Snow Storm!

These are current pics of our house and yard from this morning! We got 10 inches of snow or so... the kids didn't make it long outside since it was so hard to walk around in. And Jack was so padded with snow clothes every time he fell... he mostly just stayed there.

The Story Behind Last Christmas

And by "Last Christmas" I mean the pop Christmas song by Wham! Many of you know that this song is by FAR my favorite secular Christmas song. And I will take a brief moment here to explain why. Aside from the fact it's song by George Michael whose voice is smooth like butta (too bad he is totally cooky) ... I associate it with Christmases of my childhood in my home town of Arlington, Va. Mix 107.3 played this song ALL THE TIME when I was growing up and the only other song that comes close to my memories of winter evenings that get dark early and driving by houses and stores lit up by lights is "Feliz Navidad". Which oddly enough, I equate with driving to my grandmother's house on Christmas Eve. Specifically, "Last Christmas" is the song that I most closely relate with our annual family drive-bys of "Tackytown" - the neighborhood located behind the Wendy's on Lee Highway which used to have a competition each year as to who could decorate their house the tackiest. They all used mostly blue lights with large and often strange lit up shapes and figures. It was a TOUGH competition, and the winner was always hard to call. But these annual trips, accompanied by Georgie and Andrew (the other guy in Wham!) are some of my strongest holiday memories. And "Last Christmas" has hollowed out a special place in my heart since moving away from home.

Mommy's Little Helper

This is what happens when you've asked your almost - three - year - old to "help" you make Banana Nut Bread with Chocolate Chips ... and then leave the batter bowl unattended for approximately 3 minutes with said three-year-old standing over it. That white stuff you see? That's salt. Which the recipe does NOT call for. Because I took the pic with my phone you can't also see the many specs of black pepper that accompany the salt that is coating the mixture.

What did I do, you ask? Well after sending said child to a brief timeout (her only infraction really being that she knows to not play with the salt and pepper shakers), I scraped out as much as I could, and then baked it. I decided that I wouldn't make a new mix because then there would 0 cause and effect learning here. And I explained that the bread may not taste that great because she added ingredients she wasn't supposed to. But as it turns out, it's not too bad. A little on the 'spicy' side but not bad.

Missing in Action

The Butcher fam has been missing in action it appears for quite a while. We've have a great, but busy, fall so far. Here are some pictures to sum it up....

The National Kidney Foundation Walk in Springfield, MA

Our sweet niece, Anna, all bundled up for the cold

The fam, walking in support of kidney research

One of the many team t-shirts at the walk (and my personal favorite)

Brandon sharing a little about why kidney research is important to him...

Painting wooden turkeys with the kids, just for fun. It seems Maggie may have an inner artist that needs unleashing.

Maggie's turkey - quite colorful.

Jack... just wanted to eat the paint. *sigh*

Our great friends from ATL came up, equipped with baby Ian - the kids were quite taken with him.

Apple picking in the dark! Maggie and her aunt Tin Tin had great fun.

The girls talking a long walk through Cornell's campus.

And that pretty much sums up the month. On to holidays!...

The Butcher family has been tagged

The rules of the tag are as follows:
1.Post the rules on your blog.
2.Write six random things about yourself.
3.Tag six people at the end of your post.
4. If you are tagged, JUST DO IT, and pass the tag along.


Our good friends Patricia and Jamil tagged us for this fun little task. Theirs was quite humorous, so I think I'll enjoy coming up with some random thoughts here...

Random Things about Jonathan and me:

1) When Jonathan was younger, he would save wrapped Christmas presents for MONTHS before opening them. This still re-surfaces when he delays opening birthday or Christmas presents until I threaten to take them back because he enjoys knowing he still has a present to unwrap.

2) Cheez-its have replaced french fries as my favorite food. What can I say? I have upscale taste. Well... unless they are Chili's french fries. Then all bets are off.

3) Jonathan frequently gets song lyrics messed up. Which he doesn't realize till he's singing his own version of a song and I bust him on it, while laughing my head off.

4) I am a huge flake on occassion. One time, I was returning a movie to Blockbuster (at the same time as renting out another so I had to return it at the counter). And as I approached the Bbuster employee I said, "I have a movie to return, too, and I'm pretty sure there is a late fee." So he took my little Blockbuster card to check my account ID and said, "Christine?" and I said, "Noooooooo... we didn't rent that movie." (it took a good 30 seconds for me to figure out he was asking ME if I was the Christine listed on the account - my sister was with me and nearly peed her pants)

5) Jonathan busted his shoulder last year playing flag football with some friends in Charleston (he's adamant it was an actual flag football league) and now he can't swim. Until he has surgery on said shoulder.

6) I'm basically afraid of cats. They scare me and I think they have unnatural powers of cognition.

Now I'm supposed to tag 6 people... which, again, is basically impossible for me to do because I don't think there are six more people out there that read this blog AND blog themselves. So EMILIE - you're up :) Pass on the fun!

The Glory of Fall

Today we spent the late afternoon at Grisamore Farm in Locke, NY. It's about a 35 minute drive north of Ithaca and they have numerous fall family fun activities to partake in... and seeing as the fall weather has settled upon us, we decided we had to go. The above picture is my favorite of the day, as it also appears to be the only one I got in focus. But I LOVE the orange pop against the mud ground - no photoshopping whatsoever! The following pics are of the kids and our couple hours at the farm. They had a ton of farm animals which both the kids thoroughly enjoyed heckling, but we didn't catch any pictures of that.

Maggie meets and instantly befriends a beagle puppy named... Maggie! It was love at first site.

Jack thought little beagle Maggie was a riot.

Mags talking to her new friend.

The kids on their wagon ride.

Jack picking out his pumpkin.

(If only this picture were in focus)... Maggie posing with her pumpkin.

Jack amongst fellow pumpkins.

Kids wondering why Mommy has lagged so far behind to snap a pic of their sweet Daddy pulling them along.

Lots of Catching Up...

This post is mostly pictures of every day life that I've taken from the past month and a half or so. Please note in the porch swing picture Jack's prominent little tooth on top :)

Do you see what I see?

The perfect paci holder.

Our little visitor in the garden wall..

Jack on ice cream cake

The tray on ice cream cake.

A typical mid-morning playtime on the porch.

Note Jack's tooth :)

Sweet lil Maggie pie.

Jack's pretty non-stop now too.

Jack's new favorite toy - you plop the ball in one of those tower thingy-dos..

And he is SO proud of himself when he can make the ball go down (it's actually quite hard)

Jack on cupcake icing.

Oh hello, there. This is what happens when I turn my back to put away kitchen towels.