We had a wonderful christmas this year.  We spent Christmas Eve with the extended Works family @ Grandma & Papa Joe's and did our traditional oyster soup & snacks, sang carols, and ended the night with the kids listening Papa Joe read "The Night Before Christmas"--good memories. 

 

 On Christmas morning we opened gifts at home with the boys, then headed to Gma and Papa Joe's for the Joe Works family Christmas.  We spent the afternoon there while the kids played,  the adults sorted through old family pics.  The adult kids got Joe and Janie a gift of archiving their old pics to digital format.  

Late afternoon we went to Great Grandmom Works's house for the extended Works Christmas.  We watched the younger kids open their gifts and had dinner with one another.  Eli enjoyed playing with his boy cousin Evan who is just a few months older, they spent most of the time playing Star Wars and Batman.  He keeps asking us if we can go visit Evan, they were so cute together! 

The day after Christmas we went to Ottawa and visited Great Grandma Wollen and had lunch at Sirloin Stockade with the family.  By that time the boys were ready to be home for a while so they could play with all their new toys.  It was nice to just stay home for a few days and let them play while we played on our new toys-Apple Touches (we each got one another Touches for Christmas).  Lately, they have been playing so well together, but don't get me wrong they have their moments...but don't we all.  

On Sunday, we had our Vantuyl Christmas in Marion.  We decided to leave a day early so we could spend some time at Gma O'Dell's and were glad we did because we all had a great time.  

  

Christmas 2008

The boys got police costumes for christmas--they love to dress up.

Eli...I mean Officer Works!

Avery opening up one of his gifts.

Avery coloring along with his cousin Sophie

I will try to post more about our Christmas along with some more pics.

Christmas Carols

The boys were especially cute tonight after supper, and I caught Avery singing what sounded like "Silent Night", so I got out the video camera. That which is below is the last take, when they had just gone beyond silly.

Autumn Pictures

Here are some pictures Tony took last weekend at Antioch Park.  We had a great time playing in the park, it was such a beautiful autumn day! 

2008-10-25 at 16-33-54

2008-10-25 at 16-33-54
Originally uploaded by Tony & Kate

Halloween Pictures

Halloween Pics

Kate & Avery carving pumpkins

Tony & Eli carving pumpkins

Batman & Robin (aka Eli & Avery) posing by their pumpkins

Manhattan Trip

Well we finally experienced our "first" of having a sick kid away from home.  We went to visit Josh & Jessa in Manhattan for the weekend.  The boys had a great time playing with their cousins and then we went out for dinner.  This is when we should have known something was wrong with Avery, because wouldn't eat...which hardly ever happens.  We chalked it up to not having an adequate nap that day.  So we went back to J&J's, put the boys to sleep, and enjoyed our evening with J&J.  Then all the fun started: at about 2 am I woke up to Avery with a fever, coughing and gagging, and ultimately throwing up x3 times.  After an hour of caring for him and waking the whole family, we decided to hit the road home so as to not expose J&J and baby Jack to his illness anymore then we already had.  We stopped off at Wal-Mart, loaded up on paper towels, loads of caffeine & cleaning supplies for our trip home.  We had a few more messes to clean up on the way home, but all in all it went fairly well.  We rolled into our drive at 6 am before the sun was out, put the boys to bed and hit the sack until late morning.  So far no one else has gotten sick and Avery got better just as quickly as he got sick.  I hope