Christmas Morning

We had a fun Christmas! I'm a little overwhelmed by all the pictures, but here are a few...

The girl's big present from Santa were American Girl dolls. Ashley got a "Just Like Me" doll and Paige got a "Bitty Baby." They LOVE them! They each got a special backpack to carry their dolls and some really cute clothes, and they've taken them everywhere. I'm so happy they like the dolls so much!

Big Mike and Little Mike:

I found these cute matching jammies--the boy version has little blue gingerbread boys and the girl version has pink gingerbread girls--I love them!

James' Birthday

James finally caught up to me! He turned 29 the day we flew out here. Here we are at about 11 pm after traveling 12 hours...Happy Birthday, James!

Birthday Boy

Michael turned one today! We had a fun day with both sets of grandparents, my sister and brother-in-law, and my aunt. Everyone came over and we had a little party with cake and ice cream and presents. Michael loved everyone singing at him, but he was pretty mad that the delicious ice cream was so cold.

He had a great time playing baseball!

Christmas goes Country

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Getting Ready for Christmas

We've been getting all ready for Christmas here! Last week, we decorated a gingerbread house, made reindeer out of hand and foot prints, made birdseed ornaments for our trees outside, and found the smallest tree we could for the girls' room. Next week, we're going to make ornaments out of pipe cleaners and beads, do Christmas paintings, decorate pinecones with paint, glitter, and fake snow, decorate cookies, and make some kind of felt Christmas activity. Here are the pics from last week:

The birdseed ornaments:

We glued googly eyes and red-painted cotton balls on these--here's Michael's:

The smallest tree we could find--they loved it!
We also found the smallest ornaments--Michael thought they were delicious!

Lots of Snow!

Look what we woke up to this morning! It's been snowing for a few more hours since I took these pictures, so there's even MORE snow than this--it's supposed to keep snowing until midnight tonight, so I can't imagine how much there will be total. Church was canceled this morning and I'm wondering about school tomorrow...

On the deck--check out all the snow on the rail!

Paige opted for warmth:

The snow seat

Michael thinks he wants to go out, but it's 14 degrees out there--no way!

The girls snuggled in the sunroom watching the snowmobilers! We put all our outdoor toys in the sunroom--we get a lot more use out of them this way!

Thanksgiving

What a great Thanksgiving! We had 9 adults and 7 kids here to our house for dinner--Jeremy and Lauren and their two girls, Lauren's sister and her son, Jake and Charie came from Florida, and our good friends and their two girls all came over. We had a yummy dinner and a fun time with everyone! The kids had their own table in the sunroom, so we had a really peaceful dinner! I didn't get pics of the food, but here is how we set it up. Charie helped me unpack some more dishes the night before, and we remembered that we have lots of fun accessories--placemats, cloth napkins and rings, etc.

The grown-up table:

The kid table:Jake being attacked by some of the munchkins:

James is a Carlisle

I got James to sit down and take the quiz, too and he turned out to be a Carlisle--perfect--he and Esme are married in the books! James also said he'd go with me to the movie this week-whoohoo!


Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!

"You are intelligent, strong willed and patient. A peaceful lifestyle and helping others is very important to you. "

I'm an Esme

Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!

"You are thoughtful and care very deeply for your family. A loving home is of great importance to you and you always try to make people feel welcome. Although you have a great capacity to love, you also have a great capacity to hurt, so at times you can be sensitive. You're firm when you need to be, but people trust your judgment and appreciate the kind way you always handle things. "

Who are you??

My little blessings...

It's amazing to me to see that my children have such different personalities. I think this helps me to remember that I did not create them-they have been sent to me by a loving Heavenly Father who loves them-and me-so much. It's my job to guide them through this life--what an incredible task!
Michael the little drummer boy... He loves to grab our Rock Band drum sticks and pound away on the fireplace, the ground, his sisters heads...whatever's nearby! If I really need five minutes of peace, I just have to set him in front of the girl's bookshelf. He LOVES ripping every single book out and throwing it on the floor! He is a really happy baby and delights everyone in the family with his great belly laugh and constant smiles.

Paige is our most meticulous child. Last night, when she was sitting at the table until she finished her dinner, she decided instead to organize her fishies around her plate. (and no, she never did eat that dinner!) She likes to take her time and do things right and likes everything to be organized. She is also very agreeable and likes to make people happy. Her preschool teachers adore her and say that she is such a good friend to the other children. When things aren't going her way and she's tired, though, she can make some noise! She also can't seem to resist squishing her little brother...

