More Christmas Pics

We had a fabulous Christmas spending lots of time with the Rust side. There was plenty of playing, eating, watching tv & more eating. The boys received some wonderful gifts and they gave me a great one today---taking an afternoon nap at the same time. I did the housework that needed to be done and then finished reading my book. Love it! Notice how Nathan is sitting on his toy...he seems to think that it's a chair nestled in its box. Very funny! Hope that all of you had a wonderful Christmas and are looking forward to 2011!!

More Holiday Fun

Our family has enjoyed a week off of work full of playing outside with our neighbors, baking, singing Christmas songs, visiting the trains downtown & going to the Festival of Lights at the zoo.

I just had to include the pic of Noah & Nathan sitting in each other's car seats (my car was getting a few much needed repairs-thanks Jeremy!!!-and the seats were in the house for a few days). Oh and look! We got our chimney cleaned & inspected so we had our first fire in the fireplace!

It'll be time for church and presents & Wendy's Christmas Eve dinner soon enough (that's a whole separate story about why my family eats Wendy's for Christmas Eve every year) and tomorrow is Christmas!

More pictures to come in a few days!

Some Holiday Fun!

We've had a lot of fun the past week or so getting ready for Christmas and our 2 weeks off. We've had 2 small snowfalls before today and you can see Noah sledding on the last picture. It snowed quite a bit today and we're off school so I'm sure we'll have more snow pictures soon. It looks like we might have a white Christmas...not sure that it'll be warm enough for long enough to melt it all. That would be fabulous, we have very few of them.

We went to the Holiday Party for my mom's group last weekend and after being scared of Santa for a little bit, Noah agreed to stand next to him and talk. and boy did he talk. We had to stop him after a few minutes. Nathan, on the other hand, wasn't too happy to see Santa, as this picture shows.

Noah was a helper for our Christmas tree lights and I couldn't help myself with this great bathtub picture. Oh, I forgot to mention that all of the ornaments are up at the top of the tree. The few that I've left at the bottom within Nathan's reach are continually removed so they've all migrated higher up.

More will be coming soon. Maybe another video or two.

Enjoy the snow if you have it and the sun if you have that!

Winter Wonderland

What a beautiful December day! We woke up at 8 am to Noah bursting into our room to tell us that there was snow on the ground (not much at that point but we probably got 3 inches by the end) THIS is the kind of snow that I love! It's 32 degrees so the snow is wet and sticks to the grass but not the roads!!! And because it was warm (yes, I know you southerners can't imagine that 32 degrees can feel warm but after the cold of Toledo last weekend, 32 degrees is rather pleasant!) we got to enjoy a bit of the snow!

We had a wonderful day today. Getting the car cleaned off was a bit of work with 2 small boys, so a little playing in the snow happened then as well. We were off to Aunt Chelsea's family farm to get a Christmas tree. When we got back with a beautiful tree, the boys played outside with Ben & Will from up the street (who also go to Trent) and they had a blast making a snow robot.

We tried to upload a few videos. See if you can see them.

Turkey Day, Swimming & Talking

First, the pics. Nathan by the pool (he much preferred to hang out on the side than in it...until it was naptime and then he decided he wanted to swim and swim and swim), Thanksgiving Dinner, and Nathan chilling out with Mommy's sunglasses at home.

Now, the update...Hope you all had a fabulous Turkey Day. We were in Toledo this year with Michael's family. It was fun to swim in the pool, drink wine after the kids were in bed and spend time with family we don't see very often. But between the long car rides and several cousins getting a stomach bug while we were there, we were all ready to come home. We enjoyed a delicious meal at Bill & Becki's but I can't say I remember much of the food. I know it was all yummy but Nathan was fussing and not wanting to eat anything but the homemade applesauce that wasn't part of the meal and Noah insisted he was hungry a little while later aarrggh...maybe in a few years I'll get to enjoy the meal again! Becki, I know it was delicious, thanks again!!!

We finally got to go to the Family Swim on Sunday afternoon at our YMCA. We've been trying to get there since September but there was always something that prevented it (errands, Nathan's nap, a house project etc). This Sunday all the stars were aligned and we got to go. I'm so glad we did; Noah made huge progress swimming. In fact, he swam for the first time without his flotation and kept his head up for several seconds and moved forward in the water before he got scared and started to sink. We were so proud of him and hope to go back next weekend to see him get even better!

