Santa Claus is Coming to Town!!

We heard a bunch of sirens coming down our street on Sunday night and we were worried that one of our neighbors was having an emergency. Nope, it was Santa Claus paying the neighborhood a visit courtesy of the local volunteer fire department. They ventured out, snow, ice and all to wish us all a very Merry Christmas so we wanted to do the same...

(Sorry about the blurry pictures, but you get the idea!!)

Merry Christmas to all,

and to all a good night!!!

Blizzard of 2009

Since living in Maryland, I have poked fun many times at the way this area handles snow. If there is even a threat of snow, they will cancel schools and pretty much the whole town shuts down. In the three winters that we have lived here, we have never seen it snow more than about 1-2 inches.

The Friday before the storm was to hit, people were going crazy with trying to buy toilet paper, milk, bread, etc. It was nice to know that with our food storage, we could have survived several months before needing to restock so we weren't one of the "crazies" out that night! Plus we still kind of doubted that the storm was going to be that bad...

Well, we were definitely wrong!! Saturday we got slammed with a huge amount of snow. At the end of the day, we had accumulated about 17 inches of snow at our house. It was very pretty, especially since we had no place to go (although being housebound for a couple of days wasn't the most fun for any of us!!)

Most of the streets are clear now. They did cancel church yesterday and school today (in typical Maryland fashion, but this time it was merited!!) Looks like we'll be having a white Christmas this year!!!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!!!

Maya did her best in trying to maneuver through the mountain of snow in our backyard...

Our "official" measurement of the day's damage...

The "calm" after the storm.

Pretty crazy stuff!! It was kind of exciting while it happened, but it also reaffirmed the fact that I will never want to live in a place where this is a regular occurence!!!

Two little monkeys jumping on the bed...

Abby loves crawling into Landon's crib to get him up from his naps in the afternoon.

They both love to laugh, jump and play together...

Or take a little nibble on the crib rails...

We sure do love these little monkeys!!!

Citi Kids Party

Jason's work had a little kid's Christmas party a couple of weeks ago. Abby had a great time meeting Frosty...

And getting a candy cane made out of balloons...

But the highlight of the day for Abby was getting to meet the Big Man himself. As soon as she saw Santa, she gave him a giant hug!! (Which as you can see, really delighted Mrs. Claus!)

I wasn't sure what Landon's reaction would be, but he just stared at them for a bit and probably figured it was just another one of his parents' crazy shenanigans.

Abby was sure to tell Santa exactly what she wanted for Christmas...pretend make-up, a cat and a bike. (She has since changed her mind about the bike though so we had to mail a letter to Santa so that he would know that she wanted some doll diapers instead of a bike this year.) I think Santa can make that happen!!

Tree Lighting in City Park

Last Friday night we went to the annual Tree Lighting in City Park. We've been every year that we've lived in Hagerstown and it has become a fun tradition for us. Last year we froze our heinys, but this year we were better prepared and the temperatures weren't quite as bitter.

We spent most of our time at the petting zoo area. The last time we went to one of these (July), Landon loved looking at the animals but would not come close to touching them. A few months later, and he decided that the sheep were okay to pet (he still didn't want anything to do with any of the bigger animals like the cow and alpacas.)

Abby was working hard to feed the sheep although they seemed to be more interested in eating the hay off the ground than from her little fingers.

Ahhhh, the beauty and splendor of City Park at Christmastime!!!

Winter Wonderland

We had our first snowfall on Saturday. Abby was so excited to go out and build a snoman. She especially loved putting the carrot in place for his nose. (All we had were baby carrots so it was a little funny looking, but she thought it was perfect.)

We got even more snow last night although a lot of it has melted already. Snow definitely makes all the Christmas lights in town look even prettier and puts us all in the Christmas mood!

It's beginning to look a lot like...

Christmas!!!

We put up our Christmas tree and decorations last week and it really looks festive in our home now.

Abby and Landon both enjoyed putting the few ornaments we have on the tree and dancing around to the Christmas music we had playing.

It's been a week now and so far the tree is still in one piece and hasn't fallen over yet (despite numerous attempts by kung-fu children.) We call that a SUCCESS!!!