I keep thinking I should update this blog, and then I realize that I have nothing of interest to write. Life in our world is just cruising along as usual. We have been extra busy this month, with the holidays approaching, Josh's new school, and the fact that our sensei had surgery so we have been teaching all of the classes since mid-October. With all the time Emmett spends running around on the floor at the dojo, I sometimes think that he will simply grow up knowing karate naturally. He loves being out there though, and I have enjoyed being back at the dojo more often.

This is turning into a picture blog more than anything, it seems, since stories that are exciting to me are probably pretty boring to everyone else...unless I have a cute picture to share along with it. You know, sometimes I envy those bloggers that have such cute blogs and such cute ideas to go along with them. Oh well. I do my best to keep this one fairly updated, even if I have nothing interesting to write. So without further babbling, here are my pictures this time around.

We had an absolutely ridiculous snow storm a few weeks ago. Seriously, we got more snow in two days than we did all winter last year. Though I'm normally not a fan, it has proven to be much more fun with a child, especially one experiencing it for the first (okay maybe second) time. What did we do? We went sledding of course!

And who better to pull your sled than your very own sled dog!

We think that Toby actually did have a lot of fun too. For Thanksgiving, we made some hand print turkeys (which I have been too lazy to glue together, unfortunately). Of course, acquiring the hand prints required making a bit of a mess...and apparently some face painting (by which I mean painting WITH our faces...)

Emmett enjoyed helping us to put up the Christmas tree, which I regret to say looks just a tiny bit sad this year with ornaments only on the top half. Emmett thought it was an exciting game to take things off of the tree. But he certainly enjoyed helping us put the lights on!

Of course the poor dogs have had a bit of an adjustment period as Emmett moved from baby to toddler. And truth be told, the dogs are Emmett's favorite people in the house. He plays fetch with Shena, or chases her around the living room and kitchen. Toby's fur is irresistible, so of course Emmett loves to pat and pet Toby...and tackle him. While this tends to lead to the need for extra supervision on my part, it can also lead to some super cute pictures, like this one of my boys:

Love these three to death! Of course I love Shena too, troublemaker that she is, but she is even more impossible to get a good picture of than the toddler is. You can see her legs in the painting picture above. She really does exist!

We are very excited to have this four day weekend to spend together as a family. Thanksgiving was full of food and fun, and today was a good chance to relax - though I admit to braving the crowds for a little bit of late afternoon (no midnight for me thanks) Black Friday shopping. We only bought one item, it feels great to get the Christmas shopping started.