Kerrytown Midnight Madness

We went to Kerrytown on Friday November 30th to watch the lantern parade. It was midnight madness and all the stores were open. We chose the safe approach and parked at church and walked the 2 blocks. Everything at the toy store was on sale. There seemed to be about 80 people in that small store. I am guessing they do a bulk of their biz that day. When we got there, no one wanted hot chocolate from one of the vendors so we got "Kerrytown juice". When we went to farmers market in the summer we would get them each a juice from Sparrow Market, that's how they got the name.

They had an older style band playing and Alex really wanted to listen to them. There was a ton of traffic walking by them so not many places to stand and watch. Alex chose to watch right outside the window. Then this college aged kid comes by with 2 really nice cameras. He stops right in the middle of all the traffic kneels down and starts taking pics of Alex and the band.



http://www.annarbor.com/entertainment/scenes-from-midnight-madness-2012-in-downtown-ann-arbor/

The guy was from AnnArbor.com, he went up to Michelle and got her info and his name. Said that he might be on the website on the weekend and in the paper on the following weekend. That would be pretty cool. The boys had a fun time looking at all the lights and lanterns.

O Christmas Tree

Yes, it's Alex's favorite time of the year.  Time to get out those Christmas lights!  It makes me laugh when I watch that one video of the Christmas when he was nearly two and the intense delight that was evident when the Christmas lights were brought out.  Not to mention he finally crawled (to the tree) the day after we set up the tree for his first Christmas.

Luke putting ornaments on the playroom Christmas tree

Alex gets a turn too.

Their finished product.  I thought they did pretty good evenly distributing the ornaments.  They did this completely on their own.  Nice teamwork guys!

Mommy decorated this completely on her own.  Alex watched and Luke napped.  It's nice to have children that understand no touching without continuous reminders as we had deal with the past four years. 

A Weekend of Birthdays

We got together with my family for lunch the day after Thanksgiving for Veronica's birthday.

Smiles for when Theresa came in, those boys love their aunt Theresa

Happy 17th Veronica!

all my siblings with some festive snowflakes

We went out for Kris' birthday the next day. We did some shopping, went to the Melting Pot for dinner and stayed the night at a hotel so Kris (ha and I) could sleep and have a yummy breakfast. Thanks Theresa for watching the kids! Later that day we went to Kris mom's for dinner.

My sad looking cake. I was given about an hour notice that I needed to make a cake and no longer keep cake making ingredients on hand. (I went wheat, corn, soy, sugar free in August.) But, cocoa powder, coconut oil, coconut flour and coconut nectar make an amazing cake. But, I didn't have time for it to be fancy looking.

Thanksgiving 2012

On Thanksgiving we visited Kris' parents. We had brunch with Grandma and Grandpa Ericson and afterward helped set up the village under the tree.

It was a beautiful day out, so we played outside for a bit in the afternoon. Luke did not nap, which I was actually pleased about so I could catch a family photo in some great light.

For dinner we went to Grandpa Phibbs. The boys were highly entertained by flashlights and hats and other fun things Grandpa found around his home.

Warm Day Before Thanksgiving

The boys loved that it was warm enough to take off their coats today. Lots of fun at the park as usual.

close-ups

Now that I'm learning more about my camera, I felt more comfortable using the lens that has been sitting in the bag. It is not good for action shots, but does great "portraits" or things that stay still. Not the best for a playground. But, I got a few. I now have a better idea of what I could use it for. I'm looking forward to using it at parties this holiday.

Man, it was on manual focus, not auto

Look at that, handsome, works best for a subject that stays still

Kris wanted a turn

Raking Leaves

Kris took on the big job of raking the leaves from our yard and unbelievably he accomplished the massive job.  I have limited upper body and core strength for such a task.  So, I resorted to getting in most likely my last chance for leaf pictures.  The leaves are now off the trees and out of our yard.  We are ready to start putting up the Christmas lights and we will see about the snow.

I'm taking a photography class for the next several weeks and learning a lot about my camera.  But, after just one class, these were still taken in auto.  But, I have a new appreciation for light.  The sun came out for a few minutes so I quickly got the bottom few shots.  It definitely makes a huge difference.  It's still a matter of luck to get a good picture, especially when photographing fast moving children that are cooperative for a limited time.  I couldn't get a picture of the both of them today.

Daddy Face