Well, have been trying to post for a few days now - not sure why blogger is giving me such a hard time about uploading pictures lately.

We have been trying to get ready for Christmas in the Voakes house.

On Saturday we went to visit Santa at the mall. We went to the mall in Port Huron and can you believe that at 4:00 on Saturday afternoon there was no line. We only did a group shot with our own camera, we couldn't see paying $45 for individual pictures. We didn't have any criers this year. Although Annalyse wasn't the most excited she did visit hime but wasn't interested in sitting on his lap or giving him a hug (I think she was glad his lap was full from Meredith and Megan).

After the mall, we headed up to Lexington, a small twon a little past Port Huron. They were having an Old Fashioned Christmas Tree Lighting. There was a trolley ride, chestnuts roasting over an open fire, caroling, tree lighting, and Santa. The shops were also open late that night. It was a nice night and we had a lot of fun.





Sunday we went to the fire station for pancakes with Santa. All of the girls saw Santa again. Megan asked for bubble gum and the twins asked for "Ickey Ouse" (Mickey Mouse) toys. We then went home and took pictures for our Christmas card which should have made it to your mailbox, or if not they will shortly.

Well, I treid to upload more pictures AGAIN! but not working. Enjoy these ones!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Last Wednesday, we decorated the Christmas tree. The girls had a lot of fun. I was re-reading the post from last year (tried to insert link from last year but didn't work, you will have to scroll the archieves to Dec 08)and it seems a lot similar, they still hung all of the ornaments up on the same branch and an ornament broke (although Mike didn't take any "Christmas Cheer" away this year.
Looking at the pictures, the girls look so much more grown up this year.










Planning on going to see Santa this weekend. All three girls are very excited, hopefully no one gets stage-fright!

Update Soon

Look for an update soon, blogger was giving me a hrad time last night so I was unable to upload pictures!

Thanksgiving Holiday

Here are a few pictures from our Thanksgiving weekend. We had a great time at The Voakes house in Columbus. It is amazing how well all five of the older girls play together, we hardly saw them all weekend.
I got some shopping done, still more to do though. I think it was the longest time we ever spent shopping on Black Friday, we tried to begin at 11:30 for Toys R US opeding at midnight but we couldn't even make it into tne parking lot so we had to go back to the house to drop the "wimps" off and we went back out at 2:30am and got home around 9:30ish with one break to eat breakfast, we had a great time and broke Catherine in (she even said she was ready to go back next year!)
The guys got some bocce, football watching, and cribbage in throughout the weekend.
We also had a new professional photo of the girls taken, that was a long process (they were an hour behind)but the girls did good, will be interesting with a baby boy next year!

Monster Cookies

Today we made the famous Voakes monster cookies. We decided to half the recipe, I think it was a good idea (as it was, we still needed 6 eggs, 9 cups of oats, etc.)! They turned out pretty good and the girls enjoyed helping (and tasting).

The Greatest Show on Earth

On Friday night, we went to the circus, they call it the Greatest Show on Earth and I think it was pretty darn good. We all had a great time. They had an hour pre-show where you could get autographs and take pictures with the performers, the kids enjoyed it - the twins even liked the clowns so maybe there will be hope for Santa this year!

Fall Leaves

Here are some pictures from Halloween weekend of the girls, Mike, and Uncle Bob playing in the leaves.