Matthew had been planning a date with Cecilia and they finally decided on Barnes & Noble. After looking at some books and playing with the trains, they headed to the cafe to get some hot cocoa. Matthew let Cecilia choose a special treat too... What did she choose? Of course, the item with the most amount of chocolate--a chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting. (A girl after my own heart...)
Our tradition is to go over to Gramma and Papa's house in our pj's the day after Christmas. Auntie and Daniel were there as well. We have so many families to celebrate with that the festivities go on for several days. Thomas, as you can see, is entranced by his little Star Wars guys. He loves them! Cecilia got some new dress up costumes for Christmas. Auntie gave her this ballerina costume with ballet slippers. She's been dressing up in either this or her princess dress pretty much every day since...
We spent Christmas morning at home and the afternoon at Grandpa's. The kids had a blast playing with their new toys :)
Here are pictures from our Christmas celebration #1. We went to Memere and Grandpa Marc's. Uncle Josh and Renee came too. The kids seemed to really get it this year and had a lot of fun. The first two pictures were our attempt to get some posed shots in front of the tree. Little kids don't always cooperate very well... Thomas is being his normal goofy self. The picture of Cecilia is beautiful... there were also about 200 other shots with her making faces or running away.
The kids have been loving visiting Matthew's office. We stopped by for the campus Christmas party and then went back to Christina and Ryan's office. The kids had a blast playing and hiding under the desk.
The St. Anselm College students were having a party during our St. Nicholas Day festivities. After mass and dinner, the kids joined the SAC party, sat with Santa, decorated ginger bread cookies, and had snow globes made from their Santa pictures. Business was pretty slow for Santa, so Cecilia stuck around and talked his ear off... Thomas was having fun with his candy canes and balloon. They also had a picture taken with the Anderson kids. Rose (the youngest) is Cecilia's age and Thomas has become quite attached to Luke, their oldest boy.
We celebrated Thanksgiving a week early with Memere and Grandpa Marc, Uncle Josh and Renee, and Aunt Gail and Michael. The kids, as usual, had fun. Thomas cuddled a lot with Uncle Josh, and Cecilia followed Renee everywhere.
We went to tag our Christmas tree this weekend. Gramma and Papa joined us and tagged their tree too. The kids had fun, although it was very windy and chilly. We found a nice tree that we'll chop down the first weekend in December. After tagging the tree, we went back to the shop to warm up by the fire with some hot chocolate.
We went to Londonderry to trick-or-treat on Halloween Day. It was a little chillier, but the kids still had a blast. We ended up back at Gramma and Papa's to check out the new treats :)
Manchester trick-or-treats early--on a Sunday afternoon so it's safer (therefore, the kids will be able to trick-or-treat twice). We had a whole crew joining us for the festivities: Uncle Josh and Renee; Kristen, Joe, AJ, and Spencer. AJ is Cecilia's age and probably her best friend. Thomas is quite an AJ fan too. They had a blast. Thomas had this great swagger that was in rhythm with the swishing of his costume. He had the Buzz Lightyear attitude. Cecilia proved that she is over her shy stage, as she ran past all kids to get to the door first to ring the doorbell. Kris and I were commenting on how surreal it is that we're old enough to have kids trick-or-treating! (We've know each other since 4th grade...)
Here's our first picture of our next little baby :) He or she is expected to join us around March 15th.
We took the kids for the annual pumpkin picking trip at Mack's Apples. They love the huge wagons--perfect for kids and pumpkins.
