Frozen Skate

Last Saturday we took the girls to the place where we go skating with other homeschoolers once a month. They were having a special Frozen skate. It started out pretty good. They wore their costumes and skated peacefully around the rink. Mia is insisting on not having the locks on her skates so she falls about every ten feet. But it doesn't seem to bother her!

After about 30 minutes, Olaf made an appearance. Not good. At least not for one little girl who has a huge fear of people with costumes on that cover their faces. I asked Olaf if he could lift the mask up so Anna could see he had a face inside. He said no! So she spent the remainder of the time here, safe with her daddy.

Mia, on the other hand, couldn't get enough of Olaf and tried chasing him around the rink, causing her to fall about every five feet now.

I think we are finally ready to "Let it Go". We are putting away the Frozen costumes and hope to not see them again for a long time!

Oh Christmas Tree

Christmas is almost here. Is there nothing better than a four and five year old at Christmas? They know there is no Santa Claus but they pretend anyway. They are SO eager to decorate the tree. As they hang the ornaments they jump with excitement.

As the older kids grew up our Christmas tree was a mishmash of store-bought (mostly hand-me-downs from my mom) and kid-made ornaments. I didn't appreciate it. I always admired my sister's perfect tree with just the right colors and ribbons. So when Becky was a senior in high school I asked for a whole new set of Christmas decorations for my Christmas present that year. I loved it. It was perfect. Then we moved and the colors didn't go with the new house. So again for a Christmas present I got all new ornaments. After a few years of having these ornaments I found myself not even wanting to decorate the tree. I was bored. Ornament after beautiful ornament, the same. I started to wish I had kept a lot of the sentimental ornaments we had in the old days.

But not to worry, I have young kids who are at the perfect ornament making stage. Our tree is starting to look like a mishmash again! I love it. Now if we could just get them not to put all the oranments on one branch...

More Wedding Pics!

We have some more pics from Joey and Brittany's wedding!

The groom getting ready for his big day.

The handsome groomsmen.

The bride getting ready.

The amazing venue.

Married!

The wedding party.

The happy couple.

The family.

The fun reception.

Happy four month anniversary Joey and Brittany!

Advent Season

We are celebrating Advent again this year. On my kitchen table I have a centerpiece. It's a simple box with five votive candle holders and some rocks in the bottom. For the fall I added an autumn cloth underneath and some miniature pumpkins in the box. It looked really nice but I forgot to take a picture until it was cleaned up.

For advent we make it our advent wreath. It is not quite perfect as it is not round, but it works for us! And we eat dinner on Sunday at the table with the Advent candles lit. We are trying something new this year with the rocks. I dumped them all into a bowl and whenever someone does or says something nice, helpful, etc for someone else they get to put a rock back in the box. Our goal is to have it filled up by the end of Advent!

I was so tickled to find this burlap cloth in one of the Christmas boxes. I had forgotten all about it.

We are reading this book again for the third year in a row. The kids absolutely love it and it comes with an Advent calendar too.

We are leaving Baby Jesus out again until Christmas Eve. I put him in a drawer but Mia said he was in Mary's tummy so she put him behind Mary.

And the Wise Men are across the room again this year. They will make their journey starting Christmas Eve when they see the star in the sky. They will have to travel a little faster this year, on turbo-charged camels. We are leaving for a trip on December 27th so Epiphany will be coming early to our house!

Happy Advent everyone!

Money Savers

I have been saving money right and left lately. I recently found out about Ebates from Beth and since I buy almost everything online I'm racking up the money. It goes into my Paypal account and the only thing I use Paypal for is to pay the chicken lady. She delivers fresh-from-her-farm eggs to our door every Wednesday. No more guilt about shopping. It's paying for quality food for the family!

I've also been using Groupon to try some different indoor activities for the winter. A few weeks ago we used a Groupon to go to a glow-in-the-dark miniature golf place.

It was a blast! Anna only lasted about four holes actually golfing, but she climbed on everything the rest of the time. Mia golfed her little heart out and really loved it.

It was a chilly day but we were nice, warm, and glowing!

Thanksgiving 2014

Last Tuesday we headed out to Palm Desert for some sun, fun, family and food! It was nice here while we were gone, but it wasn't in the 80's. We hit the desert just right. It was in the 80's for three days, the three days we were there!

Our first stop - as always - was In n Out. This was a sign of things to come. Food, food, and more food. Can anyone say pie for breakfast? Seriously.

Our first day we headed up to Dar and Sean's. Boggle is a game Dar and I play EVERY TIME we are together. Mia played for the first time. And she actually made her own words! About half were real. We let her have points for dux and sif and many more phonetic words. She was so excited to play with us and lasted the whole ten rounds!

The next day we picked up Beth and Greg at the Palm Springs airport. We had lunch, went Christmas shopping, food shopping,and checked into our hotel. The girls were pretty exhausted and Anna had her quote of the day: "I don't feel good. I'm sick of being in the car."

In the morning the whole family, plus Aunt Helen and Uncle Bob, and minus Joey's clan, went for our own Thanksgiving Turkey Trot. It was pretty short with a two year old, four year old, and five year old in tow. Basically, we walked to the front of the resort which was about half a mile. We ended at a little park and then walked back and had cinnamon rolls, eggs and bacon for breakfast. Beth organized the whole thing!

After breakfast we headed to the pool. Joey and Brittany arrived around that time too. We spent a couple of hours there and then got ready for Thanksgiving dinner at the hotel restaurant. All 19 of us (the thirteen of us, plus Aunt Helen, Uncle Bob, Sean, Darlene, Dani and Michael.)

I have no pictures from the dinner! But I know someone has them as I remember the waiter taking them. Hopefully I'll get them soon! Dinner was pretty good for a mass production and I didn't have to cook or clean-up. Score.

The next day the guys went golfing. Greg's dad joined them. Yes, it does seem that almost everybody we know was in Plam Desert for Thanksgiving!

The girls took the kids to the activities center to play while the guys golfed.

For dinner that night we had "fake leftovers". Dan bought some turkey, dressing and mashed potatoes at Costco so we could have some leftovers. The funny thing is, there was so much food at dinner at the restaurant that we did in fact have real leftovers!

It was also Arek's birthday, but we had no matches, lighters or even a gas range to light the candles. Dan tried the toaster. Nope. But we sang anyway!

After the little celebration we opened a few Christmas presents for those that brought them and then headed out to Wild Lights at The Living Desert. I was thrilled not to be at a light display where it was in the 20's!

Sweet babies all together!

We came home on Saturday hoping to avoid all the people. It was still very crowded at the airport, but apparently nothing like Sunday! Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Coop

Thanksgiving is over and we are now well into the Christmas season. These last two years, with Thanksgiving so late, have caught me a little by surprise. I am not where I usually am with Christmas preparations!

The Monday before Thanksgiving the girls and I went to a Thanksgiving coop with our homeschool group. There is a good group of kids close to our girls age this year and we are getting to know them through the coops.

It started off with learning how to draw pilgrim hats.

Then they made their own pilgrim and Indian hats.

The readers were pilgrims and the nonreaders, Indians. Mia raised her hand to be a reader when I was out of the room!

She did pretty well reading the script with a little help from an adult, considering she kept her script on the floor!

Group shot!

Lastly they made Indian bracelets.

After all the crafts and stories we had a feast of lunchmeat, cheese, bread, fruit and veggies with cookies for dessert!