Snack time at Sweetie's

Luke, Reese, and Caleb...

Cool microphones

Luke: "Come on, Caleb! Belt it out with your best and loudest voice!!!!"
Caleb: "Man, he is SO LOUD! I think I'll just chew on this instead."

Thanks, Twists, for these fun new toys. We (and several other family members) have had lots of fun making all kinds of strange noises into them.

Chelsea Christmas parade

Scott had a Farmer's Insurance float in the Chelsea Christmas parade. Luke had a blast riding on the float and throwing (and collecting in his own pockets) candy to those waving.
Uncle Scott, Rachel, Kathryn, Luke, Caleb, and Chris on the fire engine float.
The majority of the parade, Chris and Caleb rode in the back of the truck (pulling the float).
Then, towards the end, we traded and I got to corral Caleb in the truck. Behind me is the fire engine float after it's been detached.

Day 3 in Birmingham.....

The day by day entries will end soon, I promise.... :)

Our third day back, Aunt JoAnna invited us to tag along to a baby group she attends. Luke was the oldest kid there and thus we got prime time with Santa. When Santa showed up, Luke walked right up to him and said very matter-of-factly, "Hi, Santa. I'm Luke." Luke then followed him around until he got to sit on his lap (he was first to sit with Santa, of course).
Caleb wasn't too happy to meet Santa, while Luke could've stayed there all day. In the end, after being a bit speechless (a first for Luke) and needing some prompting from Santa and me (a first and probably last), Luke asked for a Batman figure. Then he hopped down, grabbed a cookie off the table and gave it to Santa who had said he likes cookies and low-fat milk.
The boys with Frosty.
It was so warm, we played outside a lot this trip. Here we have Luke trying to hold Caleb and Reese in place to get a picture.

Day 2 in Birmingham....

I won't continue with a day by day entry for the 3 weeks we were in "the Ham," but here is day 2 nonetheless.

We revisited an old Barnett tradition of driving out to a Christmas tree farm to chop down a tree. Here are Caleb, Reese, and Luke in front of a random tree we ended up not choosing. I'm not sure how Caleb got his legs into the position they're in, but once they stopped wiggling we weren't going to move any of them. We did laugh a great deal at his little pose.
In the end, the sweet little guy had a very high fever....you can see it starting in this picture.

This was great fun and will hopefully be a tradition for years to come. (the tree hunt, not the fever, of course!) :)
Once we chose the perfect tree, Chris cut it down (very easily, I might add) and then carried it (not so easily) back to the car.
That night, we celebrated Ray's 35th birthday at Nana and Pop's house with 4 other cousins. Amanda, Heather, Rachel, and Kathryn are great fun---they're so grown up and easy to talk with, and they are very sweet to their little cousins.
Just to reiterate the exhaustion theme that runs through this visit home..... After the birthday dinner, Caleb very happily nestled up to Aunt Liz and her little pregnant belly (baby Maralyn is due the end of March) and slept soundly. Chelsea was very jealous of this attention not being given to her.

First Day in Birmingham

Our first day back, we played with Cousin Reese. (She is exactly 2 weeks older than Caleb.) Luke and Reese played very nicely together. She is easy-going and very observant.
And Caleb and Reese played nicely side by side (most of the time-----when Caleb wasn't hitting her on the head with a toy).

I love this picture because it accurately shows what these first days back were like. Caleb was EXHAUSTED and just not himself (see him pouting into the couch), and Luke was loving being the oldest around and "in control." This trip was the hardest one yet because of sleep deprivation. Caleb, we have discovered, does not do so well with change. He had a hard time sleeping in a new place and woke everyone in the house up almost every 2 or 3 hours. He did finally get better the week before we headed back to England. (Of course!)

We're back.......

So, we just arrived back in Oxford today. It's 7:50 PM and our place is silent. We're zonked! It was a crazy 3-week Christmas adventure with lots to reflect about and about 150 pictures to share. It was so crazy, we even ended up on the same airplane with some North Carolina cousins we're meeting up with this coming Sunday. I'll be posting lots in the next few days, but will sleep for now.

By the way, we returned to find our bedroom has (FINALLY!!) been insulated and that the 250 year old mattress was taken away and replaced by a 50 year old one. We are very grateful for these improvements to our place.

More soon.....