Ho ho ho!

It's Christmas time in Kansas! The kids are really into it this year which makes it really fun.

The stockings are hung by the chimney with care...yes, we actually have a CHIMNEY! I'm so excited about this. We haven't had a fire yet b/c we're waiting for the chimney sweep to come this week (I've always wanted to hire a chimney sweep. It's like Mary Poppins!), so hopefully in about a week it'll cool down and we can light the fire. We have "Tonny" the Christmas Elf on the Shelf and he's been hanging around the house for some time now, watching the kids to make sure they are good for Santa. We are getting our tree next weekend and Andy decorated a tree in front of our house with some awesome lights and giant green Christmas light balls (the house proved to be a pretty daunting task to light b/c the roof is super steep and high, so we opted to light one tree). It's really cool--you can see it all the way down the street.

We also took Christmas photos this weekend. The winner will arrive in your mailbox sometime this month, but I've posted some of the outtakes here. The kids proved to be hilarious again this year in that they couldn't look at the camera at the same time (of course), and Cleo started her melt down earlier than we expected. It was funny. Andy, ever the perfectionist, was really frustrated at first but calmed down and we ended up with a nice photo. It's always quite hilarious and mildly stressful to go through these silly photos.

These days we are super busy. Andy's been traveling like mad, but thankfully it'll slow down this month a bit. Gus and Cleo seem to like school. They have friends there and have been learning great things. They are so cute together right now. They play and play for hours together. I'll let them play outside in the backyard while I cook or clean up the kitchen and I watch them sometimes. They just play imaginary games that Gus makes up and they LOVE it--it's so darling to see them interact with each other. On Thanksgiving day Cleo showed Gus some goofy necklaces that she had put on. She said, "Look, Gus. Look at my necklaces." Gus said, "Cleo, that is really pretty." It was absolutely hilarious. He was dead serious with his compliment. Love it! Anyway, they are great together. Their personalities are so different, so I'm glad they get along.

More later!