Holiday Traditions in St. Charles

Logan and I had so much fun with Valerie, Reagan and Cooper last year at the Christmas Traditions parade in St. Charles that this year we decided to go back with Daddy, Claire and all the Trohas!  We had a great day for it with just a bit of a chill in the air.  It was exciting to see the characters mingling with the crowd on their way to the parade starting point.

Here's MacNicholas, the Scottish Santa.

Mikko, one of Santa's elves...

Frankly, I have no idea who these costumey people are.

Dady and Claire wait for the parade!

 Yikes!  The Ice Queen.

Snegurochka, the Russian snow child.

Serenity, the Christmas angel, followed by Clara and her Nutcracker Prince.

I love this picture of Frontier Santa!

This of course is Father Christmas.

Victorian Carolers making their way down Main Street.

Santa and Mrs. Claus in their carriage!

Reagan and Logan "do lunch" afterward at one of the many cafes downtown.

I do love how the kids got into character for this shot!  Well, except for Claire.  She takes her head-through-the-hole posing very seriously apparently!

I happen to love this family picture!

The kids chatting up Mrs. Claus.

That Frontier Santa.  What a guy.

Mother Goose absolutely crushed on Logan.

The Master of Revels was shouty and rude.  Claire could not wait to get away from him!

She was also not a huge fan of Snegurochka.

Not at all, actually.

Now there's a handful of adorable kids.

Love you guys, and all our traditions together.

Mama

Decorating our Tree with Memories

Remember this?

And this?

Those memories became this:

and this:

And that's how you do that.  

Ba da bing.

Love,

Mama

Halloween!

This year for Halloween Claire was Supergirl and Logan was a cool soldier.  A few days before the BIG DAY we all went to a party at our neighbor Colin's house.

On Halloween we hosted our second annual hot dog and marshmallow roast.  The kids (and adults!) had a good time, even if Halloween did fall on a school night this year...

And I don't want to brag on my awesome camo makeup job.....but I almost didn't even see Logan in this picture....

Props to the pumpkin carver! 

Logan and Carter hanging around the fire.

Daddy and Claire Bear chillin.

Logan, Jacob and Carter.  

FUN!

Love,

Mama

March of Dimes 5K

For the last two years I have been walking in the March of Dimes March for Babies fundraiser with my good pal Lisa. This year, since Lisa is off having fun in Australia (the nerve!), I enlisted my neighbor Kelly to run it with me! We have been following the Couch to 5K running program for the last few months and it was finally time to put all that training to the test! And when I found out that Pappy had started running back home in Slater, I asked him to come on down and run it with us!

Skip and the kids got there after the race started, so they played around on the grounds in Forest Park until we crossed the finish line.

But WAIT! Here we come up the hill to the finish line! (and seriously - who ends a race on an UPHILL??)

Look! There we are! STILL RUNNING!

Crossing the finish line! The guy with the paddle is scanning our numbers for our "official time." To show what kind of newbies we are to the 5K circuit, we didn't even see what our official time was! Ha! We were somewhere in the 31st minute though!

Catching our breath!

My awesome neighbor Kelly! She is the best workout partner ever!

Yay us!

Yay me! (Logan said I did great, even if I didn't win!)

The kids really scored with the balloon people!

And then rocked out to the Motown band!

What a day!

Love,

Mama