Christmas in Colorado - Pt. 4

Here are a few final pictures before our trip ends tomorrow.


Livy has been having fun with the dress-up stuff Bine brought her, and even got me involved.


Today we all drove out to Estes Park to see the beautiful scenery and hopefully some wildlife.


We didn't see anything until we went back into town to get some lunch.


There we saw elk in the town square.


When we got back Livy got dressed up in her Snow White dress and, for some reason, her new scooter helmet. And we played video games.

Now we're watching Mama Mia and tomorrow we're flying home.

Christmas in Colorado - Pt. 3

As an added bonus for the Colorado trip, Scott drove up from Parker, CO.


The last time Scott and I got together was in October, 2007.


The six of us went on a tour of the New Belgium brewery in Fort Collins, CO and got to sample some good beer.


We also went and had lunch at Beau Jo's Pizza.


Afterwards, we went back to Greeley and played before dinner.


And at night we had Bella and Kona to snuggle up with.

Christmas 2009 at the Shell house

In between throwing up (we all had the flu), we did manage to capture a few good memories!






Here's Audrey VERY VERY sad... and here's Audrey VERY VERY happy. Life is kind of like that sometimes, eh?








Putting on Audrey's shoes to go visit Nana + Boompa.

Christmas in Colorado - Pt. 2

Here are just a few of the many pictures we took on Christmas Day.


Livy with the presents that Santa Claus dropped off.


Livy with one of her gifts.


Tom with his Secret Santa (Angela) gift.


Sara with one of her Secret Santa (Ruben) gifts.


Livy showing off her new backpack and looking very Paris Hilton.


Our group picture under the Christmas tree.


Me and Bella.


Me and Livy taking a pre-lunch walk.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas in Colorado - Pt. 1

Bine and I are having a lot of fun visiting with Sara, Tom, and Olivya. Here are a few pictures from today.


Lunch at Cooper Smiths in Fort Collins.


Bine's beer is bigger than mine.


Coloring fun.


Livy riding on a pretty horse statue.


Livy catching a ride on Uncle Leighton's shoulders.


Livy showing of her Joe the Plumber's crack.


Livy showing off the dress-up clothes Aunt Bine brought her.


Livy cuddling with Bella (sorry, I thought that was Kona).


Playing a little Wii Bowling.

Livy is in bed now so Santa can come, and we are going to play some Settlers of Catan.

Merry Christmas!

Grandma and Grandpa come for Christmas

Audrey opening up her gift from Bella.


Audrey excited about her gift from Grandma Jean - a new baby doll!






Audrey sporting her new outfit from Grandma Jean, and pushing her new stroller.


Jackson setting up his trucks, and building with his lincoln logs.




Jackson coloring his new Thomas pages from Bella.

2008 Christgiving - Part 2

As promised, here are some of the present pictures from Christgiving...


Audrey got a big fluffy pink poodle as one of her gifts and she really seemed to love it.


In fact, Jackson seemed to like it, too.


Jackson got some cool ink stamp sets with stamps of bugs, farm animals and Africa animals. And he got a Richard Scarry book (I believe it was Richard Scarry's What Do People Do All Day).


Audrey also got some costume jewelry like this tiara...


...and this frilly pink tutu.


Finally, here is a picture of the four sibs. The last time we were all together was in December 2006, in the same pose. Jackson decided to get in on the fun this time.

Now I'm going to try going back to bed. I woke up at 3am and couldn't fall back asleep so I came to tinker on the computer.

Random kid stuff

Audrey sporting her new favorite big girl underpants - Minnie! (with mary janes, of course)


Jackson got to paint his face in his "icky sticky" class at school. He was a shark.

Yay!! The kitchen's done.

We kept the cabinets, but changed the floor, tile, countertops and appliances.

2008 Christgiving - Part 1

Here are some of the pictures I took with my camera before the battery died. The pictures of presents will have to be posted in a follow-up entry as they are all on Mom's camera.

Renz was in town from Marquette for the annual Christgiving get-together. The dinner was delicious as usual.


Here is the south side of the table...


...and here is the north side.


Here is me 'n Bee.


Audrey really loved the Christmas cookie she had, especially the green sparkly toppings.


Here is Uncle Renz with Jackson and Audrey.

Present pictures to follow.

Audrey's favorite outfit

Shirt, diaper, black patent leather mary janes.

Christmas Trek Downtown - 2008

With her current age, and her need for naps, Audrey still didn't attempt making the trek this year. So, it was just Nana and Jack. And where do these downtown treks always begin? They begin on a heavily varnished bench at the Stone Avenue Station.


Arriving downtown, they found a new utility pole decoration for the holiday season.


The most prominent decoration at Daley Plaza was the official city Christmas Tree. The temperature and chill factor confined Jack to remaining in the stroller with the blanket on top.


That house next to the tree is the special enclosure that was erected to house Old Santa, himself.


It is obvious that it looks too nice to have been erected by FEMA, so Jack went in to visit the Old Dude.


Another feature at the plaza was this huge mannequin guarding the Santa house. Jack said that he was very impressive and looked like a great big toy soldier, but Nana described him as a Nut Cracker. Sometimes, grownups give such funny names to their toys!!


A "lauben" style photo following the visit showed that Nana was thrilled with Jack's visit, but you can see that Jack might have had reservations regarding the old coot.


Nana and Jack then strolled over to Marshall Fields .... (Ooops!)
make that Macy's. If there was any doubt, a view of the typical Macy's Christmas window clearly fell short of the ones created in days gone by.


So then, how does one restore a precious child like Jack who's faith in Christmas has been crushed by the lack of Macy's creativity? It can be done only through the magic of lunch at Chez Arches.


Through the magic of Chicken parts, and a kid's value meal, our young hero is nourished and re-energized so that on the way home, he might reflect on all that he had seen.


Editor's Note: I can't predict what might happen next year when Audrey joins in on the downtown trek. However, I suspect that Nana may overcome her bias toward Macy's and drag Boompa and the grand children inside to the Walnut room to view the Macy's tree and have lunch at its base.

Santa comes to LaGrange

We took the kids to see Santa at Village Hall, but we didn't get a shot of him in any of our photos... (maybe this Santa thing is a hoax?!)


Aud Pawd.

Putting up the Christmas Tree

The kids helping decorate the tree. Is it me, or are those pants getting short?