Cell phone pictures and videos

Here are a couple pictures and videos that were taken with cell phones. First up is Louis showing off his painting skills for Aunt Katie who came to visit for a couple nights. Louis has excellent control of the paintbrush (but not his hair).

Next is a photo from the farmer’s market in Dallas featuring Norah as a tomato, Louis as an ear of corn, and Alice as a pumpkin.

We’ve been to the National Zoo with Louis several times and each time he is more impressed with the animals. On a recent visit, when it was still warm, we saw the orangutan crossing from one of their buildings to another. It’s an impressive site. The Hicks got to see this happen when they visited the zoo with us in the spring. This time we got a cell phone video of it too.

Finally, here is a video of Louis taking a walk in Rock Creek Park a couple weeks ago.  Actually, we were trying to take a walk and Louis was trying to investigate some leaves with his stick.

Christmas

This is a much delayed blog post about Christmas vacation. It starts in Cleveland, goes to Dallas, and then back to Cleveland.
I think it snowed continuously in Cleveland during our visit, including Christmas Eve. The view from Matt’s parents house of the snowy woods was beautiful. One morning Matt and his Dad got the tractor set up to shovel the driveway and Matt took it out for a spin.

We spent the few days leading up to Christmas visiting the Russell and Mountford sides of the family. Everyone we saw was so excited to see Louis and give him Christmas presents, including Emily, Claire, and Molly pictured below.
Louis enjoyed attention from other grandmas, including Aunt Lindy.
On Christmas Eve we attended the annual Russell party. Christmas morning Louis woke to Santa having visited Grandma Laurie and Grandpa Brian’s house. Santa brought him a shopping cart and singing/dancing dog. Among the other gifts, another highlight for Louis was the lemon juicer Laurie gave to Ashley (pictured below).

On Christmas day we flew to Dallas. After a long flight, and even longer wait on the runway, we arrived in Dallas to a wonderful meal at the Hick’s house. Dallas activities included a visit to the aquarium (Bryan not pictured) where Matt, Evelyn, and Dean fed the stingrays.
We also went for a nice walk at the arboretum. We couldn’t help taking dozens of photos of Louis and Alice who are adorably at the same stage of development.

We also visited the newly opened Perot museum where the kids enjoyed the Children’s museum exhibit.

A highlight was visiting the Fort Worth Stockyards where we saw longhorn cattle walk down the main street.

Louis rode a pony for the first time, which he did not enjoy. But Alice, Evelyn, and Norah had a great time.

One of the reasons why it was so nice to relax at the Hicks’s house, was that they had a room full of toys for the kids to play with. Louis endlessly played with a toy broom and dust pan but sadly we didn’t get any pictures of that. We did get a cute photo of him on Norah’s brand new scooter, which he wanted to ride, but for which he is much much too young. I’m not even sure how he managed this pose.
 
Back in Cleveland we had just a day left to visit – New Years Eve. We attended a rollicking party at the Bayer’s house where we got to meet new baby Sarah Bayer. Another highlight was that Matt and Emily King won a competitive bracket in beer pong.