Family of the 2 and 4 legged kind

Yesterday was the childrens church christmas production.  Morgan, Cerah, and Anthony were also involved as there was a need for some older kids.  The theme was A Nifty Fifties Christmas and the setting was a diner.  Morgan played a diner patron, Cerah worked one of the puppets that were behind the counter serving the customers, and Anthony came in during the last song with his friend Ben just to ham it up a little and give it a fun ending.  Unfortunately, my brain was not working yesterday morning and so I ended up at the church with no camera.  Luckily, the kids church pastor's wife had her phone and took a couple of pictures ahead of time for me.  So, at least you can see what the kids looked like.

Anthony, Morgan, and Hannah in their costumes

Anthony and Ben in their cool leisure suits

Aside from our two legged family members I have pictures of our four legged ones too. So here is the news from them. It got cold and snowed here last week and poor Lucy does not like the cold - she is too little and doesn't have enough hair to keep her warm.   After walks she usually gets a bath to warm up. 

Yes, she is willingly sitting under the faucet because the water was warm and she was cold.

 C.J. got bit by something and ended up with an infection at the bite site so we had to take him to the vet.  Of course, because we don't know what it was that bit him he had to have a broad spectrum antibiotic which translates into the more expensive antibiotic. 

They had to shave the area and then take a scraping of it.  As you can tell, it has been very red and irritated.  It has just now started to heal up.  It was really swollen at first too which is the whole reason we took him to the vet.  He does not like getting the medicine though, and he has to have it twice a day for two weeks.  I make Cerah give it to him so he still likes me.

Since I was taking pictures of the dogs I decided to show you how they spend their days helping the girls do school work.

Big Give

Last night we helped out at our church's Big Give for christmas.  The church partners with the county to find families who need a little extra help during this time of year.  Once they have a list of names, church members have the opportunity to "adopt" a family.  They are then responsible for buying the gifts on the family's list.  Each member can adopt as a family, as part of a group, or partner with another family or two to help defray the cost.  Rob and I were in the Royal Rangers group since the boys decided to adopt one as a way to earn a leadership and community service badge and Rob is one of the R.R leaders.  Each group is then assigned a number for their family and is responsible for setting up and decorating a christmas tree that the family or families woud meet at.  We had four families in our group.
I have to admit that at first I was frustrated with the way things were going and complained that it would just be easier to have a giving tree where I could just pick a name off.  It was quite disorganized at first, we didn't get any information until Thursday of last week as to who we were to buy for, and then once we had bought the presents we found out that some things had already been donated and gifts were crossed off of our list so I had to take things back that I had already bought.
After being there last night I take back every bad thing I said.  When we arrived we volunteered to help greet the families and then Rob, Cerah, Morgan, Hannah, and I were responsible for writing out the name tags as every guest had to have one ( I think we wrote out over 200 name tags).  Once it had slowed down and the guests went to the sanctuary for the first part of the evening we only had a few who were still in the foyer.  One young mother stayed out with her children as she had a little 15 month old who didn't want to sit still.  It turns out that she was one of the families assigned to our group. 

Here is Cerah using her puppet to play with the little girl.  She was giggling so hard and kept putting her hands in the puppet's mouth to see what it would do.

This is the tree we were assigned.  We actually shared it with the Pastor's wife and she is the one who decorated it.

Cerah playing around with the puppet.

One of the families in our group

Another one of the families in our group

Opening Christmas gifts.  I loved watching the smiles on their faces

Same little girl Cerah was playing with holding onto her new baby doll.

One of the boys from our assigned families receiving an Ipod Shuffle. His mom started crying when she saw what he got.

A view of the gym where the trees were all set up

Another view with more people

There was a lot of praying going on last night

Santa made an appearance in his sleigh.  What a big smile from a happy boy

After all the families had received their presents the children were allowed to go to the "extra" tree and pick out a couple more gifts if they wanted to.

As you can see, they all got some pretty good stuff!

Watching these families open their gifts, and knowing that because of the generosity of the church so many kids and adults had a christmas this year, I was overwhelmed with emotion.  Never before, even with my own kids, has watching somebody open gifts been more meaningful and special as it was last night.  Even with all the frustration with the process I would do it again in a heartbeat. 

The city that never sleeps

While we were back in Connecticut for Thanksgiving we decided to take the kids into New York City.  It seems like every time we go there we have something new to see.  Thanks to me, our sightseeing trip started with us getting lost.  So, while not on our scheduled stops, we saw Chinatown, Little Italy, and the Bronx.  Last time we went I got us lost in Harlem.  At least this time it wasn't as bad. 

Luckily, the kids didn't seem to care too much about our detour.

 We also got to see the Statue of Liberty from a new angle.

Once we got back to Manhattan we started our day.

 First, Rob verified that we were in N.Y. City

 Then he checked to make sure that we were in Times Square

 Then came the gratuitous happy kids picture

 And more pictures of Times Square

Next stop - Toys r Us

 Two thumbs up

 Can you see what Cerah wanted?

 Maybe the dinosaur was mad because his nose itched

 Lunchtime!

 I can't believe it.  My name, in lights

 Anthony wants a guitar for X-mas.  So we told him to pick one

The Empire State Building

 Grand Central Station

 Rockefeller Center

 The Chrysler Building

 Large snowflake hanging from the street light

 St. Patrick's Cathedral.  What I wouldn't have given to go in there.

 Statue of man on horse near Central Park.

 Man with horse in Central Park

 Very crowded 5th Avenue

After looking at the architecture we moved on to the Central Park Zoo

See, here we are at the zoo

 We saw seals

 Polar Bears

 Deer

 Tropical Birds

and Monkeys

 Sorry, Monkeys...

On to my favorite place

The main branch of the New York Public Library

 I love the carvings at this library

Look, real old fashioned phones inside the library.  How cool is that!

 Marble walls and floors

Fresco paintings on the ceilings

and some weirdo on the steps outside

Finally, it was time to go to Build a Bear - the whole reason the girls wanted to go.

Hannah waiting for her bear to get sewn up

 Cerah and Morgan waiting for their dino's to get stuffed

 Here they are with their new babies.

Then it was back to the car park.  I love how creatively they came up with more room for cars

 And back on the road, heading home.