Christmas at Crossroads

We took a trip to Crossroads Village tonight for the annual Christmas at Crossroads.  We met up with Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Jason, Aunt Julie, Anna, Joel, and Jonah.  It was a little chilly, but it really wasn't too bad.  We all had a really great time!  The lights were all so beautiful!

It was fun to check out all the buildings (and get warmed up in the mean time!).

Grandma, Anna, Joel, Carson, and Mama rode the carousel.

Here are the kids in school... having a very fun time!

We all rode the train together.  Here is the train coming into the station. The train travels at between 14-18 mph... its hard to imagine that back in the day that this thing was built and running the tracks as a form of transportation, it would only travel at half the speed it goes today! 

 

Jonah loved the train ride!  He sat there so nicely the entire way, watching all the lights out the window.

We ended our night with a visit to Santa Claus.  Carson wasn't too thrilled about it and didn't sit on his lap for very long at all... :)

Decorating for Christmas

As is tradition for us every year over Thanksgiving weekend, we put up our Christmas tree and decorations yesterday.  It was SO MUCH FUN this year!  Carson is at such a great age and it is so awesome to see and hear his pure joy while decorating.  He loves all the Christmas lights and ornaments.  He helped put just about every ornament on the tree this year, as well as the star on top.  And after each and every one, he would squeal with joy and exclaim at how beautiful it looked.  He especially loved hearing about his ornaments (the ones that he has received from Kevin and I and from Nana and Papa each Christmas so far), why we chose them, and finding the perfect place to hang them on the tree.  His ornament this year is Santa riding a BMX bike, which symbolizes his love for riding his Trek bicycle this year.

Unfortunately, I think we are going to be pulling all the ornaments off the tree one night this week and re-doing them all.  I want to add some ribbon to the tree.  It just feels too boring.  I had thought I wanted ribbon on it last year, but forgot about it until we got it all decorated yesterday.  Oh well, Carson will have just as much fun decorating it with me again and he is excited to help put the ribbon on it.  :)

Sloan Museum

Last Saturday, we took a trip to Sloan Museum in Flint. We've never taken Carson and it had been many, many years since Kevin or I had been there. We met up with Aunt Julie, Anna, Joel, and Jonah and had a lot of fun.  The kids had a blast! They all got a kick out of the Grossology exhibit, which features all things gross about your body... burps, farts, stinky feet, pimples, etc. Gross was definitely the way to describe several of the exhibits! I think the favorite part of the trip for all the kids was actually the most simple... a bare stage to jump off of! :) I think they could have stayed in there for hours. They also really enjoyed the puppet show area. Jonah really loved the puppet shows and playing peek-a-boo with the curtains.

After the museum, we walked over to the Flint Institute of Music to see their sneak peek of the Nutcracker and we got to see where Anna takes her violin lessons.  It was a very fun afternoon and we are already looking forward to our next visit to Sloan when they get some new exhibits in a few months or so.  Its nice to be reminded that we have some pretty cool places to go right in our own backyard.

Fantastic Fall

We've been having some fantastic fall weather.  It was up in the 60s last week with bright sun every day - it was awesome!  Unfortunately the weather was short-lived and we're in the 40s today...  We took full advantage of the beautiful weather with a few different trips to local parks.  We found a new (to us) park in Linden on Friday.  The locals call it Wood Park.  Its a really nice, huge wooden playscape right down by the river.  Carson had a lot of fun and met a new friend named Owen.  They had a lot of fun playing together, running all over the place and swinging. 

Carson will kill me one day for posting this, but I just think its too funny.  Carson is wearing big-boy underwear most of the time now and I guess he had a bit of a wedgie from all his running and playing at the park.  :)

We've also been taking full advantage of the nice weather to finish up the fall clean up chores in the yard.  Carson has been having a lot of fun helping us sweep and rake leaves; trim bushes, flowers, and trees; and ride around on the tractors with Kevin. 

Here is our favorite fall craft that we've done so far.  Hand print leaves on a 6"x6" stretched canvas.  We love crafts that double as nice artwork for our living room! 

And lastly, we've been working with Carson to learn to write some letters.  He is doing very well - when he focuses on what we're doing, at least.  :)  Here is a letter A that he wrote on his chalkboard all by himself!  Of course, they don't all look this good, but many of them do! 

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween to everyone (a day late)!  I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!  I just love Halloween... always have and always will.  I love seeing all the kids in their costumes and I do love dressing up myself.  Although I haven't dressed up the last few years, but I think we'll all dress up next year.

Last night we went over to Aunt Julie's and Uncle Jason's house for dinner and trick-or-treating.  The kids all looked so cute!  Anna changed up her costume from being an angel to being a cheerleader, Joel was Batman, Carson was a pirate, and Jonah was a lion.  They all had a lot of fun trick-or-treating and seeing all the other kids and adults in costume.  Carson was a little unsure about some of the scarier masks, but he did really well again this year with few fears.  He loved the houses with jack-o-lanterns (especially the happy ones), spooky lights, and ghosts.  He really loves ghosts this year.  The kids all got a good amount of candy and we cut our trick-or-treating short after about an hour this year. 

Just for a look back, here's a link to our post about Halloween 2009... Carson sure has grown!

Once we got back to Aunt Julie's and Uncle Jason's house, we all piled in the cars and headed over to Grandma and Grandpa's where we met up with the Bush family.  It has been a long-standing tradition of the Poiriers and the Bushes to meet up at the Holleboom house after trick-or-treating.  We are thankful to have been included in this tradition for the last two years now and look forward to many years ahead! 

And lastly, I wanted to share our favorite Halloween craft that we did this year.  Its a handprint ghost on a 5"x5" stretched canvas.  I think it turned out so cute and am so excited to add this to my Halloween decorations in the years to come!