Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Family Time

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Since we didn't travel home for Christmas, we spent Christmas Eve with friends and enjoyed conversation, food, and a Christmas tree shaped pinata. Then Christmas day Skyler participated in a combined ward choir. Claire and Todd needed explanations as to why there were so many musical numbers during sacrament meeting, and why Santa would be coming at nap time instead of night time this year. It was fun watching the kids open presents and say "thank you" and to watch family on Google plus open presents as well. We've been enjoying having Skyler home so much, especially since he was away for a training one of the weeks in December. Thank you everyone for your cards, gifts and congratulations as we anticipate baby #3 in 2017.
 The kids love k'nex and even more so with Daddy

 No snow in Oklahoma? That's okay, we'll play with shaving cream instead.
 PS Preschool kids love playing with shaving cream!


 All ready for the Christmas Eve party.
 Paw Patrol Chase dog costume
 Cinderella (2015 version) dress!
 Presents!
 This year I got snowgies from Frozen Fever and loved seeing them sticking out of their stockings! We also had Elsa cereal aka marshmallow cereal for breakfast.



 We've only seen a couple episodes of Peppa Pig. It's a cute show.

 Skyler is really into cooking and kitchen gadgets, so this bread dough mixer was just for him.


 Classic fish game from Uncle Connor. Santa also brought Candy Land (Claire has won every round so far)





 Our neighbors were so thoughtful and bought Claire princess gloves because they knew Claire would be getting a dress for Christmas. And Great Grandma Quinn didn't know it, but her little purse was another perfect accessory added to add to the outfit.
 I love how she's trying to get all of the layers of the dress off the ground so you can see her shoes! There are five layers!
 Every boy has to have a dump truck!




 Gingerbread house! nom nom

 The butterflies on her shoes fell apart within a day, so thankfully we had 3 extras that came with the dress and we hot glued them on today.

 We just returned the bags of Christmas books we checked out from the library!
 Claire loved building with blocks today.
 It went from a house, to a castle




Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Christmas is here



 Selfie

 He can't stop moving
 When Frozen meets the nativity
 The snowgies are from Frozen Fever. I loved finding this.
 Claire's third drawing of the library, with David's tips

 Todd took this picture
 We like to watch the Nutcracker from youtube. I think it's a Russian performance of it.
 The first two presents to be wrapped and put under the tree. The kids loved helping me wrap them.
 Todd went to town plastering his gift in stickers that said "to" and "from"


 I replaced the lights on our wooden Christmas Tree and it looks much better with LED lights and none missing or broken.
 This wreath is fun to look at and serves as a place to hang some ornaments since we don't invest in a big tree.
 This is our baby girl's new stocking. I bought a gender neutral one on sale last year and bought a girly ornament to hang with it. Now it reminds me of the land of sweets and the sugar plum fairy in the nutcracker!
 Mom sent me a kit to make an advent calendar. If it wasn't a kit I would have never made it! 25 is a lot to do of anything, even if it's simple! I was glad when the church announced it's initiative so I didn't have to think about what to assign each day!
 I was going to put candy in each envelope, but it would have made it way too heavy, so we just move a stocking from one day to the next.
 Excuse the mess, but the items on the top make me smile.


 As a kid I remember my mom putting cloves in oranges. They smell lovely and it was a calming activity for the kids to do.
 We had a solid week where Skyler was gone on a training in CA and we all had colds. Despite this unfortunate situation we managed. I had a visiting teacher that brought by dinner one night, and the holidays kept us busy. You bet we watched Frozen and read plenty of Christmas books from the library. In these pictures they're painting pine cones and decorating them to look like Christmas trees.





 I forgot to get a group shot, and just managed to get some candid shots afterwards, but this is from my first piano recital as a teacher! I kept it simple at my house and loved it. I have six students that played Christmas songs. It made me so happy to give them the opportunity to share their talents and to enjoy the season through music.


 Claire went to the dentist for the first time! She was super awesome doing everything and was giddy about the bag of goodies they gave her, including a princess toothbrush. Unfortunately we have to go back to get some cavities filled, but at least we're doing something about it!
 Todd is now sleeping out of his crib and is pretty good about staying in bed, probably even better than Claire. We also started potty training and he is an allstar!

 Claire made a tree out of playdough
 No mess Christmas cookies, yes!

 This bike reminded me of my childhood. We had one that we used all of the time in Yakima.
 Our cardboard kitchen has held up for almost a year now! And it never ceases to impress people.

Elsa made me Christmas cookies!