked her up.

Sometime during the day, Fischer named the dog Katie and it has stuck! The kids ask about her on a daily basis, and I think we all got attached to her pretty quickly. It just isn't the time for us to add another dog to the mix.

Katie is doing well at Marie and John's house, but she needs some things done at the vet. She is heart worm positive, so she needs several treatments for that. She is also going to be spayed this week! We also found out that she has an old burn on her side, which thankfully healed, and some bite scars as well as new bite marks. So sad.  It's obvious she was a hunting dog that was either turned loose or managed to get away from her owner and the rest of the dogs.

If you have a dollar or two to spare, please click below and help out with her recovery! Once she's all better she can find herself a new forever-home! There are several other dogs living with her right now that need a lot of treatment as well, so I know it gets expensive for them! And feel free to pass the information along! I know they would appreciate even a small donation!

I said in my earlier post about Christmas Eve that we hung out at home all day. That isn't true. I totally forgot that we went to a movie that morning! Oops. :) Anyway, we went to see Monsters, Inc. in 3D. We own that movie and the last time we watched it, about a year ago, the kids didn't like it. But I thought since it was in the theater and they could eat popcorn and all of that, they might like it better. Sadly, I was wrong. :)

We did make it until there was about 20 minutes left, but they just couldn't take anymore. They were scared and asking to leave. Oh well, at least it was something to do. And, they kept their 3D glasses on, which surprised me!

They started out with these, which were way too big. I ended up going to ask if they had smaller ones, which they did, and those fit perfectly but I didn't get a picture since the movie had already started.

Maybe we'll try another movie soon!

Christmas Eve was kind of a yucky day around here - rainy and cold! Unfortunately, Addison was showing signs of being sick (it turned out to be a cold that lasted about 2 weeks!), so we stayed inside and out of the cold, damp weather.

We spent the day hanging out at home, trying to keep the kids busy. More than once, I thought maybe we should open a few presents early so they would have something to do while stuck inside. We stuck it out though and waited until Christmas. :)

One of our big projects of the day was to mix up some reindeer food (Oatmeal, flour and sprinkles!) so that Santa's reindeer would have a snack while he was inside delivering presents.

After mixing, Addison and Fischer each took a turn sprinkling their food over the railing. Those reindeer must have been hungry because it was gone the next morning!

                 

The kids also had a great time playing in Lucy's crate, while she sat up on the bed and watched... :)

                  

That night, we were sure to put out milk and cookies for Santa! The kids each picked a type of cookie (from the ones I baked the day before) and we were sure to leave out some soy milk from Addison along with Fischer's regular milk...you know, incase Santa has any lactose intolerance issues. :)

Finally, it was off to bed! We read Twas the Night Before Christmas in Fischer's bed, then it was time to go to sleep. Despite being pretty hyped up, the kids went to sleep quickly!

                        

In that last picture, they are doing "snow angels" on the carpet. :)

Santa's elves got to work once "they" were sure the kids were fast asleep! Since Fischer had started coming out of his room at night just the week before Christmas, we had to set up an alarm so that we could hear if he started creeping into the living room! :)

The excitement this year was so fun, and I couldn't wait to get up on Christmas morning!

Addison is very girly, but she also likes to play outside and get dirty. A lot of times, I have to make her change out of a princess dress into "outside" clothes. And usually, she is less than happy to oblige. :)

On this particular day, I didn't realize she still had on her red sparkly shoes. While playing in the mud.

I think this picture shows what I mean perfectly about her being a girly tom-boy... sparkly shoes covered in mud. :)

I find her playing with Fischer's "boy toys" a lot but she is usually singing or dancing while doing so. She finds a way to make everything a bit more girly.. it's so funny, but sometimes it makes Fischer mad!

One example is the other night during diner, she pulled a clump of onions out of her salad and said "oh, wow, it looks like stairs that princesses go up!" Or, if there is something she doesn't want to do she will say "but princesses don't do that!" 

Down the road from us, there is a huge soccer field that is almost always empty when we drive by! We've been saying for over a year now that we should go and let the kids run wild! :)

On December 23 we needed something to do, so we headed over to the field. First we delivered cookies that I'd baked to our 2 new neighbors down the street, then it was time to play. The weather wasn't great but we needed to get out of the house. We decided not to take Lucy just incase there was a soccer game going on or something. Turns out we had the place almost to ourselves. 

There were 2 guys there flying remote-controlled airplanes, which was pretty neat to watch! We took a soccer ball, a frisbee and some snacks and Addison and Fischer were able to release some of their energy!

A couple of days before that, I took the kids to Monkey Joe's. We got there right as it opened so we were able to beat the crowds that started showing up as we were leaving about an hour later. I took this picture though - I can't believe they are almost 4 and their time in this area of Monkey Joe's is limited!