Christmas Card Pictures

We sort of ran out of time on having family pictures taken, and then decided we didnt want to deal with going to a photo place so close to Christmas. So here's what we came up with. Instead we took Jared to Riverwalk park in downtown Columbia and just let him play. Jon played photographer and Kate tried to entertain for some smiles. We're pretty proud of our amateur work!

Puppet-time and Meeting Santa at the Library

We are blessed to have a public library not too far from our house where Jared can participate in story-time one morning a week (with Aunt Beth) and special events as well. Since its actually in a different county we do have to pay an annual fee, but its worth it now that Jared enjoys it so much. We have been able to bring Jared to several "Puppet Playhouse" presentations on Saturday mornings, and Santa visited before Christmas. Jared sure loves the "libare" :)

Decorating our Christmas Tree

This is Jared's "cheese" face...isnt it lovely?

Lake after Thanksgiving

The 3 of us were able to join Jon's parents at their cabin in Georgia for the long weekend after Thanksgiving. It was peaceful and quiet, not too cool out yet. We enjoyed our time there as usual. Jared's favorite thing was to take walks "looking for deer" which we never did see, probably because Jared announced many times during the walk that he was looking for them!

Thanksgiving 2011

We are so blessed to be so close to most of Jon's family. We were able to see all of his immediate family for Thanksgiving this year, and of course enjoyed great food and fellowship with everyone. As usual Jared enjoyed tractor rides and "fixing the battery" on the old truck.

Zoo 11/18/11

This fall Kate won tickets to the zoo from a local news station and we were finally able to go as a family one Saturday. We all had a great time. Jared's favorite were of course the penguins or "pekus" as he calls them. He really wanted to feed the giraffes but they had just run out of lettuce to feed them when we came by. Next time we'll have to get there earlier. Jared also really enjoyed watching the gorillas eat, and riding on the carousel there for the first time. We are so blessed to have our weekends together!