Goodbye Thomas!!!!!

Jackson is giving up is Thomas addiction. I think it is harder on me than it is on him! Tonight before bed I was going through books on his bookshelf and dividing them into the ones to keep on his bookshelf, ones to give to Kate and ones to donate. I soon found out that I had to make a fourth pile - Thomas books. I asked him if I should keep them on his shelf. He said no. I asked him if he was sure - he might still want to read them - he said no. These are the books that he used to teach himself how to read. He knew all of the trains names and how to read them because they are written underneath the train. When we would read any of his millions of Thomas books, he would read the trains names, and from there he just kept on going. He was reading fluently by the time he was 4 1/2. So, sadly, I made a pile of Thomas books. I will pack them away in case one day we have another little boy who is in love with that little blue engine. Jackson is on to bigger and better things right now - Legos and Star Wars.
I still haven't downloaded the Christmas pics from my camera. Hopefully in the next few days.

Melissa

PS - The photo is from last Christmas. It is Jackson in the Thomas Wheels and Whistle Sofa that Santa just HAD to bring!

Happy New Year

Hello! I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. After a week and a half in St. Louis, we are still recovering from the holidays. On Monday it looked like a toy store in my living room. Jackson said it was like Christmas again! We got home late on Sunday night and of course all of our toys from Christmas morning were still out and then we added all the presents we received from St. Louis. I am happy to say that by the end of the day I had all of the suitcases unpacked and most of the toys put away. I'm still going through toys and rearranging, but hopefully I will have everything organized by the end of the week.
Both Jackson and Kate went back to school on Tuesday. It was nice to get back to our usual routines. I am spending this week getting my house back together, but hopefully next week I will post some pictures of our holidays.
I hope to hear from some of you soon. Simply leave a comment in the comment section of any post. I will try my hardest to respond.

Have a great day!
Melissa

Merry Christmas!

Just wanted to wish our friends and family a very Merry Christmas! I am signing off for a few days. We will leave tomorrow afternoon and head down to St. Louis. We will be there until New Year's Day. We have many Christmas celebrations to attend and are looking forward to seeing everyone!

Christmas Parties!

I had the chance to go to both Kate and Jackson's Christmas Parties at school this year. It was a busy day because they were both on Thursday. Thankfully Kate's was in the morning and Jackson's was in the afternoon. Kate's was a low key party with some snacks and then their regular end of the day routine. Jackson's was much more high energy!!! I was in charge of the craft and I was exhausted by the time I left. Here are a few pics from the day:





As silly as I thought it was that Jackson's party was on Thursday (they still had school on Friday) we were glad it was since school was canceled on Friday!

Winter Wonderland!

We had an ice storm last night. Not as bad as expected - but school was called off! Roads were mostly just slushy but the ice made our street look like a winter wonderland.
Her are some pictures we took this evening.

Wordless Wednesday

Santa!

We went last night to see Santa (or HoHo as Kate calls him). Kate is scared to death of Santa or any life size character for that matter. Ask her about the Billiken some time:) Our local Parks Dept. held a big Christmas Event last night at one of the parks. They had face painting, balloon animals, games, crafts and of course - Santa! Jackson went prepared with his wish list he made earlier in the day(he didn't want to forget). Kate claimed she was going to sit on Santa's lap with Jackson and was very excited.
Then we walked in the door and she started shaking and held on for dear life!!!! We watched from afar as Jackson had a chat with Santa and then after he handed Kate a piece of candy, she decided she would at least talk to him! Here are a few pics.