A Joyful Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas filled with family and memories. This year my mom and sister came from Washington to spend Christmas with us. They added such an element of fun. We went to Gardner Village, saw Christmas lights, made cookies, read stories, ate treats, and played games and with new toys.

Dad got a multi-function ladder and a new Makita drill set (it has a long involved name that means something like a Red Rider Bee Bee Gun with Compass in the Stock, but I don't know it). Lydia's favorite things were her Tinker Bell things. She now thinks in fairy.

I got Cruicut cartridges and a new knife set. Ali's favorite thing was a computer (like Daddy's!). It keeps her from playing with Tim's so much. She's a gadget girl, she can navigate Tim's ipod touch better than I can. We're starting to save for MIT now.

So, everyone's wildest dreams came true and Lydia is now working on her list for her birthday (in June!). Lydia also insisted we put candles on the cake and sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus. I love Christmas time and all that comes with it. I'm so grateful my mom and sister were able to come and share it with us. They made the holidays perfect. It is always sad to see it go. We hope all of you had a wonderful holiday season as well and that this year brings a lot of joy!!

Christmas Dancing

We had a lot of fun watching our girls go crazy over their uncle Ryan's Christmas lights show he made last year. Just another family tradition we have. We inserted little subtitles throughout the video to liven the it up a bit

Oops, She Did it Again!

Once again Lydia has taken it upon herself to cut her hair. We had some guests over on Sunday, and as they were leaving the mom said, "Lydia, your hair is getting so long!" I commented that I'm letting her grow it out, but that her bangs needed to be cut. Lydia left the room and we said bye to our guests. As I walked into the kitchen to clean up Lydia approached me and said, "Mom, I'm sorry I cut my hair." Sure enough, her bangs had been "trimmed". I guess she didn't think I would actually get around to cutting her bangs, so she thought she would help me out by doing it herself. The problem is she thought her bangs extended on the sides quite a bit. I took her to get it fixed, but it was a lot harder to fix this time. She will have very short bangs and a mullet for a while. At least I wasn't planning on taking family pictures any time soon. Here's the damage.

I hope this will be the last time. Ali actually cut her hair a couple of weeks ago too, it just wasn't very noticable, so we just let it go.

I'm curious, do boys cut their hair?

Giving Thanks

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving full of family, food, and games. Tim's mom and sister with her family came and brought most of the food already cooked since cooking in my house generates too many smells. It was all super yummy and plentiful.

After dinner the dads took the kids across the street to a field to play football and kickball. They got a little muddy, and had a lot of fun....everyone except Lydia.

Lydia spent most of the time sulking about one thing or another. She decided that, "Thanksgiving doesn't have any good food for me, just moms and dads." She wouldn't play either, but at least she went out to watch. Here's her grumpy face.

Dad finally got her to cheer up and come play. She did play kickball and even wrestled a little with dad, Ali, and Kennedy. There were all smiles in the end and we are all thankful to have family and abundance. We are truely blessed in so many ways.

Twilight the Movie

I went to the 12:05 showing of this much anticipated movie last Friday. Thursday night the girls and I met at Red Robin to have some dinner and then wait in line for 2 1/2 hours. We had a great time just hanging out and pretending to be teenagers who don't struggle staying up 'til all hours of the night. The theater opened and in we all rushed. There were 13 in our group, so we didn't get to all sit together, but I did get to sit with 2 other fun gals. As the screen became green with the dripping foliage of Eastern Washington everyone in the room got very excited. Then as the movie progressed some in the room were just too loyal to realize it, but the movie was terrible! The acting was bad, the cinematography looked like a home movie most of the time, and the story line deterred from the beloved book too often. Even the mushy sceens we all really wanted to see were so badly done that most in the theater laughed. Now don't get me wrong. I am a fan of the Twilight Saga. I don't regret going to see it because, hey it's Twilight; however it was poorly done. It's too bad because it does have a huge following. I wish another company could pick it up and do Twilight again and then finish the saga. I know that won't happen though. So, if you're a fan you'll probably want to see it anyway, but don't drag someone to see it with you (like your hubby) who isn't a fan. I am glad I went though, I had a great time with my girlfriends. Thanks Megan for orchestrating it all!

Let it Snow Let it Snow!

To add to my desire to decorate for Chistmas...it snowed this week. The girls got all excited and dramatically expressed their desire to go out and play in it. I hunted down the snow pants, gloves, hats, scarves, boots, and coats. Then we went through the arduous task of getting them into their gear (think Ralphy and his little brother). Finally they were ready to go out and play. They joyfully burst through the door and frolicked....for about 10 minutes. They declared they were cold and came back in. Of course they then needed hot cocoa. I guess that's what makes the snow fun, getting cold and then getting hot cocoa. At least I got a few pictures before they gave up.

Halloween

I know I'm a little late getting this up, but better late than never, eh? Lydia insisted on being a fairy princess butterfly, so this is what I came up with.

A friend of my lent me Ali's indian princess costume. I thought she was just adorable in it. We went to a friend's house for dinner and then I told Tim I wasn't feeling well and would hand out candy at home while he took the girls trick-or-treating. He thought that was fine. 15 minutes later, he and the girls were home. He told me they were done, but when I asked if they wanted to trick-or-treat some more they jumped up and down and cheered "YES!" So out they went again. It was raining a little, so they came home again in 5 minutes. Oh well. They still had plenty of candy. We all had a great Halloween.

Now, if I can just wait until after Thanksgiving to put up a Christmas tree.