As usual we had a busy fun filled holiday season. Here's some highlights:
Princess Claire--she still loves her tiara from last year.
Enjoying the listening exhibit at the dino museum. She especially loves the drums (and the star tunnel, she will go around and around that thing until I am dizzy).
Experimenting with painting--yep it was a mess. She loved it.
Davis's Thanksgiving program--the joy of different classes, they do different things at different times or not at all. C didn't have a thanksgiving program but he will be having a grandparent one soon and D will not. Anyway, we were glad for gma and gpa P who came and he did a good job with his part and the songs. They were all really cute as pilgrims and indians.
Thanksgiving grub! We had a yummy dinner with Lowell's family on Thanksgiving Day and then repeated with my family the next Sunday. All of it was good.
I loved her shirt! (It says Everyone is Thankful for ME!)
This just made me laugh, I asked the kids to line up for a picture--tortured much?! Seriously is it that hard to take a picture? They are so very abused by their click happy mom.
That was better.
We had a fun ward Christmas program this year, Lowell and I were even on the committee, not that we did a whole lot. We had a shepherd lead us to several stations where we met wise men, the holy family, etc and sang a song with each group. Then a nice dinner--it was a nice program except it was really cold outside as we walked around. Claire chose her ensemble and insisted the hat and glasses were key.
They added Planet Play to our pass of all passes and I was really excited to go check it out. Turns out it wasn't that great and we spent just as much or more than I would have expected. We did have a pizza buffet but it wasn't amazing and the rides weren't much. They did have more games than I have seen so we may go back just to play some time but otherwise I think we'll stick with Trafalga.
Claire will ask to have her picture taken from time to time but then won't often smile. She's a tricky one to catch. She's rather into her little figures (she used to be super crazy about Dory and Nemo--they kept getting lost, it was so frustrating)--she has broadened her horizon to more toys but is really into them. Whatever the object(s) of the day are they have to come everywhere with us and go to bed with her. She's silly, the toys often get involved with bath time.
We made our usual trip to see the ZooLights, it was cold but fun.
Dodenbier family Christmas party--and our favorite jolly elf (my uncle Kevin)
Just being pretty--love this dress
They had a Christmas sing at the boys' school this year--this is the 1st grade classes, good luck picking out my kids! We did see them marching in and out though. Fun to have these little school activities (I do love working odd hours as it leaves my days mostly free for such things).
We enjoyed a UVMOM cookie decorating play group and then snagged best buddies A&A for a movie. I hope these kiddos will always be buds.
This year there was just too many kids to make gingerbread houses for in our twin club so they decorated cookies and I was free to just make 1 house (!). I decided to go for a train. Don't you love Claire's bedtime hair--actually really pretty.
Christmas Eve at the Penrods. I decided I would be fancy and make us matching PJ pants for the occassion. It ended with us being very late and me screaming and being unhappy. Of course that's how most my sewing projects end! Why is it that when you are time crunched then and only then will your needle break, thread knot, bobbin run out, etc. They were good enough to wear but the waists are still a bit wrong. It's April and I still haven't gone back to fix them. :p We had fun opening gifts and having breakfast food with the fam.
Lowell got Superman footie jammies complete with cape. They are awesome!
I scaled back our gifts this year (a little) since going to Disneyland was our big holiday gift. It was still a fun day and the kids loved their gifts. The boys still constantly use their kindle fires and Claire has gotten lots of use out of her princess castle, zoo playset, princess tent, etc.
Oh and they love Skylander. They've hit a point where it was getting kind of hard so they've taken a break and are working on Lego City Undercover right now. I love how it gives them clues as to what to do next and even though there are a lot of steps to complete challenges, the boys can figure them out without help. And you get to blow up porta-potties, so designed for boys. LOL
Someone to join in my click happiness, and I lost my boys to their electronics. Current obsession is MineCraft.
LOVE this holiday kid shot! Hooray
Christmas brunch with my family. I got my dad a Forever Lazy (I have one too, they're comfy) and there's Claire giving baby Jesus a kiss.
Great true smile on Claire--she was dancing and jumping so happy in the princess tent.
We attended Radio Disney's Noon Year's Eve at the Provo Beach Resort. It was free and had a dance party, free cookies and prizes, and a balloon drop. The boys rocked it out and had a good time. Being a free event in Utah, it was pretty crowded but I'd do it again.
We had a New Year's Eve party at our house that evening complete with chinese lanterns that we wrote wishes on (and that totally worked perfectly) and cheers at I think 9 pm this year. We're giving up earlier and earlier LOL.
And here's Claire's version of a dinner party--all are welcome.
We participated in the Jazz read a thon again this year and the boys met or exceeded all their goals--that was A LOT of reading! They won again this year and got to have a Jazz player come read to them and an ice cream party. I groan at the amount of work it takes but they really progressed in that month of reading. We're transitioning from beginner picture books to easy chapter books. They are both reading at least on grade level and even choose to do so independently (sometimes). Part of the festivities included dressing as a book character--they chose Flat Stanley.
We had a horrible inversion this winter. It was the coldest winter I ever remember, being well below zero like every morning for weeks. It would barely get above zero most days and we didn't see the sun for weeks. The kids couldn't go out to recess because it was too cold and the air quality was too poor. It really was a miserable January. One day we couldn't stand it any more and drove up to Heber just to see the sun. The sky was so blue and the 20 degree weather felt amazing LOL! We even managed a little hike.
To fill in the blanks a little, we had Thanksgiving, then the next week Carter got sick and was at Primary's then the following week we went to Disneyland. Those pics are on the other camera, so I will do a separate post just for DL (spoiler--we had a great time!). Then we were home a couple weeks before Christmas, New Year's, etc. So I will post this for now and keep trying to catch up. Sigh.
