Adwoa und Ama

Really belated, we know. But here are the photo highlights from a great few days in Streamwood for Christmas…
Sunny was a happy pup, lots of people and toys to play with!

Grandma and E decorated this little tree with some favorite ornaments

The girls love working out on Grandma’s exercise machine… even better when you can exercise while licking a candy cane!

As usual, Santa and the elves filled the stockings to overflowing. And the girls, especially, had huge stacks of presents!

J was amazed by her Ariel doll that came with a horse!! Two favorites! Thanks Aunt Deb!

E got a very special gift from Grandma and B-Pa…. an American Girl Doll named Elizabeth. E chose this one from the catalog because of her pink dress. Grandma got her a few additional outfits, and Elizabeth has had many outfit changes in the last month. E is treating her new baby with lots of love and care.

For any of you “Castle” watchers, Aunt Nine found herself with Rick Castle’s book about Nikki Heat, as the character wrote on the TV show…

B-Pa enjoyed his presents, too.

Nine and Lee surrounded by their “loot”

Aunt Den with her beautiful dragon mug… her favorite thing!

Liz got her silk turtleneck! Apparently, Liz’s younger niece predicted this would be on Liz’s list (as always).

Edgecomb Pottery was good to all of us, via Sunny. Thanks, Sunny!

Lee was pretty happy with his drill sharpener, and the training video that came with it was excellent!

J also got a special new doll– her American Girl Bitty Baby. It came with a very cool backpack and lots of outfits. She, too, has been quite the fashionable baby. Aunt Nine and Uncle Lee gave the girls art kits in these tubes, which the girls loved.

Hugs all around for all the great presents!

In the afternoon, we went to Nine & Lee’s for Christmas dinner. Delicious and fun.

E & J loved playing with K, in their coordinating Christmas dresses and with matching art kits!

Everyone got into the fun of Wii Bowling!! 5-year-old E and 87-year-old Dorothy and everyone in between….

Aunt Cecilia wasn’t too bad at bowling, either! Here she and Leo admire presents.

Rich tried on E’s new princess shoes and he found them to be a lovely addition to his outfit.

J wasn’t too interested in posing at this point, but K and E were quite happy to… with Aunt Nine’s tree!

J and Sunny had great times, as usual.

B-Pa always gives sound advice, especially with Sunny there to supervise.

Grandma read to J

And B-Pa played Princess Yahtzee with E (it took 3 adults to read and understand the directions)

Overall, it was a great visit. Everyone had fun, Santa didn’t forget us, and there was lots of down time to enjoy each other’s company.

Before we arrived in Streamwood, we stopped to viist Jerry, Michelle, and Blink. We had a nice dinner and the girls loved cuddling with Blink. She seemed to like it, too.

Old friends are so special, and we were really glad that we had a chance to see them. Our thoughts are with Jerry and Michelle this week as Michelle will need to undergo some surgery. We love you guys.

Christmas pics will come soon. I promise. I keep hoping my sisters-in-law will get to it first, but no. So… coming. Really.

However….. you know how you hear results of a national poll and you say, “What? Who do they talk to for those crazy responses?”… Well, I was surveyed in the recent CNN/ Opinion Research Poll. And it took like 20 mins. to get through all the questions. Here’s what I, and 1000 other people, said….

What is interesting to note is that the write-up here and the link to the document with all the responses on it only show the questions related to terrorism/ security as the article details. However, the survey itself asked LOTS of questions about political parties and candidates in the upcoming 2010 election.. who you plan to vote for, etc. That is not reflected in this write-up or in the document linked in the artlicle…

E made this and we think it is really terrific.

We especially love the attention to detail… hair styles and eye colors that are true to life. It was only a few short months ago that E started drawing people at all.

It is also important to note the placement of people…. it really is true that the girls have become a unit, sometimes across the dividing line from the parents. They are much more interested in impressing each other these days than in impressing us. We knew that would happen eventually, but didn’t expect it at ages 5 and 3!!

In other news… it snowed today, contrary to the forecast. lt has stayed below freezing since our storm on the 8th and 9th so we still have almost all that we received then.

Steve and Jacqueline were in town Friday night to Saturday morning since Steve was teaching a class in Des Moines on Friday evening. Michael took the girls and B out sledding yesterday and they had a great time. He and the girls are out again today on the small hill behind our house. They love it.