Ashley is definitely the firstborn! She loves to be in charge and likes being the best and the fastest whenever possible. She loves being my helper and doing things like mopping, dusting, and cooking. She is doing great in kindergarten and when she wants to, can read lots of words and small stories. After a few months of seeing what her classmates go to school wearing, I have finally given in and am letting her choose her own outfits for school. Our good friends just gave us a huge box of hand-me-downs and she has loved being able to create fancy outfits, like the one pictured. It is actually two outfits in one--a purple sweatsuit and a purple princess gaucho/t-shirt combo. We have talked quite a bit about matching and now she is convinced that it must be all the same color. She went to school in all black and all red last week as well.

I'm so thankful to have these little blessings in my life!

Paige's Party

Paige had a fun party last night! We went fishing in the kiddie pool, colored fishie hats, made fish necklaces, and played a fish ring toss. We were so sad that two of the cousin families were sick and couldn't come--we really missed them. Here are the pictures from the night:

Paige and her little friend, Jonah. His sister is in Ashley's kindergarten class and they play together everyday while we wait for the kids to come out. They loved fishing!

Michael's favorite thing was the ring toss, but he didn't quite get the rules of the game...

Pizza!
Aunt E's present arrived right after the pizza man delivered the pizzas!
Paige made sure to organize all the kids into a circle so everyone could see her open her presents.

The cake...
Happy Birthday!

Michael is wondering where his piece of cake is...
Our friends brought over their mini bounce house! What fun!

Hungry Guy

When Ashley opened the fridge this morning, Michael crawled over, grabbed the bag of grapes out, dragged them to his playmat, and started eating them up as fast as he could! He ate an entire bunch! I normally cut grapes into quarters for him so he doesn't choke, but it looks like he doesn't really need that anymore. After the grapes, Ashley broke her bagel into bites for him and they had a little picnic, so I didn't even have to feed him breakfast!

Thanksgiving Idea

Homemade Cranberry Sauce
2 tsp corn starch
2 T fresh squeezed orange juice
2 c fresh cranberries
1 c sugar (you can add an extra ½ c if you like it really sweet)
½ c water
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp nutmeg
1 ½ tsp orange zest (finely grated orange peel)
In a small bowl whisk corn starch and orange juice. Set aside. Simmer remaining ingredients for five minutes. Bring to a boil. Whisk. Add starch mixture. Simmer for 3-5 minutes longer, stirring infrequently. Pour into jars. Makes three 8 oz. jars.

If you are looking for something to give to a teacher or friend for Thanksgiving, my sister-in-law, Lauren gave me this recipe for homemade cranberry sauce and it is delicious! I'm not a huge cranberry sauce fan, but I love this one. I made a triple batch last night and gave the girl's teachers each one today--I wrote "I'm so thankful for you! Love, Ashley/Paige" on the little sticker, but if I had had more time and my scrapbooking stuff out of boxes, it would have been really cute to make a tag to tie on the ribbon. Let me know if you try it out!

Paige is Four!

Paige turned four yesterday! We've had a fun birth-week celebration for her! It started on Tuesday when she got to bring in cupcakes to her preschool class (she goes Tues & Thurs) and to be the line leader and bring in show and tell (a vase that she decoupaged with tissue paper last year). Also, it was nearly 70 degrees, so she got to wear the birthday dress, which she was excited about.
On her actual birthday, she woke up at 6:30 and immediately opened presents. Then we took Ashley to school and I took her to my favorite little toy store downtown. She was excited to pick out a present, but was totally overwhelmed and finally just said, "Mom, you pick out whatever you want for me. I'm going to play with the trains." What do you say to that?? She has such a sweet little personality! After some more prodding, she finally picked out a little stuffed dog in a doghouse and then went to play.

After we picked Ashley up from school, we went to the best-kept secret in town--it's basically a free Children's museum--there's a soft play area, slides, dress-ups, puppets, a reading area, and a theater. We played there all afternoon and then went to Panera for dinner and Maggie Moos for ice cream afterwards. Oh, and she got new jammies for her birthday and declared it pajama day. We brought Ashley's to her so she changed after school--they thought it was so cool to wear them all day!



Tomorrow, we're having her birthday party with all her cousins (& second cousins) who live in the area. She picked out a fish theme--I tried to get her to do something else, but she is determined that she wants fishies, so fishies it is...
Happy Birthday, little Paigie!