Christmas Craft with the Girls

Hailey has been begging, pretty much every two seconds, to do a Christmas craft!  This girl LOVES to do anything crafty.  We decided to make cinnamon ornaments for the tree. The girls had lots of fun and got super messy by the time we were done.  Hailey loved rolling out the dough and using the cookie cutters to cut out the shapes.  Addy tried, without much success, but still had just as much fun!

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!!  We had Thanksgiving over at our house this year, and I have to say it was one of the best Thanksgiving get togethers we have had.  Tons of food....like it was almost funny we had so much, good company, cousins playing and games played.  After all the fun and everyone was gone, we cleaned house,floors and all, and got out the Christmas decorations.  That has been our tradition the last few years, to decorate the night of Thanksgiving. 

I let Hailey put the onions & celery in the turkey.  She was grossed

out, but also thought it was really funny!!

Addy looking at our turkey cooking, and the girls making corn casserole, 

they both love to help in the kitchen, maybe a little to much...haha.

TONS of food, and this wasn't even all of it!

Girls with their cousin, Elsie.  These girls played for 

four and a half hours straight!

Playing aggravation, video games and visiting.

Girls getting Christmas decorations out.  Addy LOVED the

cranberry bead garland and kept banging it on the floor

over and over until it broke!  She loved the noise it made.

Decorating the tree.  Hailey wore her wedding dress dress-up clothes all day...haha.

More decorating.

Felt Christmas Trees

Another great idea from Pinterest.  Hailey and I made these felt Christmas trees.  I saw the idea months back and couldn't wait to make them for the girls.  Hailey had fun tracing & cutting out the ornaments.  She is really into crafts right now, and I think I definitely need to get her some craft or art things for Christmas or her birthday....she is going to be six in about six weeks!!!  Crazy!!!  Anyhow, the girls had lots of fun decorating their trees.  I can see us getting these out every year for Christmas!

Pictures from the weekend

Had a busy weekend, but a fun one.  There was hiking, two birthday parties, some baking, a little bit of cleaning & lots of playing!  Getting ready for another busy week of school, piano and dance lessons, classroom volunteering, house cleaning and getting ready for Thanksgiving!  It will be a busy but fun week!

 

Hailey got to go on two hikes with Jaren and Jace & the boys.  Hailey loves

going and is a good little hiker.  She even got to see wild horses, which

she loved!  As you can see from the picture on the left, she is a

total picture poser...haha.  She's such a cute girl!!

 While big sister was hiking, Addy spent a lot of time in the backyard,

she LOVES LOVES LOVES to swing, and keeps saying

"push higher....push higher".  

Addy does not want to be left out of ANYTHING!  I was making

cookie dough to freeze and she wanted to help SO bad.  I let her dump

the ingredients, and then she started swiping the chocolate chips!!

 

Jaren was driving Hailey somewhere when she found one of

his ties in the back seat.  She said "look daddy, I'm a man".  Haha...silly girl.

One Year Twenty Wishes

A blog I just recently started reading, Truly Lovely, started a linkup party called 1 Year, 20 Wishes. It sounds so fun! The idea is to write down 20 things that you WANT to do, not have to, Want to. Then, you have one year to complete your list. At first I found it hard to actually come up with 20 things, because almost everything I wanted to write down had to do with cleaning or organizing something around the house, although there is some organizing I actually really do want to do  :) Eventually I came up with a pretty good list of things I would love to do in 2013!   Can't wait to start checking them off!!!

 1) Learn to play the piano

2) Learn to take better pictures

3) Become a runner (want to get up to five miles non-stop)

4) Lose 35 pounds (number three should help)

5) Have a backyard camp out with Jaren & the girls

6) Plant a flower garden

7) Go on a date with Jaren twice a month

8) Take Hailey on a mommy daughter or father daughter date twice a month

9) Get the girls rooms & toys SUPER organized, with bins, labels and the works!

10) Read the book of Mormon

11) Make a blog book for 2012

12) Go one month without eating processed foods

13) Take the girls to Disneyland!

14) Read a classic novel

15) Get a massage....ahhhhh!

16) Get a manicure and pedicure

17) Make one new recipe a month

18) Spend a romantic weekend with Jaren.

19) Go on at least 10 hikes!

20) Be more patient....every day, and really listen to what my kids are saying! 

Caught in the act!

Addy has always been REALLY good at only drawing on the dry erase board and paper, but today....not so good!  Haha....at least it came off easily :)

Dessert

This morning before school I told Hailey she could choose dessert tonight.  That made her beyond happy, and she chose brownies with ice cream on top.  When I picked her up from school, the first thing she said was "broooooooooownies"....haha.

 She loves cracking eggs!  

Addy wanted in on the action too!  Yummy!!!

Pics from the weekend

Just some pictures from our weekend.

 Hailey and her cute cousin Reagan doing a Barbie fashion

show....which including singing some Lady Gaga...haha.

 Family movie night watching Jungle Book II.  A few hours later

Hailey woke up with her painful ear infection :(

 Hailey is getting so helpful with Addy.  She is trying to help

her get her baby to stay on the swing....awwww.

Seriously excited about this one.  I LOVE craigslist.  Bought all of these

My Little Pony sets for the girls for Christmas...for only 25 bucks!  They

all look brand spanking new!   I priced these sets online and I am pretty sure
they would be around $200 if bought new.  I cannot wait for them to open
them Christmas morning!!

