Illinois Wrap-Up

What fun it is to find a bunch of pictures still on the camera when I thought I had already uploaded them all! I found a slew of them last night so here's the next-to-last post from our time in Illinois.

Christmas came on Dec. 28 for the Schrag family, as that was the first day we were all present at Tim & Sue's. Sara and Josh flew in from Tempe that day and so that day was our official Christmas. It was great! A snacky meal for lunch, after naps we opened presents and then we had a feast of a Christmas dinner - ham, fatty potatoes and lots more.

Noah and Levi each got boxer shorts in their stockings.

and big, soft hooded towels

and John Deere stocking hats and jammies. Noah got a JD sweatshirt and Levi got Lincoln Logs.

Puzzle after puzzle was put together. I think we completed 3 puzzles, or was it 4? No, I think 3 - lots of tapping each piece into place - just to make sure everyone noticed a piece was correctly placed.

And, I found pictures from ice fishing. Or, in this case, from the drive to the pond where we ice fished. Levi caught a nap,

Ben drove,

Noah made a dull-eyed face and then smiled as soon as I snapped the picture and I enjoyed the beautiful Illinois countryside.

Off we go...we had to walk a little ways to get from the road to the pond. I think Noah's favorite thing about snow is that you can fall down in it and it doesn't hurt! He would walk and pretend to trip himself, fall down with great drama and then do it again and again and again.

Ben and I took the boys to the Children's Museum on Thursday (my birthday, yes I turned 30...but I don't have a single photo to document the day otherwise, so I'll likely leave my birthday at that). The boys absolutely L-O-V-E the Children's Museum. They jabbered about it at 6am on the drive to Illinois talking about all the things they would do. They love the farm area, cows to milk, combines and tractors to drive, but they also love the painting and water play areas. The Children's Museum was buzzing with kids and adults on the morning we were there - it's no wonder with it being Christmas break and all, but it was stimulation overload for me. I snapped a couple photos and otherwise just tried to keep up with the boys amongst the crowd. They do have a fabulous new theater and music area where the kids can put on an entire show on stage, it was very impressive.

Who needs to paint when there's water in a squirt bottle to use? I had to pry the squirt bottle out of Levi's hands after he'd played with it for 10 minutes and other children were waiting for a turn to paint.

Noah actually painted, maybe Levi will too someday.

This water play area could have kept Noah busy for 2 hours. I should have walked around to the other side of the area to get a photo of their faces, but at this point (just before lunch) I was so tired I couldn't get myself off the bench I was sitting on. So take it from me, both boys have huge smiles on their faces in this photo. :-)