Getting our Christmas on

We put up our Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving.  It's fun when you've lived in one place for a couple of years, and you already know where the decorations should go. 

 David and Ethan picked out a Douglas Fir from Lowe's and did not request to have the bottom branches trimmed.  Instead, David trimmed them at home and made an awesome wreath from extra branches and wire!  (We got the idea from our grad-student neighbor whose house is pictured in the back.)

How cute is this?!?

Winterville has an annual Christmas Festival that we love to go to!  We can walk from our house to the park.  The Methodist church has a live Nativity.  Three years ago on this spot, Ethan was bit in the leg by a donkey who smelled Oreo crumbs in his lap/stroller seat. 

Ethan started composing his own music this month.  David taped letters on the piano keys, and Ethan makes up simple songs and asks us to play them.  It's so cute!  Zoom in on the photo to check out those music notes!

Remember our unsuccesful dentist visit last month?  We rescheduled with a pediatric dentist.  A few days before the appt, the kids and I went to the store and shopped for presents, cupcakes, and chocolate milk to be enjoyed at our "dental party" which would follow a successful visit and cleaning.  This dental office was much more child-friendly, but the kids were still very reluctant to have anyone near their mouths.  They each cried and fought through a 30-second examination.  About 15 minutes later we were about to give up on the cleaning, and then I casually mentioned how we'd have to return our party supplies and presents to the store.  Ethan hopped in his seat and had a great cleaning, inspection, and even x-rays!  It was a happy day for us all.  After 4 years of fighing the tooch-brushing fight each night, it was so nice to be reassured that the kids' teeth looked good!  Here are the kids playing with the gifts they picked out for themselves-- a Go-Fish game for Ethan and a Fur Real meowing cat for Claire.

Happy Birthday Dawnell.  We had a low-key party this year, which was fine with me.  I had been sick for the previous 3 weeks with a bad cold.  David asked all month what I wanted for my birthday, and I told him that my present was the 3 weeks he had acted as a single parent... doing nearly all the cooking, cleaning and childcare (plus teaching a class and working on a dissertation!) while I coughed and sneezed and took extra naps. 

I recieved lots of nice birthday cards, and some funny presents from David's sister Jenny!  The best one was the t-shirt from Mysterio, predicting that our unborn child is destined to be... a Flamenco Dancer! (BTW, this lovely picture was taken at about 28 weeks)