fun in the snow!

We went tubing on Friday with my sister's megan and rachel! Went went on the little hill in my parent's backyard, but you would have thought we were on a major hill! What fun it was for Ev's to play with her amazing aunt's!

 

oh let it snow!!!

 

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Christmas Blessings 2012

We are abundantly blessed.  What a beautiful holiday season this has been.  Many trips to see santa.  Lots of exciting activities.  And overall a fresh reminder of just how much my husband loves me.  He lovingly and willingly joins us for each outing with a smile and joy on his face.  I know this just isn’t his first choice of things to do, but WE are his first choice, and so he joins us happily.  He certainly loves me.  I adore him. 

This Christmas, I think, will be Evie’s first memory of any Christmas at all.  I think 4 is when I started to really learn what Christmas means and how it feels.  I hope she remembers.  We visited the reindeer at Thanksgiving point.  I am certain they are the real ones.  Evie is too.  I think we could have watched them ‘til we froze to death.  They didn’t do anything special; they were just special and magical to watch. 

During the summer, we had visited Thanksgiving point.  Evie loved playing under the huge water tower.  Every time we drive by, she points it out.  She requested this picture of her under the water tower.  Funny child.  But, so adorable. 

Mom and dad needed their photo taken….and who better to take it than the resident pro!  (Evie….btw, we kept scooting lower and lower to make sure she didn’t cut off our heads!)Our local Chick-fil-A's facebook feed announced that Santa Cow would be present at their location for pictures.  We are HUGE chick-fil-a fans…. (check out our fun halloween from last year), and so we just HAD to get our picture taken. 

Last week, we visited the Homestead in Midway where we went on a sleigh ride.  What a magical experience!  Our driver was so fun, and it was chilly, but we stayed warm with a nice lap blanket and bundled in coats and together.  Near the end, the driver announced that we were arriving in the North Pole and that there were elves waiting for us!  Evelyn was so excited!  She asked if they were real elves.  Of course, we replied!  She was fascinated. 

When we stopped at the North Pole, the driver held up each child to the horse to pet it and then lifted them to sit on the horse.  Look at that face!  It just added to the magic of the day! 

These darling elves were so kind and welcoming to us!  Evie even had to run back to them to show them the candy cane she received from Santa.

CHRISTMAS MORNING

Santa Claus was BUSY at our house!  We woke up to a trampoline in our living room!  15 whole feet of trampoline just took over our living space.  AMAZING!  Justin and I kept saying to each other: “We have a trampoline in our living room!”

It’s going down tomorrow (4 days after Christmas), and it’s been so fun.  Once spring arrives it will be a blessed addition to our back yard!

Evie received a “real camera” for Christmas.  It has a couple games on it and can take videos.  She loves it!  Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Christmas ornaments

We made cinnamon ornaments for our tree this year. 

I found the recipe from simply kierste and off we went!  Justin mixed the applesauce & cinnamon and evie cut the shapes with cookie cutters.  They turned out really fun!  Although, they are quite fragile, so don’t let a 4 year old even TOUCH them. at. all.  I thought they were protected, until I actually started putting them on the tree….then, she happened to gather a few and we lost  some points on the stars.  Ugh. 

Anyway, those that remain look darling!

This past Saturday, we went to breakfast with Santa at SLCC. They had Santa & Mrs. Claus there!  Evie loved it!  They took a picture for us, then we went into breakfast.  After breakfast they (the student officers for SLCC) had about 10 stations where Evie made a craft representing every winter holiday for about every religion.  It was wonderful!  They even had cookies to frost, pictures to color, a foam frame to make, a lantern for a Hindu holiday and so on!  It was wonderful.  The picture they took with Santa was ready for us when we went home. 

Here she is showing off her candy from Santa!

working on a craft…

Dinner party

We are so thankful for dear friends!  Last night we hosted a party with some of our favorite people!  What  a fun evening.  My cheeks hurt from laughing so much!  We had flank steak, whipping cream potatoes, sarah salad, fruit tray with 2 fruit dips (dips--is that correct grammar?) & rolls with ice cream cake roll for dessert.  (I was too busy enjoying the company & eating to snap photos of the food.)  YUM!  I so enjoyed putting this together for some amazing people. 

WE ARE SO THANKFUL!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

A friend of mine wanted some gifts for her Bunco group.  Here are a few of the things I put together for her. 

 Justin so wonderful to make these stables.  I love how they look with the 2x4 nativity.

 3x3 pumpkins

Season't greetings tree.  It's almost time to put up the decor! 

Halloween 2012

Evie is Izzy from Jake and the neverland pirates (Disney channel) for Halloween this year. "Yea hey no way!" Is what she says!

 Here is a photo shoot with cousins.  They were all over the place (younger AND older kids!) and so finally we set them loose to play and we took candid shots from that. They had a lot of fun running around in their costumes.

 On Halloween, Evie announced 10 minutes before it was time to leave to trick or treat that she didn't want to be Izzy.  Before giving her the this-is-what-we-had-planned speech, I looked around and noticed her Cinderella costume she had received the month before for her birthday.  I calmly said, "well, you can be Cinderell or Izzy.  Those are your choices."  She promptly went with Cinderella.  She actually was quite happy about it, but this photo was the best we got among her excitement to get-going!  All night long she said:  "I love Halloween!  Halloween is my favorite holiday."  Of course, becuase she is cute and little, people would put HANDFULLS of candy into her bucket.  I kept thinking: "Noooo!!  I'm just going to eat the leftovers!!!"   Ah well.  it's a rough life.  being cute and little, that is. 

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Jack-be-little's

We had an abundance of little pumpkins in our garden. This is my most recent display idea. Evie has painted them, I've put some in apothecary jars & given some away. It has been fab to have so many!!

Evelyn started gymnastics! She was so adorable and loved it so much. When Justin returned from the hunt she even showed him all the 'animal' moves she had learned. What. A. Doll.

 

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Deer Hunt Weekend

I have been a hunting widow this weekend.  However, I had Super Saturday yesterday (I was helping with all the vinyl for it) and we practiced for the primary program today, so there was no way I could go south with Justin.  So, instead, I invited Jackie (Evie’s cousin) to stay with us for the weekend.  It’s been a lot of fun to have her around and a little less lonely. 

Today, we went to dinner at my parents and my sister had mustache cookies for us to frost!  The girls loved it.

We went to Chick-fil-a, and the park a couple times, and played with play dough, painted, colored, cars, the ipad, and lots of other things!  It’s been a fun weekend. 

Disneyland and California 2012

It was so fun visiting Disneyland in October!  We had lots of activities for evie to do in the car on the way down.  The exciting start to our first day was that we got to ride the shuttle into the park!  We visited Huntington Beach.  It was 88 degrees and beautiful!  We, of course, buried Justin in the sand and played and played in the sand and water!Evie waited so long to ride the ferris wheel.  We went on the one that would swing as we went around the turn.  It was a little scary for me (and evie), but still exciting!  We saw a Disney Jr. show, lots of characters and went on every ride that Evie could fit on.A highlight of our trip was visiting pixie hollow.  We met Tinkerbell & the new fairy: Periwinkle.  It was so fun to go into their house and visit with them.  They would ask questions and chat and chat with us.  So darling! Worth the hour wait!! At the end of each night, Evie crashed!  She was exhausted!  There were so many new sights and sounds for her!What a fun adventure to the Disney parks with our little family! 

We stopped in Minersville for a couple nights to fish and relax.

I love those two together!