Daddy's Birthday and The Christmas Tree Farm

Happy Birthday, Daddy! December 8th was Daddy's birthday, and he was away on a business trip that week. We had a small family celebration the weekend before he left. We are so thankful for him. He's the BEST! Shay was insistent on having a tractor cake for Daddy's birthday (just like the one he had in April). We compromised with him telling him that Daddy wanted an ice cream cake, but that we would put a tractor on it. So, Mommy drew a red, Allis Chalmers tractor on it (yes, although John Deere is our favorite, we are an equal-opportunity family when it comes to tractors).

The day after that, we went to Fish River Christmas Tree Farm to hunt down our 2009 Christmas tree. The weather was better this year, but it was FREEZING! For those of you who live up north, our idea of "freezing" is high 40s/low 50s. Anyway, it was cold. Last year, because of the rain, they didn't have the train or Santa. This year, we enjoyed both! Shay was a little shy with Santa, and had a hard time coming up with an answer when Santa asked, "What do you want for Christmas?" Just like in the movie The Christmas Story, Santa had to prompt Shay. Noticing his hat, Santa suggested (no, not a football), a John Deere Tractor. Seamus was very excited that Santa *spoke tractor*, and told us over and over again that Santa was bringing one to him. Now Mommy and Daddy had to make sure there was a John Deere under the tree Christmas morning!

After Shay had a chat with Santa, Malia took her turn on Santa's lap. She lasted all of about a minute until she realized that she was being held by a stranger...

...and she quickly started crying. I love how Santa is the only one with a smile on his face in the picture!

After our visit with Santa, we took a ride on the train, and started our hunt for the tree! Seamus was in heaven running all around the farm.

Shay has quite a sense of humor and has picked up on our use of sarcasm very well. Daddy and Mommy kept pointing to stumps or saplings, teasing "I found our Christmas tree! How about this one?" Shay quickly caught on to this game and started doing the same.

After walking all around the farm and looking at many trees, we finally found one to cut down. Daddy let Shay help with the saw and showed him how to cut a tree using the method that Grandpa had taught him.

Malia was snug as a bug in the backpack carrier. She was too tired to supervise.

Shay helped Daddy drag the tree back to the truck before heading home.

We got it home, put the kids down for a nap, and Daddy made the sacrifice of putting the lights on- Mommy does not like this job. When Shay woke up, he was so excited to see the tree all lit up. The tree is a monster, and takes up a good part of our living room, but we love it! Maybe next year we'll downsize...but I don't think so:) Merry Christmas!!

Mobile Botanical Gardens

A couple of weeks ago, we took the kids to the Mobile Botanical Gardens to take a family Christmas picture. They really enjoyed being outside on such a beautiful day and the changing leaves added a nice touch to the pictures. Here are a few shots from the afternoon...

Shay tries to get his sister to sit still.

Shay was quite entertained by dropping pine needles down to the koi fish. Malia was just thrilled that she was standing all by herself!

Daddy loves his girl!

A Day at Bellingrath

Ok, so we're playing catch-up again:) The past few months have been a total blur and I cannot believe that we are almost to Christmas. Some days I just wish I could have a pause button so that I can catch up and enjoy the precious moments that seem to fly by. October was a busy month for Daddy and he was traveling for most of it. We kept ourselves busy with playdates, Kindermusik, and little outings like this one. We took an afternoon and went down to Bellingrath Gardens for a picnic and a boat ride. Bellingrath is a huge piece of property, but Shay walked the entire way and pointed out the different plants and floweres that he recognized along the way. Here are a few pictures from the day.

Shay got really excited to see that they had a butterfly garden.

Shay enjoyed a run on the Great Lawn.

Shay loves the idea of getting his picture taken, but he doesn't like the idea of sitting still or looking at the camera!

Here's one of Shay dodging the camera.

Finally!! I caught him sitting still long enough to snap the shot!

We were spoiled to have Daddy home the entire month of November which was wonderful! We had a great Thanksgiving with friends, and now we are busy getting ready for Christmas! This Thanksgiving, we made a tree on our felt board and added leaves to the tree each night. On the leaves, we wrote down different things that we are thankful for. We have much to be thankful for this year, our family (Malia and cousin Mikey being the newest additions), our home and the food we have to eat, our health, our freedom, and most of all our Faith. We are trying to slow down a little bit and enjoy the Advent season, preparing for the arrival of Baby Jesus. We light our Advent candles on our wreath each night and Shay is always quick to point out the pink and purple candles at Church, "just like ours!" As parents, we are trying to focus Christmas on Jesus' birthday, but we want the kids to enjoy the tradition of Santa Claus as well...so far, Shay seems to have a healthy understanding of both. Hopefully we can continue this as he gets older:) Happy Advent! More posts to come!

Halloween 2009

It's that time of year again! Shay was very excited for Halloween. Ever since we took our trip to the beach this summer, he has been fascinated with pirates and that was what he wanted to be for Halloween. We thought Malia would make a cute parrot. Shay also wanted to know what Mommy and Daddy were going to dress up as...so, we too dressed up and went as the crew of The Dread Pirate Seamus!

Seamus and Daddy carved our pumpkin...pirate themed of course!

Daddy also thought the kids would enjoy doing a hayride while we trick-or-treated. He rented the trailor from base, got the hay bales and rigged up our ride! The kids got a BIG kick out of that!

Mommy forgot to bring Shay's Captain hat along. Oh well, he was still a super cute pirate!

Just like last year, it didn't take long for Shay to figure out how this worked. He was on a mission!

It was loads of fun and at the end of the night, we had one very tired parrot!
Happy Halloween!