Preparations for Christmas

 This year I found myself extremely busy BAKING in my new kitchen.  BUT I still made time for some of our traditions.  It has been a couple years in a row that the girls and their daddy decorate the Christmas tree, then all the girls decorate the gingerbread house.  This year was a bit tougher because they both wanted to be very involved, so I separated their candies and gave them areas on the house to decorate and things were perfect after that.  Of course, Ky really wanted to eat the candies, so she licked one just to make sure that it was good enough for the gingerbread house.  Zo had a bit of a problem with that, but I reminded her that it wasn't a big problem because we don't eat it anyways.  She is easy to reason with from time to time.  Towards the end, Ky was more interested in eating her candies, so I told her to go for it.  She was as happy as a clam!

Santa Claus is Coming to Town...(or Dropping in...)

This year we decided to return to the mall to see Santa jump out of an airplane and parachute down to kick off the holiday season.  The girls got a great front row seat to the action and saw it perfectly.  They were in awe the whole time.  And Mrs. Claus stood waiting and said hello to the girls before Santa dropped in.  She said he is a little "crazy" (for jumping out of the airplane, of course).

Rain!

We saw some rain and the girls couldn't wait to get out in the rain with their umbrellas.  Out they went and boy, were they happy lil campers.

Wrong Season?

The fall leaves fell...BUT in December at the start of winter.  The girls love wearing their coats and I thought it would be fun to have them play with the piles of leaves.  Fun in the wrong season???  Gotta love it!

Zoe's Award Ceremony

And the most important award this trimester goes to...ZOE!  Zoe's principal handed out awards for four different awards and he waits for the citizenship one until the end.  She was the recipient and we were able to surprise her and make it to the award ceremony!  Her teacher adores her and says such wonderful things about her.  We love you, Zoe, and are so very proud!!!

Kylee's Christmas Performance

Kylee had a little Christmas performance and Shaun was able to sneak out of work to go and see it. Shaun would not have traded that for anything.  She is such a little performer and sings her little heart out.  Sometimes she sings her little heart out at the most inopportune times too (naptime...eek!).

Happy Thanksgiving

A lot went on the week of Thanksgiving.  Shaun and I had our week off and the kids still went to school Monday and Tuesday.  We signed up to help out at Kylee's school because they were having a feast on both days.  And Zoe's teacher was kind enough to let me go in and help out one afternoon.  They made homemade butter and cornbread, plus they sang a few songs.

We celebrated Thanksgiving at my parents house.  The kids always have the best time with my cousins.  Heather and I even say it is so nice not to have to worry about what the kids are up to.  Then to top it off, Uncle David brought a zoo of beanie babies for each kiddo.  They were thrilled to have new animals to play with and the girls handed them down to them.  We are very thankful for all of our family and friends (and all the new friends we have made with the two new schools).