Christmas Morning 2012

Since this year Christmas landed on a Sunday we had the privilege of going to church for an hour Christmas morning. Which meant my kids got to wait till after church to open presents. It is nice to start the day learning and celebrating the life of him who we celebrate. I am so grateful for my Savior.

Here is our tree this year with the presents.

So I had to add this picture. My daughter got to pick a present for her brother this year and she did an awesome job thinking about what he would like. We went to Big Lots for cheap options and had a budget in mind. She saw this truck and just knew her brother would love it. He picked a magna-doodle for her but he seemed to want it more for himself since he is only 2 and giving presents is a little hard to understand. I love seeing how they progress each year.

My husband wanted knee pads this year so that when he worked on the roof or any hard surface he could comfortably kneel. He has already tried them out and loves them.

She got a lot of Disney Barbies this year.

He got Thomas Trackmaster sets and well I love his face in this picture.

9 years

9 1/2 years ago I said I would marry this amazing man.

9 years ago I married the Love of my life, my best friend and the most incredible man alive.

Even today his smile can melt my heart and cause me to blush.

9 years ago today I married a wonderful man who has always been there for me. Who has loved me in spite of my imperfections and has been a wonderful Father to our kids. I can't believe it has only been 9 years because I can hardly remember a time when he wasn't a part of my life. Happy Anniversary to a man who gives me a millions reasons to live and laugh. I love you!

Christmas Dance Recital 2011

y little girl is starting to not be so little anymore. I notice something this year in her growth from previous recitals that I am amazed that she is the same girl. She loves dance so much and has so much fun. She hardly needed any help from the teacher to remember her dance moves and as always she is a ham. This year she danced to "I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus" and this year they had a nutcracker number for each class. Her class got to be the Mouse King. I am only downloading the recital this year if anyone misses the rehearsal let me know and I will send you those videos. She remembered most the dance this year so you wont need to see the rehearsal to know what it was supposed to look like.

Here she is at Rehearsal in her Mouse King Costume.

Here she is at the recital in her Recital Costume.

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus Dance

Mouse King Nutcracker Dance

The winds storm that was.....

My husband earlier this year fixed up our fence with the help of our friends from our church. It was a beautiful fence that was strong and sturdy. However when this fence battled hurricane category 2 level winds after a few hours it had no choice but to surrender to the forces against it. It took about 3 hours before the fence could no longer stay up. Besides the fence we lost a lot of shingles and trash. For the most part our home stayed in tact.

The only other inconvenience was the power going out for most of the day. My husband went to work and I stayed with the kids at home until the winds completely died down. There was no way I was getting in my car while I was watching it struggle to stay on the ground. My daughter was sad that Preschool was canceled. When the house got to 47 degrees and there were no longer winds I took my bundled up children and drove in the the van with the heater on. Then thankfully My husbands parents graciously allowed us to stay in there home over night so we wouldn't have to be cold in our house. Ironically the power came on here shortly after we got to Grandma and Grandpa's house. My kids were so excited to stay there we decided to stay with permission from Grandparents.

I learned that we need to get a camp stove or emergency stove of some sort in case this ever happens again. All the food storage will do no good if we have no way of heating it up. It would have been nice to give my kids hot chocolate to help stay warm. Other than that we seemed to be good. But definitely need an alternative heat source for sure. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and cold water are a bit discouraging when you are cold. However I am grateful that we had food that I didn't need to use a stove or microwave to heat up.

We truly feel blessed in a round about way. Our roof has been getting patched up for a few years now and thanks to insurance it will get fixed along with our fence fairly cheaply. We are grateful for the insurance we have with only a 500 dollar deductible. With other expenses we have and hearing the deductible others will have to pay we needed to be able to fix our roof and Heavenly Father provided a way to do that. Do I wish that we didn't have the immediate expense. Definitely. But I certainly recognize the Lords hand in this as well. I would be truly seem ungrateful if I did not. We still have each other. We still have a home, clothes, and food. We have our health and faith in a loving Father in Heaven. We have Family and Friends. We really couldn't ask for more.

Below is a picture of our fence maybe a week before the storm.

The damage to our home from the wind.

November 2011

So here is November in a nutshell. I am not as good at taken picture lately. Although when I have catch up to do that is nice for me. Hope you enjoy these pictures and videos.

Before Thanksgiving the dance studio had their first ever Christmas boutique. Where the kids got to see Santa and Mrs Claus.

Here she is with her best friend as well. They aren't in the same class but they have enjoyed seeing each other at the performances.

Also all the combination classes performed a dance once an hour. She split the classes among the different times so luckily we didn't have to be their the whole time. You may recognize the song in the video as she did this song last year with candy canes instead of stockings.

Here she is at her preschool Thanksgiving feast.

My husband spent a whole day raking the leaves before winter came. Here are the kids having fun in the leaves.

Video of kids playing in the leaves.

After Thanksgiving we got the Christmas boxes out and this is my son having fun with our old stockings and a Santa hat.

Halloween 2011

I have pictures finally downloaded on the computer so I can finally blog again. As usual it is a couple months behind. So I am lumping all Halloween things together. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Here is my daughter with her dance class. They got to dress up on the last class before Halloween and did a little show for the parents and got to have cookies at the end of class.

3 little witches dance number

Here she is with her preschool class at their Halloween party. Getting ready to practice trick or treating.
On Halloween my husband didn't have to go to work till 1 pm so we carve pumpkins that morning. This is the first year that my daughter got to carve and design her own pumpkin. She did a pretty good job.
Pumpkins in order: Grim Reaper, train, silly face, haunted castle.
My son really wanted a train for his jack-o-lantern. I know you are all shocked.
For lunch the got a cat shaped peanut butter and jelly and smoothies.
Belle
Thomas the Train
Trick or Treating
A huge display of Jack o lanterns some guy does this every year not too far from where we live.
End of the night all done and tired.

October activities 2011

So I figure I will lump October together minus Halloween.

My husbands brother's wife had a baby shower and while the women folk were having fun celebrating a sweet baby girl to come the men folk took the kids to a local farm and let the kids pet animals and feed ducks. From what I could tell they had a lot of fun.

Boxes! What more could a kids ask for?

Playing in the maze on a field trip to the local pumpkin patch.

Picking her pumpkin

Mommy photo shoot

My daughters class plus a few siblings.

Below is a different trip to the same pumpkin patch just us as a family. Here the kids are helping daddy pick some pumpkins.

Heading to the car with our pumpkins.

Then we went to the local pond and fed the ducks. We started on the side of the pond but the ducks were a little aggressive so we moved to the fishing pier to finish feeding the and keep kids safe.