Christmas 2011!

It's hard to believe Christmas has come and gone. Believe it or not, it was our first Christmas morning in this house. It was really nice to be home but we missed our CA family terribly! Skyping while opening Christmas presents was definitely a first! ;) One goal of mine was to do some baking.  I think my waist-line is regretting it now though! Here are the kids making Santa's cookies :)

Sweet Cali and our tree...

We spent a very lazy Christmas Eve at home, just the 4 of us. We ended up opening one present...a Kinect!!!...and had tons of fun burning off Christmas energy. We had a nice dinner where Katie set a lovely table. The kids' favorite part was the Sparkling Cider in fancy (plastic) wine glasses. :) Then they opened their gifts from Bert, our Elf. Christmas jammies! They put them on and we got in the car with some hot chocolate and drove to see some Christmas lights.





Christmas morning didn't come toooooo early. I remember 5am mornings when I was a kid and am not looking forward to that! The kids seemed to love their goodies! Katie's favorite...her My Twinn doll and her Nintendo DS. Ryan's favorite...probably his toy trumpet. :)


Then it was off to Aunt Stacy and Uncle Mike's house to spend Christmas day with Keith's family! So much fun to see the cousin's play. Brooke is getting so big!




I feel completely blessed. :)

Parties and Lights!

The kids had their holiday parties this past week and we are officially on vacation! I now understand why parents of school age kids look forward to it. No drop off or pick up for 2 weeks!!! Ryan's party was cute. They sang jingle bells, did a craft and Ryan cried for tissues the majority of the time. :) He was VERY grumpy!

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And Katie's party and lack of picture due to the still grumpy 3 year old who was in attendance :S They made cute reindeer ornaments and decorated cookies! Spur of the moment we decided to head up to Santa's Wonderland in College Station. So much fun (except for the 1.5 hour wait..coulda done without that!)! Wish we had a bit more time to spend at the Santa's Town. So cool! The kids really enjoyed it though and that's all that matters!

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I have no idea why some of the video is upside down! I've never had that problem before!

Holiday Show 2011

Katie had her Holiday show for dance this past weekend!  I always look forward to this show!  All the Christmas music and fun dances get you in the Christmas mood!  Katie did AWESOME!  She goes on that stage like it's no big deal always does so good.  So proud!



The videos! She is the second from the left :)

Katie's 6 Year Video :)

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At 6...

At 6 you are beautiful.
At 6 you are starting to read!
At 6 you still haven't lost any teeth.
At 6 you are so stinking stubborn and hard headed.
At 6 you are my angel.
At 6 you love any sort of craft, coloring or painting.
At 6 you are really enjoying Kindergarten.
At 6 you can ride a two wheeler!
At 6 you are missed when you are gone all day at school.
At 6 you still love ballet and now Jazz.
At 6 you have a best friend named Paige.
At 6 you are growing up so fast.

Parties :)

Katie had her Girl Scout party on Wednesday. How cute are they in their little uniforms! On Friday her class had an Ice Cream party....with ice cream they made themselves! It quickly turned to a milkshake though, so straws were in order :)

Holiday Happenings...

A snap of Ryan while watching The Grinch That Stole Christmas :)

Monday my mom's group had their Happy Birthday Jesus party for the kids. I think this was Ryan's first year!

Christmas ornaments make me happy :D Such wonderful memories!
You can't put up a Christmas tree without making Christmas light bokeh....ok, maybe that's just me.

Tis the Season!

For Tree Trimming and Christmas crafts :D

6 and Sick

Poor Katie was sick on her birthday :( I did my best to make it special for her even though she was tired and not feeling well. Doubley dissappointing was the fact we ended up postponing her birthday party, but we are going to party hard when we reschedule!!! Her two birthday wishes....The Claw game and an Easy Bake Oven. Happy Girl. Except after playing with the claw game for 2 minutes it died. She was devastated. Hate cheap toys!!!!

6

Happy Birthday to my sweet Katie!!!! Sadly she came down with tonsilitis and isn't feeling so happy. 3 out of the 4 of us are actually on antibiotics for various sicknesses. It's been a miserable week. We had to postpone Katie's party as well, but I think we will all have a lot more fun partying when we feel 100%. We also have not taken 6 year portraits much to Mommy's frustration. Apparently Katie thinks she gets to have an opinion on this matter. So until I convince her otherwise I'm sharing a montage of my sweet baby's face over the past 6 years :)

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Nutcracker Ballet 2011

Katie I were so lucky to attend the Houston Nutcracker Ballet again and this time with friends!  It turned out to be such a fun girls' day.  This has definitely become a holiday tradition of ours. :)

Thankful

It was a whirlwind week, but I am so thankful that it was spent with family and friends. On the Saturday before we had a get together with Keith's family. Grandma outdid herself with a full Thanksgiving feast. I wish I had taken more pictures, but here are some of the precious girl cousins :)
On Sunday it was off to cooler CA where it actually felt like fall and the trees took my breath away! It's too bad that the kids and I got sick. Why does it seem like every time we go for a holiday we are sick??? The kids had to miss Thanksgiving at my Aunt's but we still managed to have tons of fun. :) My parents now have a new house in Lincoln but Amador County will always be my home. We went up and stayed one night at the "old" house. First up on the agenda...Harley rides with Grandpa! Ryan went this time too!


