School Christmas Program

The girls had their school Christmas program on the last day of school before the holiday break.  The girls have been practicing and singing their songs for a month now so they were ready for this!  This year the theme was "Music at the Movies".  So not only did we get to hear Christmas songs but also ones we sing all the time from some of our favorite movies. 

Program Ready; my beautiful girls!

The Kindergarteners sang "Oh Christmas Tree" and the Chipmunks  Christmas song complete with chipmunk voices.  Seriously so cute! 

Ella's class wrapped up the program with their sweet little voices.  They sang "A Spoon Full of Sugar" and "We Wish you a Merry Christmas".  Ella wasn't nervous at all and really got into it!

The Girls First Chiefs Game

We took the girls to their first Chiefs football game with their cousins last week, December 16th.  We lucked out with the weather being in the 40-50s and we all had a great time!!  The atmosphere is so fun and so loud!!  We're definitely doing this again!

Special Gifts from the Girls

I absolutely love our new ornaments from the girls this year!  I hope to someday have an entire tree filled with only their special handmade ornaments.

Ella added paint to the inside of the ornament ball to make it a beautiful sparkly red and green.  

Ava made an owl ornament in art class out of ceramics.

Talks with Santa

They were both SO excited to see Santa this year!  What I love is that Ella was more excited to give him a hug than tell him what she wanted for Christmas!  They both love him so much!

Serious Conversations: Ella asked for a tent that goes over her bed.  Ava asked for a stuffed animal marshmallow.  

We even got to meet a couple of Santa's reindeer!

Thanksgiving 2017

Thanksgiving!!  One of my favorite holidays.  As a family we work diligently during the month of November to talk about who and what we are thankful for so that we all have our blessings fresh on our minds when Thanksgiving arrives.  The truth is we have so much to be thankful for.  And with so much negativity and ugliness in the world we all need reminders of the amazing, beautiful things in our lives.  To help our family get in the right mindset we build our annual Thankful Tree.  Each night as we sit down to dinner we talk about what/who we are thankful for that day and add leaves to our tree with those items.  Our tree turned out bigger than ever this year.  I think this is our 3rd annual tree.  I'll have to look back and find out for sure :) . It's fun to hear what the girls have to add and as they grow they really don't need our help anymore coming up with things to add.  

We started Thanksgiving trips with a trip to the farm for Matt's family Thanksgiving at the farm the weekend before Thanksgiving.  Have I said how much I love being out at the farm?!!  It's so peaceful to be out in the country.  Of course that peace is only outside since the house is full of 8 adults, 6 kids, and 7 dogs!!  A little bit of managed chaos; LOL!!  I love it!

A quick funny story from this weekend.  Us adults were in the living room playing cards until late into the night; the kids long ago put to bed...or at least we thought.  David came back into the living room around 11pm with quite the smirk.  We asked what was up and he shared that when he walked into the kitchen to mix a drink he found Ella perched on the counter helping herself to a snack.  When she saw that she'd been caught she played it cool and simply put her pointer finger to her mouth signaling for him to be quiet.  LOL!!  We all busted up and and just let her have at it!!

Yay for apple pie!

Playing behind Grandpa's chair

Cutting wood with Uncle Craig

Addie and Matt

Carson and Ava...our little artists

Just the big girls :)

Thanksgiving Day was spent at home in Omaha and it was beautiful!  Watched the Macy's parade and the girls loved it!  Put up Christmas decorations.  Went to the park for a while...the girls in shorts!!  Matt smoked a turkey, yummy!!  And lots of movie time.  I love low key holidays at home!

"It's Olaf!!"

"Hi Santa!!"

Game Time

Loving Thanksgiving!!

Another K-State Football Season

"K-S-U Wildcats!!"

Well, it was a fairly tough football season but the team did end up getting the wins needed for a bowl game bid.  We love when they win but we love them no matter what and we really love the family time for game weekends.  Like last year we camped most weekends at Rocky Ford.  Love our weekends in the beautiful, peaceful setting.  

Bocce Ball

Matt, Dad, Bobby

Just hanging with Aunt Catherine

Both girls took at least a short nap most games.  Crazy!  I don't think they've slept any other season!