Week-end Update

We had a very busy week-end. On Thursday night Thomas and Tyler got sing at school. Here is a small video of the event. The footage is not great, but the boys were on the other side of the gym from where we had to sit. As you will see Tyler (red shirt) gets into his movements. It is funny. You will see Thomas, getting into his song as well. The 3rd scene is from Thomas' first "play" at school on Friday. He was so proud. He was Dingle the elf.

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On Saturday, Kim and I got the kids up and hit the mall. What the kids did not know was that we were going to eat breakfast with Santa Claus. Each child received a stuff "cow" as a gift. Only the first 50 kids got a gift so we got there early. Here are few pictures of the day.

Caroline and Mattie with Santa.

Tanner, Tyler, and Thomas with Santa.


The kids enjoyed watching the bears sing. (after camera story see below).

Smiling kids.

Santa's Castle in the mall.

While we were there, we decided to do a little shopping. We stopped by store #1 and Kim picked up a gift for Abby. I decided to stand at the front of the store and watch the kids. (all 5 of them). We then ventured to store #2 and then store #3. We headed down the mall to Santa's castle (pictured above) and I noticed that I did not have my camera! Panic set it in. I was ready to cry. I just got my camera last Christmas, it is a Pentax K100 D -in other words not cheap. I ran down the mall to store #3. I asked the lady at the counter if she saw my camera. Her answer was no. I then ran to store #2. The answer was the same. I began to cry. Tears just a flowing. Frank was going to KILL me. I stopped the security guards and told them what was going on. They called customer service and asked if anyone had turned a camera in. They came back with a negative. I then made the phone call to Frank. I told him my camera was gone. He said nothing. I knew he was mad, but he knew I was more upset than he was mad. He told me to walk down to Customer Service and give them my name and number in case someone turned it in. On the way to the Customer Service counter, I stopped by store #1. I walked in and asked the lady at the counter if someone happened to find a camera. She said YES! I could not believe it. Some stranger was nice enough to turn in my camera to the sales clerk. They had hidden it behind the counter. I told her what kind of camera it was and she dug deep into a cabinet and pulled it out. I was in shock!! So we can still have faith that there are some kind people in this world. Thank-you to the stranger who was honest enough to give my camera to the sales clerk. I immediately called Frank and told him. I was so relived. At this point we found the Security Guard and told him that we had found it. He said he had already stopped someone who happened to have a camera around the neck and checked it out. Thank you Lord! :0)

Me and the boys then came home. We had a little snack and I finally got around to putting up another Christmas tree. This is the Mommy tree. I call it the Mommy tree because it has pretty flowers on it. The boys could care less about this one! LOL

Here is our family Christmas tree. We put this up a couple of weeks ago. This tree has all of our favorite Christmas ornaments we have collected through out the years. We reflect on lots of good memories while putting up this tree. The really neat thing about this tree is, that it spins. It slowly turns around and around... You can see all the ornaments on the tree. The boys LOVE it.

Today, Frank, the boys, myself along with Kim, Matt, and the girls went to see The Polar Express at the Imax Theater. Seeing this movie in 3D is AWESOME. The kids really enjoy this yearly outing. We have seen this movie at the Imax every year since Tanner has been born. It is one of our family traditions. It was really great to have Kim and her family join us this year. We all had a really great day!