Merry Christmas!

We're not sending Christmas cards this year, but if we were this is the picture that would be with it. Merry Christmas! Love, The Blans

 

Thanks to my brother-in-law, Matthew, for taking this family photo after visiting the train display at Thanksgiving. It's such a rare thing to capture a family photo!

Christmas Pictures

The kids were sort of dressed up last Sunday, so we tried to take some Christmas pictures. They didn't turn out very well. A reference to herding cats would be very appropriate here! Bad lighting in the room where the tree is didn't help either. I think we'll try something different next year. Here's a small sample from the photo shoot:

Random

 This picture reminds me of these pictures of Nate when he was 7 months old. I'm so glad he has someone to share his laundry basket with now!

Nate has taken one more step towards independence. He can swing all by himself! For a while he still needed someone to push him to get started, but now he can start and keep going on his own. No more running back and forth between swings at the park for me! Evie likes swinging in the big swing now, but she still chooses the baby swing sometimes. This is the clearest picture I could get since they were both moving!

If I could, I would ...

... eat every meal just like this.

And I'd be this happy about it too!

65th Annual Holiday Train Display

We're not really Black Friday people, so my sister had a great idea for something we could do instead. Friday was the first day of the 65th Annual Holiday Train Display in downtown Cincinnati, something we used to go to when we were kids. She thought Nate would love it, and that it wouldn't be crowded since most people would be crazy shopping. She was right about both! Our return flight wasn't until later that afternoon, so it was perfect. Here are the pictures:

 Nate with his cookie from Busken Bakery, a Cincinnati favorite. People from Busken were there handing out specially decorated cookies to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the display. Yum!

Mesmerized.

 They even had Thomas and the crew among all the trains.

It was a really cold morning, so Nate borrowed Uncle Matthew's sock cap. He wasn't used to that kind of cold weather, and I had to carry him every time we were outside. I, on the other hand, LOVED being out in the cold. It felt like home.