Merry Michigan Christmas

We had a wonderful Michigan Christmas with
our whole families filled with...

song

excitement

laughs

and presents!

We hope that you had a fabulous holiday with family and friends!

Christmases Past and Present

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

Oh Tannenbaum

Our beautiful Fraser Fir

Looks like everyone's been good this year

Maize missed out on the Christmas card again this year,
so she wanted to send this to you...

Merry Christmas
from my doghouse to yours.
Love, Maize Mountain Jam Hamm

Christmas preparations continue

We love this time of year in our city. The lights and holiday excitement even excuse the crowds and out-of-town gawkers. We have been busy gingerbread decorating, Christmas shopping and wrapping, downtown strolling, sugar cookie decorating, snowman building...only 10 more days until Christmas!

eloise's 3 best friends

We are really looking forward to our Christmas in Michigan. We are especially excited to spend time with Grandpa Walker as he continues to recover. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers...he seems to be doing great. TGFTW!

Winter WonderFest at Navy Pier

We took Eloise to the WonderFest today and she loved it! The convention center at Navy Pier was converted to a winter wonderland complete with ice skating rink, countless Christmas trees, Santa Clauses from around the world, a train, and rides and games galore. She always loves the bouncy things, so she enjoyed running around and testing all of them out. We are trying to take advantage of all the Christmas activities in the city...so much to do and Eloise is the perfect age for the fun this year.

giant bouncy slide

decorating sugar cookies

wheeeeeee

Christmas kick-off

Elle's Santa Claus visit went much better this year! She was so excited to meet him and happily sat on his lap and told him that she wanted a doll for Christmas (duly noted). They chatted and allowed our paparazzi like shots for a few minutes before she hoped off, said "Merry Christmas, Santa" and galloped away with her candy cane. Success!

Watching the train set at Breton Village which unfortunately gives Dr. Dave cognitive dissonance due to the inaccurate scale.

Listening to carolers and watching the lighting of the Christmas tree in Gaslight Village

Petting Santa's reindeer at Gaslight Village

Frederik Meijer Gardens

Exploring the Christmas trees from all over the world

Hands off Baby Jesus!

Choo Choo train

Silly face and bruises (it's become a Hamm holiday tradition)

Feeding Daddy pretend chocolate from the Chocolate Tree

Happy Thanksgiving, indeed!

We celebrated a bountiful Thanksgiving at Nonna and Grandpa Walker's home. As always, Nonna really showcased her culinary prowess. There were several special moments on Thanksgiving Day, including having Grandma Mahoney and Aunt Pam joining us from Detroit and Olivia teaching Eloise to slide down the stairs on her stomach, which she continued to do non-stop throughout the night. Such a wonderful day to count our blessings...we have so much to be thankful for.

Chef Nonna taking a break from the kitchen to enjoy an hors d' oeuvres

walking up to slide down...wheeee!

dressed in our Thanksgiving browns

Zing Zang Zoom

We took Eloise to the Circus this afternoon. We sat in Katten's box at the United Center, which provided great seats and protection from the clowns. Elle loved all of the animals!

There were tigers

and zebras

horses

and elephants!

The dog show was mesmerizing
Reaching for the confetti after the show

Uncle Dayve and Molly B

We had the most wonderful mini weekend with MBD, Molly B and Riley. We had a riblishious dinner at Twin Anchors on Friday night. It is cozy and crowded with an excellent bar and really is a favorite of all...even mammelerians. On Saturday, Dave and Molly B explored the new modern wing in the Art Institute while the three of us went to the Shedd Aquarium. The newly reimagined Oceanarium at the Shedd has a new show that recently debuted, entitled Fantasea. It is magical! After our museum visits, we reconnected for lunch at the Berghoff. After football games, naps for some, and more food, our Madison family headed back for home. We love having them visit and look forward to more time with them at Christmas and New Years!

Big Girl Bed night 2

Eloise discovered that she can climb out of her crib this weekend. In fact, during her nap on Saturday, she quickly and quietly hopped the rail and walked down the stairs before taunting Andrew with a sly and proud "Hi Daddy". We had been debating when we would introduce a big girl bed, but this newfound and potentially dangerous habit prompted us to remove the rail on Sunday and convert her crib to a toddler bed. Sunday night was her first night in her new big girl bed. We tried to hype this new exciting milestone, and while she was not keen on the gate that we put in her doorway to keep her in her room, it seemed to work. She cried for a bit, but fell asleep in her new bed. A couple of hours later was the first audible thud. We ran upstairs to check on her and watched her get up off the ground in her cozy footed jammies and sleepily climb back into bed and fall back asleep. Unfortunately, most of the following thuds throughout the night woke her up, so we were in and out of her room several times, reminding us of our early parenting months. Today, we are having serious big girl bed issues. First of all, she refused to take a nap. That is not cool. Then during bed time, she threw the most crazy out of control frenzied cry fit that I have ever seen. She would not get in her new bed and the only way that I could get her to sleep was to let her sleep on the floor and lay down next to her, not sneaking out until she started snoring. Our big girl is currently sleeping on the floor and wishing her cribby back. Who knew that these seemingly minor transitions could be so major and dramatic? Wish us luck for sweet dreams and big girl bed sleeping...

Maize Jon Hammed her dinner

Bath time concert

Eloise is a star...and a pirate

Singing the alphabet

Beautiful fall weekend in Michigan

We were in Michigan last weekend and while we sadly have no photos of our fun, we wanted to share our trip. The weather was incredible! On Saturday we enjoyed a game day in Ann Arbor (despite the loss). Thank you to my family for planning such a fun day with Eloise (including taking her to Robinette's) and thank you to the Hamm's for the tailgate and tickets. Saturday night was fun catching up with Ashley, Jon and Laura. We had a wonderful time on Sunday walking with our nieces, playing at the Wealthy School playground and lunch with Nonna, GW, Jon and LoLo.

Side note: Traveling with a 2 year old is not nearly as easy and enjoyable as traveling with a less than 2 year old. She's always been an adaptable kid, but this time she whined and cried most of the car ride each way and didn't sleep well during the nights since she was not in her own bed. Plus no naps. Holy smokes. I am glad that we traveled as much as we did when she was little, but fear that our long car rides may become few and far between until this stage passes.

Our Maize is 3

November 3 is Maizie's 3rd birthday!

We had a celebration for her today...

Eloise colored her wrapped present

We all wore party hats

Until Maize ate hers

Eloise tried to help Maize open her gift

Maize didn't welcome the help

(yes, she peed her pants)

Happy Birthday to our wonderful puppy.

You truly are our best friend and we love you so much!