Christmas is fun and Seth is old

I am so excited for Christmas. I love this time of year. I have one more day of work left in 2009 and then relaxation. Looking forward to it!

An update on Adam: His fever came back on Wednesday night and Thursday so he didn't wind up going to school Thursday or Friday. He's better now - except for a drippy nose and a bit of a cough. He will go to school Tuesday for his Christmas party and then he'll be home with Seth and I until Jan. 2.


Anyway, Friday I took the day off work so I could go to Abby's Christmas party at school.


This is Abby enjoying her snack at the Christmas party.

This is Abby's teacher, Mrs. Keisker, opening her gift from the class. She is soooo sweet. A wonderful teacher.


Genevieve, Monesha, Abby and Vishwashri.

This is Abby's school principal, Mr. Cicotte or Mr. C, dressed like Santa. Her school seems to be really great so far and it's nice that they do these types of activities for the kids.

Friday night, Seth and I drove out to Euereka (about 35 mintues away) to take the kids to Santa's Magical Kingdom. It's a national park that they set up with Christmas lights for the holidays and you just drive through and look at the lights. We drove around and looked at Christmas lights every year when I was a kid and I thought we'd try this instead of just driving around in neighborhoods this year. For as long as it took us to get there, I wasn't that impressed. It was ok and the kids liked it, but I've seen better. It was kind of junky.

Adam in the car as we're touring Santa's Magical Kingdom.

Abby in the car.

Lights.

Lights.

And more lights.

_________

Saturday, I took my mom, Abby, Aunt Janet and cousin Debbie to the St. Louis Symphony to see the Symphony's annual Christmas concert. They held a private concert for employees of my company and their families. The music was really pretty and very relaxing. Seth stayed home with Adam and I'm sure you can imagine he was terribly disapointed he didn't get to go and had to stay home and watch college football all day instead.

The St. Louis Symphony at Powell Symphony Hall.

Me, Abby and my mom.

Debbie and Aunt Janet.

My mom and Abby.

Debbie, Aunt Janet, me, mom and Abby.

Abby looking lovely in her Christmas coat before we left for the Symphony.

Abby and I before the Symphony.

Right after the Symphony, Seth and I had plans to go out for his birthday. We dropped the kids off at my mom's and went to Amy's house. Amy's birthday is actually on Dec. 21, too, so we had double to celebrate. She is the same age as Seth and they were born only an hour apart. I actually have another friend, Jake, who also has the same birthday. Kind of unusual to know that many people with the same birthday.

This is Amy and her husband, Tom. For some reason, this is the only picture I took all night. Amy took a bunch of pictures, though, and hopefully I can get some from her. We had dinner on Main Street in St. Charles at a place called Millstream and just stayed there all night. It was us, Kevin and Abby, Amy and Tom, and Brian, and then Kristian, Mark and Bill showed up later. We went to Brian and Kristian's house after for a little bit. I think Seth had a good time.

This morning, we got up early and picked up the kids and then picked up IHOP to go. Seth's birthdays and Father's Day tend to revolve around food, and typically IHOP is want he wants for breakfast. After breakfast, we opened presents. Technically, Seth's present was our trip to Indianapolis for the Pats-Colts game so he didn't get anything extravagant - two new pillows (an underrated, but valuable gift) and a University of Arizona sweatshirt that turned out to be too small so I'll have to exchange that.

Seth and the kids this morning.

Seth opening up cards and gifts with the kids.

For lunch, I went to get St. Louis Bread Co. for all of us and Seth had the pleasure of laying around and watching football all day without being nagged. :) Tonight, I went to get cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory and sushi from Kitaro. We just brought it all back home rather than take the kids out since it's in the single digits here today. So, all in all, I think Seth had a fantastic birthday.

Tomorrow I will have a long day at work, but after that it will be vacation time! The kids will go to day care Tuesday and that will give me time to finish wrapping presents and get last-minute things taken care of. I'll post lots of good pictures after Christmas. Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!