Little Daredevil's.

We had a couple of decent snowfalls during this holiday vacation.  The girls packed their snow clothes just in case.  Uncle Jason bought a new sled and pulled the kids around the neighborhood.  Sidney, who is notoriously scared of everything, has transformed into a crazy daredevil.  Kendall has remained true to her nature and is still a daredevil. 

What is a sled ride without a good wipe out?

Sidney ran to tell me, "I am okay mommy!  I just have a little ice in my nose." 

They all hopped back in.  This time with Dylan in the sled. 

Yes, that is a blue tongue that Kendall is sticking out.  Fabulous Uncle Jason decided to get my girls bottles of colored sugar when he took them to the store!  Who does that?  Only an uncle or an aunt.  I did notice that he did NOT get his children the same treat.  I suppose that is payback for all of the noisy toys I used to get Dylan and Hallie.  Uncle Jason let Kendall "drive" the four wheeler.

The girls also went downhill sledding two different days with Kami and Kaden.  They had a blast screaming the whole time. 

Kevin taught them very quickly that if you ride it down, you walk it up.  Good Dad!!!

Kami took a few run down the hill with the girls.  They slept very well at night!

The Year of the Pajama's.

We spent Christmas Day at my sister's home with her family and my parents.  It seems that everyone received a new pair of pajama's for Christmas this year.  We all put them on and were VERY reluctant to take them off.  Hallie and her black and white pj's. 

 

My mom got the three of us matching pajama's.  Corny, but SO much fun!  Sidney and Kendall also got black and white jammies.  I remember a few years ago Kendall managed to get herself in nearly every Christmas picture.  This year Sidney had her "Where's Waldo"  moment.  As I look back on the pictures, she is in nearly every one of them!

Dylan continue the tradition of making everyone Christmas breakfast.  This is a tradition that has my full support!

Kendall insisted that we take a picture of each other "taking a picture".  What happened to my tiny baby?  She is growing up too fast.

Sidney and her handsome Daddy!

The Christmas Eve Dinner That Almost wasn't!

Every year for Christmas Eve dinner the Strong side of the family gets together for Lutefisk and Potato Sausage.  If you do not know what Lutefisk is...be grateful for that:)  Potato Sausage, on the other hand, is a once a year treat.  This year as we were driving up to Spokane, Terrell received a call that there was no Potato Sausage to be found anywhere in Spokane.  Terrell put in an emergency call to her friend Marcus.  Marcus lives in Missoula, but was heading west for the holidays.  He brought packages of Potato Sausage with him to Twin Lakes and dropped them off at my parents house.  We picked them up and drove them to Lisa's for Christmas Eve dinner.  I write this all to express how important this Christmas Eve tradition is.  Alas, we had Potato Sausage! 

The girls had a great time playing with their cousins and swiping gifts at the Bingo table. 

Sidney had far too much sugar, but was very pleased that she received the one present she just could not live without - Doc McStuffins! 

The girls enjoyed watching the smiles on all of their Auntie's faces as they opened the gifts that the girls had made.

Sophia was visiting in Portland.  She is a professional musician and was kind enough to play us a few Christmas carols on her flute.  Kendall was honored to be her music stand and took the job very seriously.  I was astonished at how many of the words I had forgotten to so many of the carols!

Beautiful Cousin Kami and her new earrings.  I hope they do not get in the way of her softball game!

We managed to sneak in a family photo.  Sidney has nothing but goofy faces for the camera lately.

All I Want For Christmas...

...is my one front tooth.  Kendall lost her front tooth right before Christmas.  This was her first loose tooth, but the third one to fall out.  It fell out at school.  Her classmate Brody lost his front tooth the same day.  She told us the next night at dinner that the tooth fairy gave Brody Two Dollars.  Kendall received One Dollar.  I tried to rationalize this first by saying that Brody's tooth may have been polished and super clean (from his super good brushing).  "No Mom,"  Kendall said.  "I saw his tooth.  It was bloody and gross."  Sid decide to offer her two cents by saying that maybe Brody's tooth was bigger.  Kendall responded with an emphatic "You don't even know Brody, Sid."

Santa left Kendall a note that said he thought about giving her the front tooth back, but she looked too cute without it. 

What do you get when you let two girls (four and five years old) loose with sugar cookies, colored frosting and lots of sprinkles?  VERY overdecorated sugar cookies!

White Out!

Not exactly.  Sidney was the first to see the snow and she woke up the entire house with her excitement.  She quickly ate breakfast then geared herself up to go outside.  She made sure Kendall was right behind her. 

