Family Photo Session

Before Christmas we had family pictures taken by someone in our church.  (Her website)  I love how they turned out.  I'm waiting to get some printed so that I can put together a fun wall display in our play room.

Gearing up for Stacking Season

We are gearing up for Stacking Season and Michael and Jon are setting some great person bests.  In fact, Michael is now officially faster at all three stacks than Tim.

I'm big now

On Monday morning this week, I talked to the boys about the schedule for the day which included them going back to school.  Becca who is always watching and listening, came up very excited and announced "Me preschool too!"  As I have done at least 100 times I tried to tell her that she will need to wait until next year, but she interrupted, "Me big now, see" and raised her hands as far over her head as she could.

And she is getting quite big already and almost 3 years old.

For Christmas Tim's mom made the gals neck warmers.  With the extra yarn she was able to knit a matching one for Becca.  Don't we make a cute pair?!

More Pictures from Boston

Besides celebrating Christmas, we spent a week just having fun with family in Boston.  Here are some highlights.

We got about a foot of snow one day which was perfect for sledding.  Jon and Becca didn't last long, but we all had a blast!








One of Becca's favorite things to do was to help Aunt Sarah make coffee each morning.  She decided that she likes the smell of coffee but not the taste.


As games were a common Christmas present this year, we did a lot of game playing.  Michael and Jon are even able to play some games on their own now.  This is an old stand-by game of "go fish."


And this is one of the new games we got called Six Nimmt!



On our last day in Boston, Jon and Becca and I got to spend the day with Grandma.  We shared a huge muffin treat, took a trip to McDonalds, and made Christmas cookies.




Michael got to spend the day with Tim, Grandpa, and Aunt Katherine learning to ski for the first time.   He was so proud of how the day went and said he liked it even better than Disney World.

Happy Birthday to Me

Today I am 36.  I'm very excited that we found a sitter, so Tim and I will be going out for a date night dinner to celebrate this evening.

However, Jon was devastated to find out that he would not be a part of the celebration.  He kept asking about cake or brownies or some birthday treat.  I finally found out that it wasn't the missing out of the treat that worried him so much as that he wanted to be there for the candles.

So, Jon, Becca, and I had a mini birthday celebration over lunch.  We made cinnamon muffins and eggs for lunch and put a candle in my muffin.  After helping me sing Happy Birthday, both Jon and Becca got to help me blow out that candle.

Christmas Day

Santa came early to our house and filled the kids stockings a couple of days early, so on our long trip to Boston, the stockings were waiting in the car.  Santa was right in thinking that opening and playing with some new things would help fill the 16 hours in the car.


On Christmas morning, the kids got to experience a Haig tradition.  There was a new box of sweet cereal and a present waiting for them Christmas morning to help hold them over until the adults in the family were all up and ready for the festivities.  Jon and Becca had a blast putting together the Fox in Socks puzzle while Michael read the tongue twister book.


Then it was finally time to open presents


Favorites were: A Steelers shirt


New cars


And dress-up clothes


There were in fact so many presents that the kids were happy to open some in the morning and then play with them while we waited for Great-Grandmas to arrive for a meal and more presents.

Mulder Christmas

Mid December we had a Christmas party with the Mulder clan.  My grandmother tells me that the newest member (my cousin's daughter) makes the 90th member of the Mulder family.  I believe the counting starts with my Grandma and Grandpa and includes their kids and spouses, grandkids and spouses, and now great-grandkids.  Needless to say, even though not everyone was going to be in attendance, the group is getting too large to meet in someone's home.  So my grandma rented out a gathering room at her church.

We had a fabulous time catching up with relatives and trying to keep everyone's name straight.  We haven't been able to go the last many years, so it was a bit shocking to see some of my cousins babies turning into wonderful young adults already.  There was plenty of food to go around (which I think is the key to a successful Mulder gathering) and we ended the afternoon with a gift exchange.  Gifts are to be about $10 in value and can be wonderful or extra funny.  The favs this year were itunes gift cards (bonus if it had chocolate with it) and I think the funniest was a live goldfish complete with bowl and water.