Nathan has changed so much in the last week, it is truly amazing! His walking is much more stable and man is he quick! He loved running down the long halls of hotel and if he got a headstart of a few seconds, you actually had to jog to catch up with him. His language is starting to take off too. He picked up a few new words in the last week (milk, yogurt, cracker, all done, night-night, and baby) and is so proud of himself when he knows that you understand his word. I love this time from now until 18 months or so when the language just explodes. It is so fun watching someone else learn how our language works (and all of the exceptions to the rules that they try to master).

Hope everyone's holiday season is starting off well. We don't have much shopping left to do but hope to do some holiday baking and spending time together and maybe, just maybe it won't be too stressful!

A week of sickness!

Life in the Huber Household hasn't been much fun lately. Nathan came down with the stomach bug last Saturday night (which killed the date night- aka bottle of wine & movie-we had planned). Kate got it Sun night since she had to hold Nathan through all of his ordeal. Scrubbed bathrooms down after each of these days, quarantined the sick person, no one else shared the bathroom etc. Noah got sick once on Tues and was mostly back to normal on Wed. We thought we were over it. Then today, Sunday, Michael got something. We keep hoping and hoping that we're over it, done & finished. We all need to be healthy for Turkey Day in Toledo. This was not the way I expected the week to be leading up to Thanksgiving. Then again, is anything ever the way you think it will be, especially with kids?

Hope everyone else stays healthy. You don't want what we've had!

Noah at School

Michael and I got to spend a little time with Noah in his montessori classroom. We were allowed an hour total so we split it 30 mins each.

It is very organized and you are allowed to sit in one of 3 little chairs and watch the children as they work. Noah was very concerned with showing us what he was doing, and his teachers encouraged him to show us what he has been working on most recently. It is amazing to see 32 kids in 3 different classrooms each doing their own projects & activities with 3 adults helping, giving lessons etc. Still not sure if he will be a lefty or a righty (he favors each in different situations). Time will tell!

Noah waved good-bye when I left and watched me walk down the steps. I was worried for only a minute that he might cry. He is so happy at Trent and we are thrilled with how much he is learning!

(This picture was from his first day of school, such a big boy!)

Happy Halloween!

We had so much fun at the leaf raking party last night. The bread turned out great, the kids had a blast playing in the leaves and the adults enjoyed the great food & good company!

And today was a wonderful day too! Noah was so excited for Halloween that he had a hard time focusing on anything else all day. Since Trick or Treating was 4-6 pm in our city, I think we had many other kids that don't live here...and being in a big neighborhood meant we ran out of candy 1 hour into it (we "borrowed" some from Noah's collection--but don't tell him that, we did it when he wasn't looking!--- and raided the pantry just to get a little more). I don't think we've ever run out before and last year we had tons left over. I guess we'll need to buy a little more next year but not a ton more....such a fine line!

Noah dressed as Bob the Builder and Nathan as a puppy dog. Noah said "trick or treat" at many of the houses and remembered to say "thank you" most of the time. He got quite a loot for the 2 dozen houses we went to.

We enjoyed the evening with Grandma & Grandpa Rust who stayed to a yummy dinner of Halloween-shaped pasta & fesively decorated cake. Nathan talked the whole evening (after staying silent through Trick or Treating). We lit our jack-o-lanterns. The larger one is Noah and the smaller one is Nathan.

Aunt Chelsea, here's your pictures!!!

Some Halloween-ish Pics

These are some pictures from our Halloween and Fall activities. We went to the pumpkin patch with our neighbors and cut pumpkins off the vine. We took a hayride there and Nathan loved it! We also went to the annual chilly (actually it was downright cold) walk through Tower Park for the Pumpkin Walk and enjoyed the amazing jack-o-lanterns. We decided to carve some of our own and that's what's going on as I'm typing this. Oh and the bread is rising. Keeping my fingers crossed it turns out okay!

Welcome!

Welcome to our family's blog. Here we'll keep you updated about things that we're doing and little tidbits from our life. This weekend is Halloween and the kids (Noah) are super excited. We're off to a leaf raking party tomorrow (which is really an excuse to get together with some friends). First thing in the morning is an attempt at making bread.

We'll try to post pictures sometime soon and include some from Halloween and the Pumpkin Walk last evening.

Happy Halloween!