Free Zoo Day

We heard that today was a free zoo day and we took advantage of it! We got off to kind of a rough start - indecisive, hungry and grumpy... so we had an early lunch, regrouped and made up for it in the afternoon. We were all really excited to see the polar bear - a first for all of us. We also love the penguins and a multitude of other animals that they don't have at Oklahoma/Texas zoos. I especially enjoyed the aviary - I love birds and they have one of the nicest aviaries I've been to. My mom would love it (put that on the list for your next visit mom!). Lincoln likes to spend the time to find each and every bird listed for each display. It was fun trying to spot them all! Jeff and I used our Christmas money to buy a nice camera. In the past I've always had point and shoots - and it was always my camera. Now that we have an SLR I've noticed that it has become our camera and Jeff is taking pictures too! Hey look - I'm even in a picture or two - and I didn't have to ask someone to take it!

Lincoln's Baptism

On the morning of New Year's Eve Lincoln was baptized. We had a lovely meeting with lots of family and friends. Lincoln was especially excited to have his friend Keegan from his first grade class there. He set up all of the program himself and chose to have uncle Joe baptize him. It was wonderful!

Christmas

I did a terrible job of capturing Christmas on camera this year! I didn't take any with my parents and most of the ones I took in Choctaw are still on Granny and Papa's computer. Here are a few of Harrison anyway! Notice the outside underwear and pink tennis shoes. That boy is so stylish!

We opened our gifts to one another the night before we left so that we wouldn't have to bring everything along. Harrison started the whole thing by unwrapping a gift from under the tree while no one was looking. He happened to pick his own - a little kitchen set where the box everything is stored in is the stove. Jackson latched onto the idea of opening quickly and early Christmas was born.

Our travelling was fairly uneventful. The kids were so excited when we picked them up from school and began our trip. They were great travelers. We ended up stopping in Tulsa at about 2am, which worked out nicely as we were able to spend some of the morning with Spencer, Aimee and Hunter. My dad also had a meeting there that morning, so the big kids were excited to ride the rest of the way with grandpa.

We had a lovely visit with grandma and grandpa on the front end of the trip. The kids opened their presents a few days early there too so that we could play with their new toys. I had asked the boys if I should write a note to Santa to tell him that we would be in Oklahoma, but they said that they wanted him to leave their presents in Wisconsin. Christmas morning was fairly small then - all we had left under the tree were our gifts from John and Bettina (thanks guys!). We had a quick visit from Paul, Jeff and Janet and Marna came to see us a few times.

After church on Christmas we headed out to Choctaw for Poyner family fun. Jeff made us a delicious dinner and the kids had a blast being with all of their cousins again. Gail put up all kinds of snowmen around the house and had the kids count them to see who could find them all. I believe there were over 100!

Our days in Choctaw were warm and the kids loved playing in the backyard. It was hard to believe that it was the end of December with temperatures in the upper 60s. Quite the contrast to our day in Wisconsin - it was 9 degrees at the bus stop this morning!

Look Who's Two!

Harrison turned two on the twenty-first. It was a busy day - the day we left for Oklahoma, but we celebrated with him a little bit that morning with birthday pancakes (you can see he had plenty of encouragement and assistance with the candles). We had hidden away all of the GeoTrax set for about a year and we set it back up for him the night before. It's so much fun to have the trains out again! It is definitely something the whole family enjoys doing together.

We also had a party for him in Oklahoma last week. He might just believe that he should get presents every day the way the last few weeks have gone for him!

He decided the very next day that since he was a "big boy" he could climb right out of the port-a-crib. He made quite a few appearances before he got sleepy enough to stay and rest for a while. I see a toddler bed in our near future.