Christmas cards

I have been thinking today about getting Christmas cards ready. I keep wavering about whether or not I am actually going to get around to doing them, but, being optimistic, I thought I'd put the call out for addresses. I know many people who have moved this year, and some whose addresses I'm not sure I've ever had, so if you're one of those people, please email me with your address. I'm not promising anything, so if you don't get a card from us, it means either (a) I don't have your address, (b) I got too lazy/busy and decided to skip the whole Christmas card thing this year or (c) I don't like you (just kidding).
(If you don't have my email address handy it's campbellcolette at gmail dot com.)

Pictures to come of our adventures in decorating our house for Christmas....

Thanksgiving fun

We've had a really fun week. Jacob's family (minus a few) came down to spend Thanksgiving with us. It was a bit cozy with 12 people in our 3 bedroom house (though 2 of them slept at a friend's house who was gone for the week), but it was a lot of fun.

We did some preparation to make the house Thanksgiving-y:

We used oatmeal, candy corn, grass, dirt, sticks, leaves and more to make this sign:

We also made some Turkey cookies to set at each place for Thanksgiving dinner.

We got beds ready (meaning inflated the queen mattresses, and made sure we had blankets for everyone else who would be sleeping on couches). I had been meaning to get Rachel's twin mattress, and had told her we'd be getting her a new bed, but didn't get around to it in time. But when she saw this bed inflated in her room (we moved her toddler bed to our room to make room for others) she went and got her dog, Fido, a book, and a blanket and told me "This is my new bed!" and proceeded to "read" to Fido.

Wednesday night everyone got here and the fun began:

Sharon's roommate (and adopted Campbell sister by now), Kassie, came along for the fun. One can never have too many computers in their house:

Turkey day was a lot of fun. Many hands make light labor. The food prep went easily with everyone pitching in. There was plenty of time to relax and enjoy each others' company.

Grandma Campbell made many tasty dishes.

Our back porch was covered with graffiti beautiful sidewalk chalk art. :)

Kassie was a good entertainer for Rachel, keeping her occupied and happy while I pretended to help in the kitchen.

Lenalee was the happy little star of the weekend. We had fun seeing her, since the last time we saw her she wasn't even 2 months old yet. She must like the Tucson weather (hint, hint, Mark and Ashley--U of A has a nice med school and warm winters! :) ).

My parents came over for dinner, too, so we pulled out our new folding table and card table and crowded in for a delectable meal, all 14 of us. It was good food and good company.

Rachel thought the turkey cookies were a hit.

The rest of the afternoon and weekend involved: trips to the school yard that borders our back yard for basketball, frisbee, slides and walks, playing games, watching Shawn the Sheep and Madagascar 2, hanging out, doing homework, going shopping (including a 4am trip on Black Friday), eating leftovers, dancing in the kitchen, playing with Lenalee, eating more leftovers, and just enjoying each others' company in general. It was too short, but we crammed a lot of fun into the little time we had.

Notice the goose egg on Rachel's forehead. She fell off a chair head-first onto our tile. Ouch.

Thanks for coming to visit, guys! It was a lot of fun.

Happy 2nd Birthday, Rachel!

Though we had Rachel's birthday party last week, her actual birthday was yesterday. It passed without a lot of fanfare, since we had plenty of fanfare last week. But I did want to put a happy birthday post on here for a bit of reminiscing, for our family journal (which this will turn into at the end of the year when I make a 2009 blog book). Here's Rachel's second year of life in pictures:

Happy birthday, Rachel! We love you!