The photo above was used for our Christmas card this year. We hired a local photographer who has since moved out of the state, but was back in the area for a weekend. I've been following her blog for a while and jumped at the chance to have her shoot us. She did an amazing job and aside from the great family shot above also snapped beautiful portraits of the kids and my parents.

Everyone here had been eagerly awaiting Christmas morning for a while and I don't think any of us were disappointed when it arrived. Benjamin was the first one to wake up and see the tree, but the rest of us were not far behind.

If you're receiving this via email it is because you're signed up to receive our blog posts via email through our blogging website. If you'd like to be removed, please click through to the blog at the bottom of this post. 

We just had a jam-packed weekend. We traveled up to the Twin Cities for our annual Breakfast with Santa at Macy's outing. The kids went to the Holidazzle parade with my parents while Mike and I had a little date night with sushi and the latest Bond movie. We were all up bright and early Sunday morning to dine with the big guy. We were seated at our VIP table once again (not really, but we like to think that since we've sat there for the past two years). As expected Lucy was pretty hesitant about Santa, but the very smart guy helped us get a photo of the two of them together anyway.

The first snowfall of 2012 (just a few inches for us) gave us a good opportunity to have some fun in the backyard and for me to pick up my camera again!

Happy Saint Nicholas Day! The kids woke up to stuffed stockings this morning and our favorite small guy has returned: Ormint the elf. Get ready for some fun Elf on the Shelf mischief. We have some grand ideas for this year. Er, I mean, Ormint has ideas. ;-)

Last night Benjamin's school hosted a parents' night for everyone with children in the two Elementary 1 classrooms. All of the children gave lessons to the parents on various things they're learning. The parents had work plans just like the students do on typical days and we had to go around and see four different lessons in the three subjects (cultural, language and math). Benjamin gave his lesson on the Clock of Eras. Despite being very nervous, he did so well and his particular lesson was very well attended - enough so that he proclaimed "I was FAMOUS!"

I guess I have a lot to catch up on. I received a promotion at work last month and with my increased workload I haven't had much time to do things like keeping up with this blog. I know all four of our readers are probably anxiously awaiting Halloween photos though, so I figured I'd get those up here!

 I actually didn't take any photos the night of Halloween. I still haven't mastered low light photography (my challenge for this month), so I knew the shots wouldn't be great. I had taken a bunch of the kids with their costumes on at Haunted Hallways, a fun event in downtown Rochester that is organized by the public school district. It is a great chance for the kids to trick-or-treat at some downtown businesses and they have three levels of haunted houses as well. Benjamin opted for the Hall of Haunts (medium scare factor) and bravely faced all of its horrors with Mike. He really enjoyed it. Lucy and I enjoyed our last temperate fall evening with a stroll around some of the buildings. We finished the night off with some frozen yogurt from Carroll's Cup (my favorite frozen treat place in town). Benjamin wanted to be something scary this year and he decided on the Headless Horseman. We found this awesome costume from Amazon and he loved it. Everywhere we went he was complimented on it. He sure thought he was awesome. Miss Lucy was Raggedy Ann. Make that - the cutest Raggedy Ann ever!

Sunday was a gorgeous fall day here, so we took the kids to a local pumpkin farm to pick out some pumpkins to carve. We have never been to Sekapp's before, but will be adding it to our fall line-up of fun things to do. They had a straw maze for little kids and a corn maze for bigger kids along with a bunch of great photo ops. Benjamin picked out "a beauty" and we helped Lucy find a pumpkin that was just her size. We skipped the fancy pumpkin patterns this year for some standard jack-o-lantern faces. Hopefully they last until Halloween next week!

Since Benjamin had Thursday and Friday off of school, I took both kids to Lark Toys for a fun day. My friend from college, Miranda, and her husband own the awesome store with her parents, so not only is it a fun day out for the kids, but also a chance for me to see an old friend!