I just want to sleep!

A mom of a two year old should never get only five hours of sleep in two days!  Addy has so much dang energy & I just cannot keep up!  It started out Friday night when I stayed up WAY too late looking on Amazon for Christmas ideas. Just when I was about to zonk out, Hailey woke up crying with ear pain.  Poor girl, she was like half asleep crying for thirty minutes and couldn't tell us what was wrong.  Eventually she woke up fully, and off to urgent care we went.  She cried the whole time, it was awful, I felt so bad for her.  The doctor told me she had a pretty nasty infection.  By the time we left there, got prescriptions and got home it was 2AM.  It took me a couple of hours to fall asleep, and then little Addy was up at six!  Ughhh.  Then the next night we went to bed really late, and then Jaren got three work calls in the middle of the night.  Between that and girls waking up, it was another rough night with no sleep.  By Sunday, I was exhausted and not feeling all that great.  The girls were starting to act out and get in trouble, so I knew they needed to get out of the house. So, we went on a picnic at the park.  I cheated a little and picked up happy meals!  They played while I got some rest time on the park bench!  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that tonight, I actually get a decent night's sleep!

Riparian Preserve

We were going to go hiking, but since none of us have proper hiking boots, we decided to go to the Riparian Preserve instead.  The girls weren't too fond of all the walking, so we only stayed about thirty minutes or so.  They did have fun throwing rocks in the water and climbing the trees though!

Playing store

I think it is the cutest thing ever to watch my girls play store.  It's times like this, when they are playing together and having so much fun, where I feel very blessed with what I have.  Lately, they've been pulling their play kitchen out to where they can each go on a side, and that is the store.  Hailey digs out her coins from her piggy bank, and uses Addy's toy computer as the cash register.  It's so cute how Addy just knows what to do.

 

Fall Festival

Hailey's school had their Fall Festival today.  This morning  I remember thinking how nice the weather would be, but I was WRONG....it was SO hot!!  It's November, why is it still hot?  Anyhow, I took Hailey to the festival while Jaren stayed home with Addy who was taking a looong nice nap....lucky girl.  Even though it was hot, Hailey had a great time!  She loved the games, bounce houses, and seeing kids from her class.

 Playing in the bounce house.

 Rolling around in a big giant ball, I think this made her nervous!

 Dunking her gym teacher....she thought it was HILARIOUS!

 Aahhhhhh!

 Fishing.

 Picking out a prize....such a hard decision...haha.

 Dunking the principal!!  She missed but he told her

to go push the lever with her hand so it would

dunk him....it was so cute!

She won an ENTIRE cake during the cake walk.  She went 

straight for the chocolate with sprinkles!!

Our Family Vacation

Last Sunday we headed out to California because our AWESOME neighbors gave us four tickets to Lego Land.  The girls did SO much better than we expected on the car ride over, they were perfect little travelers.  We got there that evening and rested for the next day.  Lego Land was SO fun!  We discovered Hailey is TOTALLY into roller coasters!  The girl LOVES them!  There were lots of rides for Addy too.  We had a blast.  

The next day we went to Sea World.  It was another fun day, but I have to say, Hailey is not into looking at sea life through windows, she wanted to RIDE RIDE RIDE!!  She loved Journey to Atlantis.  There were basically no lines at all, and we took turns with her, it was so much fun.  Addy loved the little kid rides, and seemed to enjoy the animals and fish.  I was a little bummed when she fell asleep right before the Shamu show, oh well, maybe next time.  The day flew by, and before we knew it the park was closing and we headed back to the hotel.

The next day we went to some tide pools at Mission Beach.  It was pretty cool, we got to see tons of seals up on the beach.  We went down on the beach, and the sand was really soft, and Addy was a little freaked out.  We played there for a couple of hours, then headed for a different area of the beach.  The sand there was a lot better for her to walk on, and she loved it.  Hailey had tons of fun too.  We didn't plan very well, and the girls ended up soaking two pairs of clothes each and had to leave in a diaper and underwear...haha. 

We had so much fun on this vacation!  Went to some pretty fun places, ate out a TON, and had lots of laughs & giggles coming from the girls, so I'd say it was pretty successful. 

Outside our hotel.  It was right on Mission Bay, and the girls loved running around.

Lego Land!!!

Getting ready to go into Lego Land.  The double stroller was a good idea, although Addy

rarely rode in it.  And a family made of Legos...pretty cool!

Pumpkin lego & Daddy and Addy on the safari ride.

Train ride & boat ride.  Hailey was ready for some bigger rides!

The girls loved this!

Fun rides!

More fun rides!

Addy fell asleep in the car right away, then both girls conked out 

at the exact same time later that night, it was perfect!

Whales & Polar Bears!  I love their cute little 
hands on the glass looking at the whales ♥♥

Checking out the walrus and the frozen wall.

Hailey on her first ride on Journey to Atlantis!

More rides!

Checking out the seals at the beach.  Hailey said
"are they dead?"  Haha.

Beach fun!

They had so much fun!

Haha...Hailey was having some issues with her pants!

Favorite picture from the entire vacation.  I couldn't
ask for a better daddy for my girls♥♥♥♥

Halloween!