Merry Christmas

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We were surrounded by family and friends and as usual the girls got quite spoiled! Even with the economy being in such a bad state we have so much family that it felt like unending presents this year. We were lucky to have my brother here all week, my mom and step-dad from Sat-Wed, my dad and step-mom from Wed-Sun and other friends that were in town. My sister in law, and family get in town later this week.

Here I was worried about the three weeks of break going really slow and the girls killing each other and now we are in week two and haven't sat down to take a breath yet :)

The girls with new shoes from Sara. It wouldn't be Christmas without shoes from my friend Sara. Notice Lauren's hot pink and black pants (those were mine when I was her age)!!

Wii have joined the groupies

We have now joined all the other Wii groupies in the world. For christmas my parents got us a Wii. Until now I had never played Guitar Hero. I can't believe how addicting it is. We were so excited about playing the Wii that I forgot to take pictures opening presents Christmas morning, isn't that horrible! Oh well, I do have pictures of all of playing bowling, boxing, golf, Super Mario Kart and Guitar Hero so that must count for something.

Good thing you don't need to know how to play a guitar to be able to play Guitar Hero.

The girls are still getting the hang of the steering wheel. Much harder than they thought it would be. Although they like running Mario into the water :)

Uncle Jungle Gym

If you wonder what do the girls do when Uncle Chris (my brother) comes to town for a week at Christmas? Well now you know :) They play Jungle Gym on him :) The girls absolutely love when my brother comes to town. He is so good with them. He plays games, lets them jump on him, tickles them and even babysits!! He had to go home last night so the girls are sad today. We have had family in town since last Saturday so we are now on the wind down after a whirlwind week. Oh well the next set of family comes in a few days.

Oh they will be mad at me...

So how many guys does it take to change a hot water heater??? Hmm, we have two electrical engineers (my husband and brother) and one very handy man (aka my stepdad). Here they are trying to figure out what is wrong and what they need to do :)


So off to Lowe's to buy a new hot water heater. When we get back what is the best way to get rid of the old one? Well why not drop it on it's side and roll it out the garage while getting soaked with hot water that is pouring out the top. Our old water heater was so bad that rust was coming out and wouldn't let the water drain properly out the bottom.

And once you are done for the day you must wear headphones to watch TV because you can't hear the TV at the level your sister/wife can stand to have it at.

Nutcracker

On Sunday my mom and I took the girls to see Ballet Arizona's "Nutcracker". It was amazing. I have seen it a ton of times but the girls have never seen it. Ballet Arizona has redone parts of it and I thought it was great. They had the story start on an animated screen so the girls could understand where the nutcracker came from. The costumes were beautiful. They were more modern but still very elegant and sparkly. Of course it made me want to start ballet all over again :) I was also impressed that the things they were selling were actually reasonably priced. The girls were each able to get a good size nutcracker for only $10. It's nice to see a professional ballet company so kid and family friendly.

The only thing I was wishing was that little screaming babies weren't there :) Not that I don't love babies but taking a screaming 10 month old to a 2 1/2 hour ballet doesn't seem like the smartest idea.

Gingerbread house

The girls and I finally got around to doing a gingerbread house. You gotta love Costco for the amazing kits they put together for $10. I don't think you could make one for that price. Even better was that daddy helped put it together :) They were so proud of their creation

Baby calf learning to walk

Here is the baby calf at two hours old taking her first steps. What a cool process to watch take place. The kids and parents were mesmorized watch something so simple yet so profound take place.

The sad part was watching how little maternal instincts cows seem to have (the owner said a few do but most don't). The calf was trying to follow the mother to nurse and she seemed oblivious to the needs of her calf :( So they explained that the calf's go to a nursery so they can be properly take care of and then when they get older they are brought back to the farm.

Crazy but fun Saturday...

The first party of the day was for Lauren and Hailey's cousin. the party was at the Superstition Farm. We have been wanting to go there for a long time so it was nice to finally go. We had such a fun time. We got to see a calf that had just been born, feed animal, learn all about milking cows, go on a tractor ride and taste all sorts of flavored milk.

The second party of the day was for Hailey's "boy friend" and possible true love but she hasn't decided for sure yet. She said she will let us know when she gets married :) The party was a Peter Piper and what is a party without silly string (see Lauren's head).

The last party of the night was for a good friend of Lauren and Hailey's . I can't believe she will be 7 :( Her mom and I used to share an office and it doesn't seem like it was that long ago that Lauren and her were born.

Dance Recital

What a fun night! I love Dance Recital night, although I am glad it is one more thing I can cross off the to do list. I think because I have such a love of dance that I am overjoyed that my girls share my love of dance. They did wonderful tonight. Hailey was a reindeer in a tumbling class and Lauren was in a hip hop dance. I was so proud of them.

I usually help as a mom that sits with the classes before their turn to help keep them quiet and in order. Sooooo, I don't have any good pictures because I was running around :) So hopefully other people took good ones and I can get copies!

These pictures are Lauren, Hailey and Sierra after the Antlers and Hats came off!

Why I like living in Arizona...

This is the time of year that I love living in Arizona. I am cold here so I can't imagine how I would feel living in almost any other part of the U.S. at this time of year. My friend Robin and I took the kids to the park this afternoon to give the ducks some cracked corn. It was so nice to be outdoors at 4:30pm and it was beautiful out, notice Lauren wearing flip flops :)

For those of you that live in AZ, check out Jason's Deli on Wednesday nights. With each parent 2 kids eat free. So after the park we headed to Jason's Deli. The food is healthy and great so for $9 we all ate good food!

Tempe Lights Parade

My Sister, Aunt and I took the kids (and their cousins) to the Tempe Festival of Lights Parade last week. They had so much fun! I don't think they had been to a parade at night before. It was really neat. We got their a little early and got to see some girls dancing to the Nutcracker, got some french fries from Fatburger and got good seats to watch the parade. The kids sat mesmerized the entire time. Alex had a grin from ear to ear the entire time watching all the trucks with lights. The candy helped too :) In the end we ran into my friend Megan and her family and then caught the last few minutes of fireworks.

Is it really December?????

How can that be? How in the world can Christmas be in 21 days? How can Hailey be turning 5 in 2 1/2 months and Lauren turning 8 in a few months??? Where are the days going?? Can we add a few more hours into the day???



Okay that felt good to get it out :)