Nick's Pics

As I mentioned previously, Nick Schale was the photographer for the Nicholl Family Christmas.  He did a great job and took a lot of great pictures.  There were plenty of good ones, so many in fact that I couldn’t include them in the original post, or it would have been ridiculously long.  So I’m dedicating this post to highlighting some of my favorites that he took, both the formal and the silly.  If you like his work, you can see more and contact him via his website.

                                                               Some great pictures of our family

                                                            Clara loves being silly with her grandpa.

                                                                           Couples and Families

                                                              Other combinations that we requested

We finished with a round of pictures of the cousins on the couch.  Nick had them make various facial expressions, which resulted in some humorous results.  A funny situation unfolds as it appears Benjamin falls in love with one of Hannah's pigtails.  In the lower left it looks like he's smelling it while Hannah is a little weirded out by it, and then in the lower right he can't help himself and grabs it but then is stunned by what it feels like, or something.  I'm pretty sure that's not quite what happened, but the pictures tell their own story.  Anyway, we were grateful that Ron arranged for Nick to be there again this year so we could have all these great pictures.

Nicholl Christmas 2015

Today we had the Nicholl family Christmas, hosted by Mom and Ron at their house in Olathe.

We started the day with Nick Schale taking all of our family pictures, which I'll hopefully include in a future post.  The group picture at the top of this post was taken by him, but the picture here of me and Meghan is one taken with my camera.

Joanna and Kirk were back, of course, and Joshua was really glad to see his Aunt Josie.

We had a delicious meal, highlighted by the always-amazing Honey Baked Ham.  Joshua especially was a ham fiend, tearing through three helpings of ham.

After the meal we did stockings for the kids.  Here the kids excitedly huddle around the tree to see what was there for them.  And then they posed with their stockings, but Benjamin took his label off and dropped it, and the other kids were entranced by its fluttering motion to the ground.
The kids received Royals shirts from Mom and Ron, with Joshua getting a replica of the shirts the Royals players and coaches wore during the championship parade.  He also received a Spider-Man mask from Uncle Brent that he was totally pumped about.

Hannah received a new hat from Uncle Brent that she loved, and she generally spent her time walking around being cute.

For the past few years, we have been making an ornament for everyone and delivering it as part of the family picture wall calendar.  This year we used their fingers to make little snowmen on the ornament and used their feed to make reindeer on the wrapping paper.  They turned out really well.

We had a great time, as always.  I later returned in the late evening to join the game-playing crew for a late night of board games, which was a blast, as it always it.  Another great Nicholl Christmas is in the books.

Journey to Judea

One of our Christmas activities this year was to go to the Journey to Judea put on by Countryside Baptist Church in southern Olathe.  It's an hour-long outdoor tour of maybe 15 or so vignettes covering events from Exodus on through to the Resurrection.  Brent went with us, and while we waited for our group to be ready to go, we enjoyed some cookies and hot chocolate.   Clara sat in a chair and specifically requested Uncle Brent to sit by her, which made her really happy.

We then went out on the tour.  The girls pretty much refused to wear their coats, and concerned people asked us if we had coats for our children.  We assured them we did, but they seemed skeptical of our parenting.  But it really wasn't that cold out, and we knew they would ask for them when they were cold enough, and they did.  You walk from station to station, through the trees to each one, so there is a fair amount of walking.  The tour was quite good.  The actors were all from the church, but they were all skilled.  There were even live animals.  For example, there was a sheep representing the ram caught in the thicket after God tells Abraham not to sacrifice Isaac.  The sets were surprisingly elaborate too.  The empty tomb vignette, for example, had actual massive stones in place with a boulder that had been rolled away.  It was there that my favorite moment of the night happened.  It was around 10pm at that point (we started at 9 because the earlier slots were sold out), but our kids were still doing well, despite all the walking and the late hour.  Our group had about 25 people in it, and we were all listening to the monologue given by the actress representing Mary talking about being at the tomb and Jesus not being there.  During her speech, she said something like, "But the tomb was empty!  What had happened?!"  It was a rhetorical question, as this was a monologue, not an interactive session, but Joshua had been watching with rapt attention and before she could get to her next line, little Joshua blurted out, "I know!  It's because he came back to life."  Most of the people in the group cheered or clapped or laughed because it was so cute.  Joshua didn't know any better.  He just heard Mary ask a question, and he was pretty excited that he knew the answer, so he yelled it out.  People came up to us afterward and said to us and/or Joshua that it was great to hear him know the answer and to be so excited to say it.  So that was a nice little moment in our evening, and we enjoyed it overall, and I think we'll probably try to go again next year.

A Triple Birthday Bash

Until last year, in each year that we've had a child who had a birthday, we had a pretty big (at least in terms of planning and preparation, even if not in terms of number of guests) at home for each kid.  In 2011 we had Joshua's first birthday.  In 2012 we had Joshua's second birthday and Clara's first birthday.  In 2013 it started to get a little crazy, with Hannah's first birthday, Joshua's third birthday, and then Clara's second birthday.  Last year we had a party for Hannah's second birthday, since we felt the first two birthdays should still have their own dedicated party, but we had a combined party for Joshua's fourth birthday and Clara's third birthday (we still have a small party with just our family on each kid's actual birthday if it's different from the party date).  This year we decided to have a combined birthday bash for all three of them.  We settled on a fall-themed party at a shelter in Shawnee Mission Park.  They all had cakes at home on their actual birthdays, so we did birthday cupcakes for this party.  Gentle Hannah's breath was too gentle, so Meghan had to help her with her candle.
Afterward, everyone enjoyed cupcakes, and of course all the kids devoured theirs as fast as possible.

We invited close friends and family (including Joanna and Kirk who were conveniently in town and able to attend!), but our kids had started asking about their friends at school, so we invited their whole class.  We ended up with a pretty good amount of people.  We had a lot of food, including pulled pork, chili, soup, grilled hot dogs, and caramel apples
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Benjamin, with help from his Mommy and Daddy, was able to enjoy his first s'more-making experience.

When you're hosting the party, you often don't have a chance to really eat and enjoy it.  I managed to eat a plate of food while I walked around managing things and talking to people, but as the party wound down, I sat down to make some s'mores for me and Meghan.  The party turned out great, despite my last-minute setup.  Everyone seemed to have fun and enjoy the food (and the flashlight party favors were a huge hit), and the weather was also perfect: a little bit chilly so the warmth of the fire and the hot chocolate and hot cider was comforting, but not so cold that people were uncomfortable.  And the kids were able to celebrate their birthdays with most of the people who are closest to them, and they had a great time and loved it.  I'm not sure what we'll do next year, but the combined big party worked out really well for this year.