the mitchells

Thursday, January 28, 2010

christmas celebration 1

our family christmas celebration with tim's family was wonderful. it was great to relax, eat delicious food, have a glass of wine and just spend time together. and the kids are such fun ages now 7, 4 and two 2 year olds so it was a whole new perspective to see it through their eyes!

the biggest hit of the evening, caroline's american girl llama, who knew?!

mid-present-opening trying to raid the kitchen, the child never skips a meal!

these two below are going to be T-R-O-U-B-L-E!

look at the mess they created in the powder room!

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

santa brunch

well, it is the end of january and i'm still catching up on christmas! january has been mostly non-eventful but i'll back up first.
what a wonderful and fun-filled time we shared with the mitchells mid-december. it was packed with fun activities like the polar express, santa brunch at the club, and our family christmas celebration. we all managed to sneak in some r & r between the action!

this is the first year we made it to the annual santa brunch at the exmoor club with tim's family. it is a very beautiful, classic traditional country club and was 110% decked out for christmas! their santa brunch was so well-designed with families in mind! the cutest thing (aside from santa and mrs. claus) is the small buffet table for children at their level stocked full of chicken nuggets, mac & cheese, pizza, fruit kebabs and pudding cups. declan could not be trusted to be independent at a food table this year, but perhaps next year!

hydrating to meet santa

cousins mitch, mary kate and caroline

the big moment.... no tears whatsoever! just kind of curious

three generations of handsome mitchell men

mitch and caroline, best picture of them!

miss mary kate, such a little firecracker

our little monkey trying to elude me, here's where it got a little crazy

i was literally chasing him up and down garland-wrapped stairs, in and out of an elevator and plucked him spread-eagle off the floor of the buffet area after sticking his hand into the mouth of the life-size nutcracker. during all this throw in 2 diaper changes in the span of 8 minutes in the ladies lounge that is not accustomed to busy male toddlers. we packed it up and got in the car to head back to indy after our long and event-filled weekend, i breathed a sigh of relief and declan and i slept most of the way home.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

the polar express

tim's parents took their 4 grandchildren on a real christmas train this year dubbed the polar express. it all takes place on the nice metra commuter train with several end cars reserved for this event. it leaves the lake forest station and heads up to fox lake i think, somewhere an hour north. then santa gets on (at the north pole, get it?) and rides back home with everyone. all the kids did great and i was told declan did not stop eating for the entire train ride. they know how to keep him happy! lots of cookies, coloring and "cousin time" later, we picked them up at the station.

i almost forgot the best part. tim and i enjoyed a long leisurely toddler-free brunch with many coffee refills during the 2 hour break, awesome.

it was funny, santa was the first one to exit the train and he high-tailed it through the parking lot.

oh christmas tree

so for various reasons we decided to chintz out and buy a pre-cut tree from lowe's instead of cutting one down at a local farm this year. it was bitterly cold and the only time we could get one was in the evening when it was dark since we were pretty busy on the weekends. hey - it is still better than a fake tree! i don't think we'll ever be fake tree people. the smell of the fresh tree was just intoxicating those first few days. then when the tree stopped smelling, i just lit my balsam fir three-wick candle in the evening, equally awesome, smelled up the whole house for days!

here is d in his warm christmas jammies and uggs, bundled for our trip to lowe's. it was right around his bedtime so i was worried about his attitude, but he had a ball, of course. clapping, screeching at the top of his lungs and pointing out everything in sight.

nothing remotely fragile went on the tree this year. it still looked cute with more of a rustic, folksy charm! i'll enjoy remembering all my fancy breakables when they re-emerge a few years down the road.

catching you up on our december

i blame my long gaps between posts on my slow computer! i have all these grand hopes of doing fun updates,especially with our busy December but i need hours to do anything serious. so i wait and have to do several updates all at once, not the greatest idea. then it takes even longer. but i know i have devoted followers (family and grandmas mostly) so here you go!
more declan birthday pics... grandma nancy and grandpa lynn visited indy in early december (once michigan football season came to an ugly close) to help celebrate d's 2nd birthday. it was extra special b/c it was also grandpa lynn's birthday the weekend they came so declan was happy to share his elmo cake with him.

opening present sent down from great grandma betty in michigan

we love having company so we kind of went all out for declan and grandpa lynn's birthday dinner. appetizers, beef tenderloin, rice pilaf, corn casserole, green beans and birthday cake! it was delicious. i should have busted out my "good" china and silver for the occasion since we've only used it once, but i voted it might be a little over the top.

we also ventured downtown to the miniature train and christmas exhibit at the Indiana state museum. i forgot my camera so no mementos of that, but it was great for little ones, will definitely be an annual tradition for us! they also do a santa breakfast, but we got scoop from some fellow visitors there that day that the food was just ok and santa doesn't even show up at the breakfast, what a joke! good to know, we'll remember to skip the breakfast in years to come, maybe create our own downtown brunch tradition after the christmas train.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

thanksgiving 09

i have to catch up on my posts from thanksgiving and the rest of declan's birthday celebrations before december gets away from me! we have been having a very busy month packed with many fun trips, visitors and christmas activities.

quick thanksgiving update
we swap years for the major holidays with our families so this thanksgiving was in chicago with tim's family this year. it is nice to be on a schedule, it doesn't hurt anyone's feelings and makes it easier to plan! we also celebrated declan's 2nd birthday since it was the day before thanksgiving this year.

madison, mary kate, mitch, caroline and baby connor
declan had to miss out on our traditional "cousins on the couch" photo op b/c he was having a mood problem

my niece caroline with new baby cousin connor. she is 7 now, so hard to believe! i always remember her as a 3 year old, when she was our flower girl. such a sweet girl!

dec and daddy

coolest cake from deerfield bakery, the undisputed best bakery of the no. shore. thank you ceci! take note of the hand-frosted sesame street guys, so neat!

he is basking in the birthday spotlight and loving every minute of it

lots of elmo this year!

cool new red vacuum!

this child LOVES his cake

party with the stewarts

our stewart friends came over at the end of november to celebrate declan's birthday. parker and declan are just 5 weeks apart. you just never know what you'll get when you throw two 2 year olds together, but we couldn't have had a more successful mini-party! their newborn baby kate slept peacefully the entire time. we played downstairs and then came up to eat pizza and elmo cupcakes.

declan received a doodle pro from them, like a giant etch a sketch for toddlers. he plays with it all the time and it is the BEST car toy too!

the boys truly had fun playing together! i was happy i didn't have to wear my referee jersey. sadly, dec cried his eyes out like he had a broken heart when we waved goodbye to his little friend and they drove down the driveway.