Christmas Pictures!

Ava getting into the spirit, ready to open gifts on Christmas Eve at the grandparents' house!

Aidan is not too sure what to do with all these boxes yet!

Ava and Daddy rip into their gifts - Bounce Back Racers remote-control cars!

Lots of fun additions to the dress-up wardrobe!!

Aidan with his reindeer antlers *and* Santa hat!

Too many sweets + No Nap + Too much holiday excitement =

Christmas Eve Meltdown!!

Christmas Morning! Ava shows off on of her favorites -

The "Dinosaurs In A Rock House"!

Dinosaurs everywhere!!

And we must line them up!

The Whetzel family Christmas tree. Notice the incredible lack of

ornaments on the bottom 1/3 of the tree!!

Ava delivering the goods!

Trying out her very own digital camera. Say Cheese!

Only on Christmas morning is it ok to completely devour a Reese's

chocolate peanut butter tree at 8:30am (straight out of the stocking!)

in a total of four huge bites!

Aidan and his new basketball game

It's the Inchworm!!

A new sandbox for Ava!

Whew, all this holiday excitement. Can you

see the tiredness in his little blue eyes??

Merry Christmas to all of our family and friends, near and far! We hope yours was

as joyous and memory-filled as ours was!

Happy Holidays, 2008!

This year, in an effort to be more financially conscious, we decided to forgo getting our family portraits done at a studio for our holiday cards, and instead made use of our recent investment of an upgraded Nikon camera! Good intentions... yes. Worth it? Hmm, not so much. The end result, after several repositionings of the tripod, several different posed "spots" around the house, setting the timer well over 100 times to run back to said spot in the nick of time for the shutter to go off. Well, let's just say this year, Photoshop editing software was our friend.

Always wanting to help, Ava got in on the action in the kitchen the week before Christmas to help Mom with the cookie baking.





Of course, when you're 3, "help" means taste-test the dough, as often as possible, until the looming sugar high kicks in, and you no longer have the patience to help!





This year's new-recipe winner in the Whetzel house: Red Velvet Christmas Cake Balls!! Golf-ball sized balls of moist red velvet cake, dipped in white chocolate and drizzled with red and green chocolate. One word = Sinful!

The holidays are stressful..

Apparently it is even starting to affect Aidan. He has been caught hitting the sauce a lot more than normal lately!!

It is a sad day when you get to the bottom of your empty margarita glass...

Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! Chris and I enjoyed the day at his mom and dad's house this year, with great food and the kids had a good time playing together. We even got Pam and Steve to try out the Wii! (Sorry, no pictures of that!)

Caramel-Pumpkin-Gingersnap cheesecake, courtesy of The Pioneer Woman Cooks!

Mmm.... chocolate cake pops, decorated to look like little Thanksgiving turkeys!

Thank you, Bakerella!

There is no shortage of posing when Ava gets in front of the camera!! And check out how green our grass is? Not bad for the end of November. And now I'm rambling...

Ava in her holiday best, trying SO hard to be good. Can you tell? It is killing her!

Aww, my sweet boy! Look at all those teeth!!

This is Aidan's new favorite thing at Grandma's house - flying through the family room, holding on to his walker.... grinning like crazy and cracking himself up!

Three Cousins!

Getting all three to look at me at the same time is virtually impossible. Getting Aidan to quit chewing on his hands for even a moment? Not happening! But here they are, Happy Thanksgiving!!

It's the little things that go unnoticed......

Like the blatantly obvious black and white ad that screams "ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION" on the newspaper, right under where our 3-year-old proudly displays her Halloween pumpkin!

Yes, lesson learned. Next year I will be doing newspaper "screening" before taking pictures that will be forever in our scrapbooks!

A great day at the Pumpkin Patch!

Sunday was a beautiful October day, so we headed to Stony Creek Farms for our annual trip to the Pumpkin Patch with the kids. We had a great day!

Like any day out, this one had no shortage of "Ava-isms". We used the bathrooms at the farm (thank goodness for kids being potty-trained, it is wonderful!). Since it is a rather old farm, there are no modern bathroom facilities, but they've done their best with what they have. They have a glorified "bathroom" that consists of several port-a-potties enclosed in a trailer, with a nice floor, lights, and sinks... so it really seems like a normal bathroom, except it is a little... uh... "rustic". Ava and I squeezed into a stall, and she whispered into my ear "Mommy... is this a little bit dirty?" And I tried to assure her it was fine. She has random episodes at places where the bathrooms are a little scary, and she will protest and not go, thus cutting our day short immediately, and I didn't want that to be the case this day. And then she (loudly) announced to everyone within earshot, "I think this is the horseys' potty!!"

Well, there you go. Kids don't sugar coat it!

Ava loved the haystack mountain!!

LOVED it!

Loved it so much, we could barely get her out of it!

And we caught our wagon for our hayride out to the Pumpkin Patch! Can you believe how big Aidan has gotten? This cool weather really snuck up on me (I'm not sure why... it IS October, but that is beside the point...) so in a pinch, I grabbed one of Ava's hooded sweatshirts for Aidan to wear. It is a size 18 months. And it fit Ava last year (at 2 1/2 years old). And now it fits Aidan.... at 9 months old. What happened to our baby?!

The kids having a very serious discussion on whether this was a good pumpkin to take home...

Looks like they'll take it!

And we're on our way back! How come the kids can never look at the camera at the same time? Never?! I think it is an unwritten law of childhood!

Viva, Las Vegas!!

We were lucky enough to be able to take a 4-day getaway this October, just the two of us - no kids! We haven't had any time away for the two of us since.... well, before we had Ava! So this was a much-appreciated opportunity for both of us - and we decided to head to Las Vegas!

After a long day of traveling, we finally made it! We stayed in the newly "modernized" West Wing, of the MGM Grand hotel. Very nice! Notice how Chris immediately peruses the room service menu!

Our very mod bathroom. And do you see that black rectangle on the bathroom mirror? Yes, that is a TV. Inside the mirror, paper thin. Yes, a TV. Because apparently while on vacation in Vegas, you must multi-task...

We had a little luck when it came to gambling - Chris scored a $450 win on a slot machine in the Bellagio! (Yes, I know you are not supposed to take pictures in casinos. I was quick about it!)

Friday night we went to see Blue Man Group at the Venetian. It was amazing!! It is indescribable, and a great show. The odd comedy starts as soon as you sit down in your seats... they passed around endless amounts of white tissue and instructed all show-goers to "dress" themselves in it. Here we are in our creations, waiting for the show to start!

A view of the Venetian's "Canal" complete with Gondolas .... Yes, this is all inside!! Beautiful!













Of course, doesn't everyone snap a "self-portrait" in front of the Canal? Here we are!












And we could not forget the kids. No visit to FAO Schwartz is complete without sporadic dancing on the life-size piano!!















We had a wonderful time! It was a whirlwind of a trip, but also just what we needed. A huge Thank you to our parents who helped make it possible!!

Our little gymnast in the making!

Ava is starting gymnastics classes once a week, beginning October 9th. Since Chris and I will be out of town for her first class, I decided to take Ava to the gym she will be going to one evening, so she could look around and see what the kids were doing. At first, she was a little hesitant, but after a few minutes she got into it, and was saying "Mommy, I wanna do THAT!" so I'm hoping she'll have a great time.

Before we left, I let her pick out her first leotard from the racks they had there. This is her pick!