Tuesday we were in Lincoln and met up with our friend Ayden at Wacky Tacky. The moms got to catch up and the kids were run ragged. Tuesday night we drove to Grass Valley to see my Grandma. Love this picture of the kids with her.


Wednesday we went to my Aunt Judy's house to see the "critters" and the kids also got to climb on Uncle Joe's backhoe and tractor. Ryan was in heaven! Mommy was in heaven when she was able to take a couple fall pictures!


Then we went to Sunset Ridge Mandarin Orange Farm for a fun scavenger hunt and orange picking! This was when Ryan really crashed and wasn't feeling well. But could it get any more picturesque? Katie had a blast and thank you Grandma and Aunt Judy for indulging Katie and finishing the hunt while I took little man back to the car.


As if our day wasn't exciting enough, we had a little birthday celebration for Katie! I'm not ready for my baby to be 6!!!


Sadly the next day the kids were DONE. They slept a lot of the day and Keith was nice enough to stay home with them while the rest of us went and had a wonderful Thanksgiving feast at my Aunt's house. Not exactly ideal but it was so nice to see everyone. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Pilgrim Day and Thanksgiving Feast!

Let all the holiday fun in the schools begin! The kids had so much fun learning about Pilgrims on Thursday during their Pilgrim Day. The classes rotated to different rooms and did different crafts and learned different things. One room they made placemats for their feast and decorated cookies. Another they stitched their initial into a burlap sack. The third room they made butter in a baby food jar with buttermilk and salt and also made a feather for the big turkey where they wrote what they were thankful for. And in the last room they made bead necklaces. I happened to be taking pictures for the class :)


Today was the big feast!!! First all the classes got together in their cute Pilgrim and Native American costumes and sang three songs. So stinkin' cute!




Then they went back to their classrooms where a grand feast was waiting for them! They had a great time :)


I hope you all have a blessed Thanksgiving!!!

Another holiday...

Another craft! Because you know Katie loves her crafts :) This time...fall trees and turkeys made with our hands and feet! And I'd like to note, because it doesn't happen often, Ryan participated and painted!!!

Where in the World is Tom the Turkey?

The Kindergarten classes at Katie's school had come up with a way to disguise Tom the Turkey so he wouldn't be eaten for Thanksgiving dinner. After going through quite a few ideas, Katie settled on the Easter Bunny! She covered him in cotton balls and went through my fabric stash to pick out the perfect vest. I think she did a pretty darn good job!

Little Man at Little Gym

Ryan has been going to Little Gym for a couple months now. Ryan and anything organized has never gone very well, but after attending a birthday party at Little Gym and got a glimpse at how it ran I thought this might be great for him. So far he loves it! He does not stay on task 100% of the time but it's ok. They are very good about giving him space and then bringing him back to the activity. I think it fits his personality really well. Here are some pics of him having fun. They are shot through a window with a bad reflection and all the fun activities like the bars were in spots where I couldn't get a good shot.


On an unrelated note...look what the groomer did to my doggy :S Where did her poofy ears go???


And darn you Picasa for organizing your pictures alphabetically!!!! This came up under the pictures from today. MY BABIES!!! Was Ryan really that little? Oh to cuddle that little baby again! :S

Trick or Treat!

The kids had a great time trick or treating last night! Katie is dressed as Daphne from scooby doo and Ryan is a pirate (if you couldn't guess that one). Ryan did his best to keep up with big sis and her friend and did a pretty good job. Toward the end, that candy bag got a bit heavy though :) He cracks me up a lot lately. Every time he'd come down the driveway of a house he yell "CANDY!!!"...every time...it never got old! Another house had a very scary looking skeleton man with a cloak. I mean, he scared me! Ryan looked tentative for a moment and then walked right up and said, "you look like a skeleton." I guess he gets that these things aren't real which is good!

Hope you all had a safe and fun Halloween!

P-6 Farms!

Grandma and Grandpa were in town this past weekend and we wanted to try a new place we had heard of. The kids had a blast...my wallet didn't. ;) Oh well...you can't go wrong, with pumpkins, huge bounce pillows, a hay ride, and a huge corn maze!

Introducing "Ladybug Girl!"

Today Katie's school had their storybook character parade. Many people try to tie in their halloween costumes...I mean there is a book for everything! I decided to make it separate because I LOVE children's literature and we have so many wonderful books. So Katie and I scoured her shelf to figure out what character she would like to be. We found "Lady Bug Girl" and both thought it was PERFECT!

She makes a pretty darn cute Lady Bug girl!


The parade and some pics in her classroom :)


Oh my goodness I cracked up when I saw her teacher! The kids love the book "Scaredy Squirrel" so that's what she was! Hilarious!!