Catie turns 4!

Our little Catie turned 4 on January 5th! We celebrated her Birthday by holding a joint party with her friend Isabella at Monkey Joe's . We had about 25 of their friends in attendance, all bringing much needed new toys for the two princesses.

Here the girls are awaiting the birthday cupcakes!!

Jackson enjoying an intense game of air hockey...

Catie with Monkey Joe! She was one of the few kids that was not afraid of the purple freak...

We are so proud of Jackson! He received 2 awards at the Midvale Awards Ceremony... Academic Achievement and Art Achievement.

Catie looks so pretty in her new dress and "super fast" sneakers. It was about the coldest day of the year, but she refused to wear the shirt that goes underneath.

At yet another birthday party, Catie is enjoying one of the three cookies she decorated and ate under Steve's watch.

Uncle John and Ann H made an igloo! The dimensions of the igloo are 8 ft in diameter and 55 inches in height. It was -18 at the cabin, but it didn't stop them from sleeping OVERNIGHT in the igloo!! Apparently it was close to 20 degrees inside with 2 candles as heat. Crazy...

Snow in Georgia!!

Happy New Year!! We spent our evening with our friends, the Shores. Above, Jackson and Isaac playing a little guitar...

Happy New Year!!

Our plan was for Abby to sleep in the Pack and Play. Unfortunately, Abby didn't want to miss out on the festivities. She woke up after about an hour and wouldn't go back to sleep. So, we were home in bed by about 10:30pm.

Here's Catie on her new Big Wheel...the Pink Express!

On Friday, we went to "Snow Mountain." They have been making snow here for a few weeks, and had over 30 inches of snow covering the equivalent of 3 football fields. There were 11 tubing runs, as well as an area to make snowmen and angels.

Here's Catie, ready to go on the tubing run...


Daddy and Catie, ready to go...

Jackson at the bottom of the run... we went on one of the starter runs, which was slower than the others, and he seemed to enjoy it.

Jackson, with "Sam" the Snowman.

Okay, so here's how most of the day went. The kids complained about the cold, the rain, and totally freaked out when a bit of snow got in their boots. These kids would never make it up north!!

Here is Arbor Springs... all lit up with luminaries a few nights before Christmas.

We took our annual trip to Stone Mountain to look at the lights. As you can see, they were beautiful, although the kids were too focused on how cold it was to enjoy the scenery. We realized that we have true Georgians as children. The low 40's barely registered for Steve and Ann, but you would think the kids were walking around in sub-zero temps.

Here are the girls with the Snow Angel. Steve and Jackson refused to be a part of this picture, but the girls thought it was cool!

Decorating cookies was one of the indoor activities the children did not have to worry about braving the "bitter" cold to take part...

We attended Christmas Eve services with the Wilsons at their church. The children were all brought up on stage to receive a candy cane. What the picture does not show is Catie trying to walk off the stage with the entire basket of candy canes for herself... so much for the season of giving.

The kids made some S'mores after the service.

Daddy and Abster...

Santa brought some new stockings on Christmas morning.

Abster got sippy cups and a baby in her stocking. She was our only child that was excited by non-toy gifts.

New Big Wheels!!

Jackson did some shopping at "Holiday House" at his school, Midvale Elementary. He bought Abby this cute stuffed animal which she loves.

Jackson got some night vision spy goggles that he has started to use after "lights out" to continue with his bedtime reading.

Stien Christmas

We celebrated the "Stien" Christmas early this year due to work schedules over the week of Christmas. Grandpa and Grandma Moe, and Uncle John and Ann H were nice enough to drive down from Wisconsin so we could all be together. The kids went nuts for all their gifts and tried to remember that Christmas is about giving....

The Anti Monkey Butt Powder found in Jackson's stocking was a big hit. We will spare you the gory details, but Catie and Jackson are always fixated on who has monkey butt after their tubs. Hopefully, this will put an end to that habit!

The kids got possum finger puppets in their stockings... they named them "Junior."

Jackson was thrilled to receive lots of Legos. If fact, he now has so many of the sets that he is thinking of opening "Arbor Springs Lego Land" so that his friends can come over and enjoy them too. This giant set said "for ages over 12," but we can't figure out why there is a picture of a 50 year old man on the cover...creepy!

.

Uncle John gave all three of the children Packer jerseys. He and Steve are going to have them grow up Green Bay fans no matter what it takes!

Abster loves her ride-on Zebra!!

The Elf on the Shelf

We had a little visitor from the North Pole. Our little elf, "Scout," arrived at our house over the weekend. The little guy watches the kids during the day, and flies back to the North Pole every night to report back to Santa whether the kids have been naughty or nice. When he flies back each morning, he finds a new spot and the kids have to find him. One would think that this would be a an effective behavior modification tool, however it has only had minimal impact on the kids. Hopefully our neighbors (the Voelzkes), who discovered the magical elf have better luck than us!

The Polar Express

The Polar Express rolled into Arbor Springs this past weekend. We continued our tradition of decorating the Christmas tree and watching the Polar Express to kick off the holiday season.

The kids were real excited to decorate the tree and were actually quite helpful this year. At least with the bottom portion of the tree.

Catie seems pleased with her work...

Abby was decked out for the Packer game. Unfortunately, it didn't bring the Packers any luck!

Tuesday night, we all went to the Tucker Christmas Celebration. They closed off Main Street, and had several activities for the kids. Above, Jackson is roasting a marshmallow for his S'more.

Abigail was all bundled up for the occasion. We all suffered through a bone-chilling night with temperatures in the mid 40's!!!

Here are the kids with the Alligator, who is the mascot of one of the restaurants in downtown Tucker. Note the Alligator beaded necklaces!

The Tucker High School Band led a parade down the street, ending with Santa arriving in an antique pick-up truck.

Here they are with Santa. This is the first year that Catie wasn't afraid to sit on his lap! Jackson asked for a car that drives on the ceiling, Catie asked for a "swimming dog" and Abigail asked to learn how to walk!

Abby has recently started eating table food. As you can see, we started with the best!

Half Marathon

Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving! As you can see from our blog background, we have already shifted into the Christmas mode. Our Thanksgiving day started early, as we ran the half-marathon with our friends Donovan and Bill. It was a beautiful course, starting not far from our house and ending downtown at Turner Field, under the Olympic Rings. It started out a bit chilly (30's), but warmed up quickly and was quite sunny (as you can see from the photo where we are all looking right into the sun). We had great races... Steve finishing in 1:41 and Ann finishing in 1:45.