Ice Skating

Took the girls ice skating today. 

Family game time

One of the games Rebekah got for Christmas is called Fibber. Basically, you wear these ugly glasses with a huge purple nose and if you get caught "fibbing" you have to add a piece to your "nose", just like Pinocchio. 

You can see why Rebekah would think it was hilarious.

I was not very good at it. Kept getting caught "fibbing" or falsely accusing others of "fibbing". But it did add to the fun of it. 

Clay and I made a goal to play a game and watch a movie together as a family each day of winter break. We did a pretty good job of it most days. A couple of days we only had time for one or the other. I hope the girls have good memories of spending time together.

Merry Christmas

Can you tell how excited the girls are for Christmas?!!

 The girls and I gave each other manis and pedis for Christmas. 

I crocheted ponchos for the girls (and Rebekah's doll) for Christmas.  

 The only sad thing that happened on Christmas is that my camera bounced off the couch and onto the carpet landing right on the lens. It broke the lens motor. The lens is now stuck halfway out and won't take anymore pictures. Luckily, Clay and I both have new phones. We both whipped out our phones and took the rest of the Christmas morning photos with them. Grateful that we have phones that take decent photos.

Christmas Cookies

The girls always want to make fresh cookies for Santa. 

They usually want to make sugar cookies. 

 I don't like making sugar cookies. It's a ton of work and an even bigger clean-up. So I always assign this task to Clay. Good quality father-daughters time. I helped decorate one of two, and answered recipe questions from the other room.

I think their desire for sugar cookies started with Grandad. Here are some pictures from 2006. Bruce & Kris came to visit after Rebekah was born. Grandad & Emma spent an afternoon making sugar cookies together. Emma loved it!
Look how little she was!

Sleepy Girl

When we went in to check on Rebekah this is where we found her. The tried sleeping inside her pillowcase, hence the pillow sans pillowcase. The next morning I asked her why she was sleeping in the chair. She replied, "Because it was warmer". Not sure I follow that logic. 

She has had many adventures in sleeping. Here are some links to previous posts on the subject.

A little night humor

Sleeping better

(This last one has links to more of the funny ones.)

Video Evidence

Just some words of advice.

When you know you are doing something that you are NOT allowed to do

DO NOT take a video showing evidence of the crime.

Play date partners in crime.

Snow Angel

 We got just enough snow for Rebekah to go out and make a snow angel.

She also got this birthday gift from Grandma Kris. An outfit for her doll.

Kris made the pants, shirt, and jacket. She also knit the hat, scarf and purse.

She did an amazing job!

Holiday Recital

Emma had another piano recital.

This time it was held in the middle of the shopping mall just outside of Nordstroms. 

It was fun and unique experience. 

She played Hall of the Mountain King and Greensleeves. 

DAR Open House

We love the DAR Open House because of this guy.

The BEST Santa anywhere.

I heard him saying "I can see that you want your two front teeth for Christmas, but is there something else you would like".

 This year they had a chorus group singing. 

I always love to see how they decorated the trees.

And Rebekah's favorite is going to the children's discovery area to "make butter".  

 We also stopped by the CAR museum. 

It's about time

We have graduated from dumb-phones for smartphones. 

Look how big those things are compared to our old phones!!

Notice the crack on the screen of the black phone. 

That happened about a week after I got it...3 years ago!

This is what I had before that.

Our main reason for switching is because we realized that we were using our cell phones a lot more now. 

Mainly, the amount of texting that Clay was doing for his calling at church (Elders Quorum President). I refused to text anything more than Yes, No, or OK. It just wasn't fun to turn off the crazy auto spell, then hit each keypad number multiple times to get to the right letter. But I would make long calls to my mom or someone while I was out. I have also been using an iPod Touch to keep my calendar, contacts, and other fun stuff. 

We made a spread sheet and looked at how often we were "topping-off" our pay-as-you-go phones and realized it was more often that we thought. We asked around and looked at a few different plans and finally decided on Ting. We bought our refurbished phones on eBay. Clay figured out that even adding in the cost of our phones to our monthly bill Ting was cheaper than our old plan.

Advent Calendar

I finally made my advent calendar. And just in time!

Close to My Heart had a kit they sold last year. I loved the idea but didn't like the colors the kit came with. All of my Christmas decorations are blue with white and silver snowflakes. So I did my own design.

All the snowflake and numbers are CTMH stamps. I used their White Daisy ink to stamp the snowflakes. 

Special thanks to Michelle Jones for cutting out the boxes on her cricut and letting me come to her house for a few hours to work on it.

Santa Claus is coming to town...

I love that we can be so close to Washington DC and all the benefits of a major metropolitan area.

Yet still live in a town that keeps that small town feeling.

A favorite tradition is the fire department decorating one of their trucks and riding through the neighborhoods with Santa and Rudolph waving on top. 

We are always the first neighborhood they come to. And it usually comes earlier than I remember to think about it. I am always grateful to my local facebook friends who post that Santa just past their house.

Rebekah and I ran out just in time to see him coming up the street. Then they turn left to go down a cul-de-sac. They pass by again to go down the street on the right. 

The other fun part is our neighbors always run out of their house the same time we do. We get to chat for a while before we decide it's too cold and run back inside.