Merry Christmas!

Thanks Halls!





Has anyone played Twister as an adult? It's much harder than I remember...OUCH!


We have had a very wonderful Christmas. Yesterday we were tracking Santa on google maps and it was very fun. We will have to make it a tradition every year.

Happy Birthday Nathan!

Nathan's birthday was on Monday, the 20th. I have no pictures to show for it because he walked in the door while I was making dinner and the girls immediately gave them the cards they made for him. Charlotte handed him his present and he opened it before I even had a chance to get my camera out. It all happened so quickly! But he pretty much knew what he was getting because it was the only thing he wanted. I think it may have been more of a present for Brooke though. It's been keeping her pretty busy the last few days. I found this picture on my camera as I was uploading to my computer.



Anybody else know what I'm talking about?

A Visit to Bethlehem

Kentucky, that is. Who knew Bethlehem was only a 45 minute drive east?

Sing your heart out!

Brooke loves to sing. She heard they were looking for people to sing in the Ward Choir for the Christmas program and wanted to do it! We have no problem singing, the problem was that they practice at 8 am Sunday mornings!! Yikes! We didn't make it the first Sunday, but then they had a practice during the week. A couple of her friends wanted to sing, but weren't interested in all the practice, but Brooke stuck it out the whole time. We even made it to the last 8 am practice before the performance. Charlotte happily colored in one of the pews while we practiced. Then during the service she sat with one of her babysitters. It was a fun experience for Brooke.

We also had an opportunity to go caroling. I found out that one of my Visiting Teacher's goes every year with her family. I asked if we could tag along one night. They go about 5 days straight before Christmas. I have very fond memories of caroling as a teenager, but have never been with my family. We had wanted to go Monday night for FHE, but it was Nathan's birthday, and it's not what he wanted to do. And he got Mario Kart and Brooke wanted to play that instead. But at 8:00, Brooke was done playing Mario Kart and wanted to go caroling. Sorry! Too late, maybe tomorrow.

So when it was time to go the next night, Brooke started to get nervous. She didn't know if she'd know all the songs, or she'd be embarrassed, I don't know. She wanted to bring her songbook with her. She almost backed out of going. I finally convinced her to try it out and she said she was only going to one house. One house turned into about 7 or 8. Both girls loved it! I didn't think Charlotte would really like it that much, but it was almost as fun as trick-or treating!

I think we have started a new tradition and will have to do this every year!

Snowballs, Santa mail, and a baby tiger?

Last weekend we made a trip to Bass Pro Shops to see what their "Winter Wonderland" was all about. We had been stuck in the house after school had been canceled and needed to get out. We first ate lunch at Chuck-e-Cheese, then headed over. They had several activities going on. They had a snowball fight which the girls loved! The balls were only made out of pillow material, so it didn't hurt at all. The girls could've played in there forever!




Santa was there, but there was a line a mile long to sit on his lap, which both girls have already done several times. They did write him a letter though, and dropped it in his mailbox to read when he wasn't so busy.


We walked around the store a bit, it was bigger than I thought it was.


(Brooke likes to "pose" for the camera. Here she is pretending to be scared of a stuffed bear)

After walking around a little bit, out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a tiger....WHAT!??! So Brooke and I went looking for it. It wasn't hard to find, there was a crowd following it. Apparently in this store, you can bring your cats and dogs and this man brought his cat :-) He said it was a nice tiger...Oh, and no jokes about Kentucky...We were actually actually across the bridge in Clarksville, IN!!

School's out!

We had quite the weather here this week. First it snowed on Sunday so that school was canceled on Monday. Then we had an ice storm on Wednesday night which canceled school on Thursday and Friday!! The ice covered our driveway, our yard, the trees, the cars, everything. Our back deck was an ice skating rink to the girls. So we stayed busy by doing Christmas crafts, writing letters to santa, wrapping presents for family members of things they already own and love (Charlotte-it will be interesting what we find under the tree on Christmas morning), and baking, baking, and more baking. 2 batches of fudge, 6 batches of chocolate chip cookies, homemade oreo cookies, chocolate covered pretzels, and still more to do. They made gingerbread houses at the library on Monday. I thought it was a great idea to use someone else's supplies and not make the mess in our own kitchen. But then we had to transport it home. That didn't go so well. Charlotte sat on BOTH of them in the car.





Here's a funny picture. The girls were playing dress up and Brooke is wearing Charlotte's jeans and sweater. The jeans look like they are capri's on Brooke.


Hopefully we can enjoy the rest of our Christmas Break, without getting on each other's nerves!

Ugly Christmas Sweater Contest

Tonight we had our Church Christmas party, complete with an ugly Christmas sweater contest. I was bound and determined to find something ugly to wear. But Goodwill had very limited options. So at 4:00 today, I decided to make my own. I found an old sweatshirt in my closet, turned it inside out, and went to work. I pinned old stockings to the front and back, glued green and red pom poms to the arms and taped a couple Christmas ornaments to the front for good measure. It definitely wasn't pretty, but that wasn't the point, right? We never really got a good picture of it.




Sadly, I didn't win. But I think I did lose some of my pride.




The wife portion of this couple won in her category. I think her husband was jipped in the men's category.

The Creche

This weekend our Church has their first Creche event. If you don't know what that means, it just means Nativity. Hundreds of nativity scenes were donated to display and many people came to see them. They also had a live nativity, a children's room, and live music. It was really neat to go around and look at all the different nativities. I was helping in some of the rooms and so I never got a chance to take any pictures. Nathan took the girls around a little bit. But they were more interested in the cookies and playing dress up. These are the pictures he took with his phone.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Yesterday we had lots of fun Christmas activities planned. The best part (for the girls anyway) was that we woke up with 1-2 inches of snow on the ground! You'd think they had never seen snow before. :-) They immediately wanted to go out and play, pajamas and all.





They didn't play too long before it was time to go to Brooke's school for the Santa breakfast. They got to wear their pajamas there and see Santa and do crafts. It was a fun morning!




In the afternoon, Brooke and I were going with her Girl Scout troop to another Christmas activity in the park. We did more crafts, rode on a hayride, saw Santa (again) and Mrs. Claus too.





While Brooke and I were gone, Nathan and Charlotte made a snowman. Apparently, Charlotte never got out of her pajamas.