sillies

Even after a trip to the playground, these two still had some sillies left in them.....

this-n-that

Abigail can hardly contain herself as she waits to surprise Papa by pretending she is Mommy in Mommy's new winter coat!

Natester: silly.

Abbster: also silly.

Jamie's family is gathered to celebrate his Papa's 80th birthday.... we had J's siblings and families over last night for chili dinner.  All of the Shambaugh men (minus 2 year old Patrick) spontaneously gathered for this photo-op ready moment of map viewing.

Greetings from the Friday lunch bunch.

Who knew yogurt and broccoli mixed together could make Nate so happy?

christmas pic 2011

Hats off to neighbor Paola for taking exactly 30 pictures of us over about 1.5 minutes in that spontaneous window of time after naptime and before ZooLights excursion when we realized that we were all awake and still in need of a Christmas card photo.

The beginning.  Mommy & Nate sporting partial (or complete) jammies from the night before. It's 3:30pm you say?  Who needs to get dressed today? 

 2 out of 4 looking at the camera = not bad.

Nate decides he's off to practice walking.  Abigail's smile looks a little unnatural.

Abigail looks even more skeptical. Nate starts applauding.

And we have a winner.... Hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and that 2012 will hold many good things!

mn christmas

Two champion air traveling kids (and the good company of many other families traveling with small children) made our flights to and from MN pretty low stress.  Yay Nate & Abby!

Abigail took a power nap and then got right down to Christmas cookie making business with Grandma...

This team produced some very tasty cookies that we all decorated beautifully.

Deep thoughts about a clothes chute .... where do the dirty clothes go????

Nate took advantage of some longer hallways and spaces to perfect his speed strut.

Abigail & Papa logged some hours at the "snow field" nearby - a remnant patch of snow that made our brown MN Christmas qualify as "TONS of snow" in Abigail's eyes.

Hi Abby!

Checked in on now-dormant garden patch that Abby planted with squash last summer.... gardening adventures with Grandad to be continued in 2012.

We smushed Natester into this beloved snowsuit that saw a lot of love in the winter of 2008/2009 when Abigail was a wee one.

Nate borrows some big mittens and sets out on his own.

Exploring the frozen tundra...brrrrr.

Lots of great gifts....including a new Meeow book from G&G!

Some beautiful sunrises.

And cozy evenings by the fire.

A mini snowman (or two, when senor snowman was turned into a puddle + carrot by the afternoon sun).

Lots of snuggle time and story time....

Christmas morning excitement!

Nate likes this ornament from Dee Dee & Pop Pop!

Making car noises with new stacking wooden polar bears...Nate shows us his innate boy-ness.

well december is going fast

How is Christmas less than a week away already?  Our tree is up, and ornaments were very interesting for the first few days and now are mostly ignored by both kiddos.

We've been muddling through cold season, buy stock in Kleenex!

Hostess with the mostess Linda gave a beautiful gingerbread boy and girl to Nate and Abby.  They are being eaten slowly, piece by piece, and enjoyed very much....

Did we mention that Nate loves gingerbread cookies too?

zoolights

Oh ZooLights!  What a fun outing.  We got there when it was light out, and Abigail ran about 5 miles doing loops around different light displays, up this path and that, etc.

 

Then it got dark and things got really interesting....

 

 Up close and personal with an elephant.

Following the snowflake light trail...

Lots and lots of lights.

Animals, flowers, trees, oh my.

Nate did love this purple tree.

These lights changed color....

At the end, we got to visit the farm animals in their barn. Major excitement as the barn is usually closed to visitors during the day when the animals are in their outside zones.  Nate LOVED the goats.

Bye bye zoo, see you next time!