Christmas and so on...

So this hopefully won't be too long of a post, but I feel like I have a lot to cover! First and foremost: Christmas! It was fun. Short week and a half, but fun. I don't think I did diddly squat the whole time. The only thing Craig and I really had on our agenda was to have fun on Christmas, take the kids to the pool at the Fun Plex sometime, and see Tron, and we conquered all three. I would have loved to take my camera to the Fun Plex, they have a pretty awesome splashy-watery-playground there, but there was no way I was going to risk damaging my camera for that, so I left it at home. Note to self: next Christmas I want a cheapo waterproof camera. The kids had a blast on Christmas, had a blast at the pool, and were sleeping when we went to see Tron. :-) Although I did go and see Tangled with Chloe and my two sisters-in-law: loved it. It was totally not what I was expecting and I laughed outloud through a lot of it. :-)
Anyway, here are a few shots. I had a lot more, but I don't want to waste my entire night waiting for pictures to load on blogger, so I'll just get the important ones.

I love Odell's eyes in this shot. She gives this look a lot nowadays when a toy is presented in front of her because she's finally figuring out how to get it in her hands and then in turn, in her mouth.
Remember when I said we splurged and got the kids something big this Christmas? Well here they are unwrapping it. I only had my 50 mm lens on, so I couldn't get a lot of it in the shot, but it took up like the whole living room when Santa left it by the tree...

What is it??Pow-pow-POWER WHEELS! When I was a kid, only the rich kids had power wheels. Well, we're not rich, but we just couldn't resist. :-) They love it! Unfortunately it's snowed a bunch the last couple of weeks and so we haven't been able to take it out much, but here you can see Chloe enjoying it. Linus just crashes it into everything, but he sure has fun doing it.

Yes, that is my husband barbequeing in the snow. Why wait until summer to enjoy all the good food? That was the Ellingson philosophy on this particular snowy night. Not rain nor snow nor storm will keep us from our ribs...Well, it's getting late, so I'll just post one more update: Odell's four month checkup (at five months). She weighs 13 lbs. 2 oz....oh poop, and I forgot how long she is and how big her head is. The sheet is in the car and I'm too lazy and cold to go out in the garage and get it. I do remember, however, that her percentages have gone way down since her last visit (except for her head size, that's still at a whopping 99%). I definitely noticed that she's not as big as my other two were at the same age, but she doesn't look gaunt or anything. She was at 66% for weight and 80% for height and dropped down to 18% for weight and 23% for height. Her doctor things she's just gearing up for a growth spurt, but we'll check again in another 6 weeks just to make sure. In the meantime, her large noggin is preventing her from having a very enjoyable tummy time because she's got a lot of head to hold up, which means we just need to do it more so she can build her neck muscles. I'm not too worried about anything, she eats well, has lots of rolls on her legs and arms, and is a happy baby.
As you can see here.