Thankful, vaccinations, letter & Christmas tree

Once again I am very late in posting.  Work has been busy, and evenings and weekends have been taken over by Christmas prep.

This post takes us all the way back to just after the last holiday; on Madeline's first day of school after Thanksgiving, she brought this home:

Awww.  We're thankful for Oliver too.

And for Maddie.

In the first week of December, Oliver had a belated 15-month checkup.  We dropped off Madeline then had a bit of time to kill before the appointment.  We spent it at a kid-friendly coffee shop near her school.  Oliver was impressed.

At the appointment, he proved to be big (no surprise) and healthy, and later he proudly displayed one of the three band-aids that covered his shots.

Madeline received some excitement in the form of a letter from Ilan.

She immediately prepared a response, and brought the letter in to school for show and tell.

That weekend, we got all bundled up ...

... and headed to Newport ...

... to gather seashells.

Then we crossed over to Tiverton to pick out a Christmas tree!

The kids enjoyed spotting stumps.

It didn't take too long to pick out our tree this year -- it was so cold and windy that none of the farm animals we usually visit were out in their pens.

We were happy to get ourselves and our tree back to the warmth of home.