What's in a name?

When I was pregnant with Jack, Tom and I could not agree upon a name.  Really, no name struck our fancy.  One day Ellie started calling him Jack and continued to do so until Tom and I were won over.  Ellie absolutely loves the story of how she named her baby brother.  And now she has taken it upon herself to name our third child and she has enlisted Jack's help.  The two of them will only refer to the baby as "Sam."  I think it is cute, but Tom is still on the fence.  I have a feeling, though, that my strong-willed 6 year old will get her way.

In other pregnancy news, I have a doctor's appointment today that I am afraid to go to because I know I will get a lecture about the amount of weight I have gained.  I blame Tom.  Whenever I get a craving, he caves and gets it for me.  The other night I was craving fudge at 8:30.  Of course, I wasn't about to actually make it myself, but I did send Tom to the store to buy me some.  Not only did he bring me fudge, but he also brought back a whole pan of brownies.  The next night I was craving fries.  I got fries and a milkshake.  Last night it was chips and queso, but we also decided to balance out all that sodium with some chocolate chip cookies.  And that is why everyone thinks I am 9 months pregnant instead of 6.

The Naughty List

Ellie and Jack have not been on their best behavior lately so I decided that it was time they received a warning letter from Santa.

Jack was completely unfazed, but Ellie read it and was practically in tears.  I am pretty sure she has been scared straight.

'Tis the Season

For the past three years, we have been taking the kids to a neighboring community's Christmas festivities.  The novelty of seeing a REAL reindeer still hasn't worn off for me, but Jack was less than impressed.

 I think he was just apprehensive about sitting on Santa's lap.

 Last year, Ellie ventured up there alone because no amount of cajoling could convince Jack to approach the big man.  This year, Jack actually sat on his lap, but as you can see from his expression, he was conflicted about it.  He still managed to mumble his Christmas wish list (Batman and Spider-man and cars) before making his escape.

We quickly made the rounds of decorating cookies, having balloon animals made, riding the train, and playing in the snow.

 Then, once again we attempted pictures by the lake.  We had our real camera with us, but all these pictures are from my phone because I am still too lazy to pull the pictures off my Nikon.

In the evening we went to the church Christmas Service Social.  I had to arrive early to set up and stay late to clean up, so it was a long night.  I was a little apprehensive about the night because it was so different than the Christmas parties my kids have come to expect.  We set up different service projects in each room and the families spent the first hour going to the different stations making things like cards for the Ronald McDonald house, knotting fleece blankets for the hospital, and putting together baking baskets for CAM (just to name a few).  Then, everyone got back together for a little program.  I was stationed in the card-making room, but it seemed like everyone had such a great time!  And I loved being able to balance out the commercial side of Christmas (that we enjoyed earlier in the day) with the true spirit of the season.  At the end of the night, the kids acted out the 12 Days of Christmas.  Ellie was one of the two turtle doves and this is the clearest picture I was able to get because she was bouncing up and down the entire time.

 Jack was one of the 11 pipers piping, but he got stage-fright halfway through and the 11 pipers were reduced to 10.

We were thoroughly exhausted by the end of the day and the kids set a new record for sleeping-in the following morning.  It was awesome.