Christmas Day 2012

hmmm... better late than never right?  Only a month behind.... ;)

Here we are! Christmas morning 2012. All around fabulous Christmas. Girls loved & appreciated everything they received ... can't ask for more than that.

I just ADORED the hats Santa brought this year!!! Too bad the one Lydia has on just isn't quite big enough... for LeaAnn either. But she would not keep it on regardless ;) LOVE her face here :D

And even more so here! LeaAnn 21-1/2mo, Lindsay 6-4mo, Lauren 7-8mo & Lydia 3-1mo

Girls decided that Lydia got to open her Santa present first... she was so cute! Loving every detail of her enormous present :)

And of course I didn't get the moment when the Tangled Tower came out of the box, but it was priceless. She had her hand over her mouth and was shaking... unbelievable :)

Lindsay was dying to go next! So Lauren let her :) A Furby for Linds...

All smiles... all day :)

Then Lauren....

An Easy-Bake oven!

Cowboy boots for Lauren & a cake-pop maker for Lindsay...

Poor LeaAnn... she was just not feeling it. The only thing that would make her happy was candy from the stockings... she received an easel from Santa (that was not put together so it didn't look that exciting) and all she wanted was the Furby ... here is Lydia trying to cheer her up :)

Christmas day is also Grammy's birthday... so we begged Jim to let us come over and play! And barge in on their dining plans of course ;) He finally caved, so we headed over to sled.

Tank loves Lydia... and loved that she had a doll today!

A little chilly, but not bad at all... they had such a great time.

This pretty much sums up Lydia on Christmas day... Rapunzel went with her everywhere :)

Lydia also insisted on walking up the hill by herself and pulling the sled too :)

Chris got the hard job of carrying LeaAnn up every-time.

Tank was determined to get Lydia's hat :)

I love her face here

And he did grab it :) Chris had to chase him...

AHHH! I just adore this picture of Lindsay! How cute is she racing down the hill?!?

I did not have snow pants on... so I was taking pics and waiting for LeaAnn to cave from the cold.

They had many races...

And Lydia was insistent she ride by herself :)

She did a great job.

All smiles.

So was LeaAnn... she lasted longer than I thought she would.

This was the cookie nativity scene that Jeanette made & decorated!! So cool... made of gingerbread so it would last longer. All in all we had a fabulous Christmas day... feeling so blessed in so many ways.

Christmas Eve

Monday, 12/24/12

The night is finally here!!! Though I will have to say the girls were sad to see our Elf on the Shelf, Joy Jingle, fly back to the North Pole with Santa... we assured them he'd be back next year. :)  No time for pics before church... so here we are afterwards.

Grammy & Papa Jim came over again for dinner... super fun :)  Here we are trying to get a picture with them.

and again...

and again!!! :)

New jammies & playdough for the girls on Christmas eve night...

And then lots of tickles & cuddles... it was very sweet.

LeaAnn though, preferred to read to herself. (of course ;)

Like Lydia's running 'stance' - she was giving Chris 'tae-to' hugs... it was tomato-hugs, but she turned them in to tae-to ;)

Still reading to herself...

She finally caved and let Grammy help her :)

Next it was Lydia's turn...

I had to keep the whole series... too adorable not too.

What a ham... such a lover.

Here's what Joy Jingle did his final night at the house :) he's so clever.

Then it was Ms. Lindsay's turn on Grammy's lap...

story telling of course :)

and last but not least, Lauren had a turn :)

Here they are showing Grammy our Alpine Village Advent calendar (thanks Mimi!)

Such a sweet night, thanks so much for coming over Grammy & Grandpa!

Lauren goes to Freckleface Strawberry

Sunday, December 23rd, 2012

Lauren's classmate & friend, Lily, invited Lauren to go to Circa '21 Youth Theater (Dinner Playhouse) in Rock Island, IL to see Freckleface Strawberry the musical. Needless to say she was ecstatic to go (I hope to go too someday!)  Here they are before they left. 

Lily's mom, Jen, was so sweet and took a ton of pictures and shared them with me on FB. I saved them and was able to put them on here!

I really do hope we are able to take all the girls someday... I remember Mom & Ruby taking Tara & I to musicals & plays. We'd get all dressed up and go out to eat.

Lauren said they had a fabulous time :)

Here they are getting auto-graphs after the show! How cool is that? :)

I love that the characters were there to sign and talk to the kids watching... Thanks so much to Hayzlett family for inviting her!

snowed in...

And winter declared it was here! Wednesday the 19th it started to snow, and the weather-people were right this time... it snowed & the wind blew... shut everyone down Thursday the 20th and then it took all day Friday to dig out!

This was Thursday the 20th... we had nothing to-do of course ;) so I looked up on the web how to make snow-flakes (b/c I had forgotten) and we went to town!

Lydia opted to paint... though she did cut a lot of paper as well :)

beautiful! :D

gorgeous! :D

hard at work...

And what good is a drop ceiling in your house?  thought we made good use of it ;)

blowing...

blowing some more...

not real good pictures of it... we had huge drifts by Friday morning.

However, it was pretty snow... really heavy & wet, so it stuck to the bushes & trees.

Trying to get a better picture of our snow flakes..

Lauren my helper! Mimi said she looked at this picture and thought, "oh now I see Jayme" ;-)

We (Mom) is on a count-down to May... shhh.. don't tell :)