I am all caught up now ready for Christmas. FYI our foster boy has gone to be with his gram. He was with us only a week and a half and didn't want to leave but God is good and I'm sure He already has someone else in mind for us. Have a great Christmas all and lets remember the real reason we celebrate these next couple days. Jesus was the best gift of all, as Sky told me just today. Merry Christmas!

this family loves Christmas

the last tree goes up. the boys tree in the basement. which brings the tree total to 4 for the Rills. yep we love our trees. and for the first time in years we actually have every single ornament up!

now this is cool!

we came home to some very cool mail today. click to read the return address.
that's right W wrote to Brixton! we were all very excited you will have to talk to B about it.

chicago, candles, carols and cocoa

on Friday was the last "caroling by the bean" at millenium park and we were there. It was a wonderful holiday treat with all my favorite things. We will be putting this on the list next year!

I adore this picture

what a blessing family is.

Thanks for waiting.

it's a Rill family tradition, make and eat fudge while setting up the tree, even if it is at 10 am.
this was our visitors first time setting up a tree. And he even had his own ornament that he made at zoo lights, he was very thrilled.
Davids self portrait of decorating, nice

picture of the finished product to come.

Navy Pier with tons of friends

one of our 5 lunch tables
yeah David nor I rode this one.




forget the rides, give me a baby!
this was so funny, we were walking to go to dinner and we turned around and the 3 girls were all on Santas lap.
dinner with the 4 families who stayed ALL day, we were 23 and the kids were great it was so much fun
the perfect end to her day, another baby.

2 mystery trees

we went to get our trees on Sat. always an adventure picking wrapped up trees! (but cheeper) return soon to see how they turned out!

Zoo lights

it was a snowy day to visit the zoo. (which means we had to remind the kids we were there to see lights and animals not make snow balls). Olivia wanted to take this picture for Kira,
Gray was so proud that he was brave enough to be by the bear.






our visitor wanted to talk to Santa, so the little kids went up to see him, here you see Gray telling Santa he wants a stuffed animal that looks like santa, what a brown noser.
fun night. I highly recommend it.

Today

ginger bread house day today. Those curious brown hands are our temp. foster boy. I don't think I can post him so we will see how creating I can get in my pic's.

after I took this Gray said "oh shoot I wasn't ready, I didn't even smile" oh yeah wonder what great "smile" I missed out on.

One of our fav's

ah Daley plaza at Christmas


a lovely end with some very yummy, very expensive cinnamon nuts. And believe it or not we were down there all day and these are all my photos.

Last Saturday, what a great day.

we went out to the Lourias to pack up boxes for 25 soldiers for Christmas. every one helped.

then it was snow time.
now the older kids did a kind of Bear Grylls thing building a fire a shelters, while snowing!

the 3 oldest were out there for 4 1/2 hours straight. And only came in because dinner was ready the cold and dark didn't mean anything to these survivors.

we stayed in and made the cookies Gray picked at Jewel no roughing it for us.
a little uno by the fire side
everyone gets a Christmas card Sky made with book mark, Bible and gum.
the big kids did the snack portion of the gift. It was a great winter day, "the perfect Saturday"