Yes, that is a raincoat she is wearing.  All in all I think she did a pretty good job getting herself ready for the snow.  I was busy soaking in the tub and told her that she could go out if she got the proper gear on.  In fact, they did a great job - snow pants, snow boots, gloves, coats.  They found their snow shovels in the shed and proceeded to shovel snow from the grass onto the driveway.  The snow is now officially gone.  Hopefully there is more on the way!

We went to the Botanical Gardens on Saturday night with Bridget and Grandma Terrell.  I LOVE Bridget.  She is such a funny woman.  The thing I love most about Bridget is how refreshingly comfortable she is with herself.  What you see is what you get!  She also has an amazing sense of humor. 

Kendall was pretty excited as she finally had someone to sit on Santa's lap with her.  Sidney was much more brave this time.  She did not cry, scream or freak out.  She was still completely uninterested in going too close though!

We took a few goofy pictures...

And some not so goofy pictures (although this was the only one that did not look totally as if Kevin had a Christmas tree on his head).

The girls were mesmerized with the trains.

They even got to see prancer, "For real-life, mom!"

Donuts for Dad, Mathapalooza and Santa Take 2.

Wow, it has been a busy last few days!  Kendall took Kevin to school Thursday morning for Donuts with Dads.  They had breakfast together (if a donut counts) and Kendall showed off her hopscotch skills.

 

That evening, the whole family went to school for Mathapalooza and the Book Fair.  The school did a great job on the event.  Both of the girls received a pencil pouch full of goodies when we walked in.  The classrooms had different activities set up.  Sidney seemed to thrive.  She has not shown a big interest in learning until recently.  She has been rhyming, drawing, counting, etc.  She will be starting Kindergarten next fall.  At the Math night, it became clear that she is getting ready and will certainly enjoy school.  After playing games and choosing a book at the Book Fair, we had cookies and drinks in the cafeteria. 

Last night, my work had our annual Christmas Party.  This has become an event that I look forward to.  I am not much of a party person, but I do work with a good bunch of people who have great families.  My boss, Kurt, and his family hosted the event this year.  They have a beautiful new home that they opened up to everyone. 

Early in the evening the girls were off playing and everyone was mingling.  Suddenly there was a blood curdling scream and Sidney came flying through the house.  She was in the middle of decorating her gingerbread man, when Santa snuck up behind her.  After I calmed her down (a little bit), she actually spoke to the big guy.  "I want a present", was all she could say.  After Santa settled in and passed out gifts, he stuck around to visit for a bit.  Sidney still did not want much to do with him.  Though she did tell Kevin, "Do you know who my favorite person in the whole world is?"  Of course, he was thinking it was himself.  "Santa" she replied.  No one ever could have guessed that!

We celebrated the birthday's of Grandma Terrell and Kevin last weekend.  I did not get too many pictures.  However, Kevin took this cute picture of the girls with Grandma Terrell.  They were very proud of the cake they had decorated for her.

Little Mermaids.

Kevin and I purchased a Grandparent pass for the Boise Aquarium.  Today Grandma Terrell took the girls for their first trip.  They had a blast with many stories to tell. 
















They touched sting rays, starfish and little sharks.  Kendall fed the birds.  

Sidney was standing very close to this lizard and did not realize it was real.  When it started to move, she started screaming.  Then when they saw the giant turtle they were afraid to go near it.  Grandma could not convince them that there was nothing to fear.

Terrell spoiled the girls and let them each choose a stuffed animal to take home.  Sidney chose a purple starfish.  This evening she has asked me for a bowl to keep it in and a cup to put pretend water in the bowl with.  I just hope this all stays very "pretend".

A Very Big Day.

The last few days have been pretty exciting.  Last Friday Kendall received her first computer.  She is over the moon.  She loves technology and has been asking for computers, nintendo's, kindle's, etc. for a long time.  Kevin and I have been very reluctant to venture into that realm.  My co-worker told me about a program called Computers For Kids.  So we told Kendall that when she was in Kindergarten we would get her a computer. 

 

We filled out the application.  Kendall had to write a letter and draw a picture showing how she would use a computer.  We sent all of the paperwork in and waited for our letter to arrive telling us when to pick the computer up.  Last Friday was distribution day.  Kendall wrote a nice thank you letter (on Daisy paper I should add) and we took her down to pick up her computer.  It is a very nice little desktop.  I am pretty pleased that she has a desktop.  It took about five minutes for her and Kevin to set it up.  When she picked up the computer, they also gave her several learning games.  My friend Maria had also passed down some of her sons old PC learning games.  She was showing us what to do in a matter of minutes.  She has computer lab one day a week at school and has been learning quite a bit.  We have been limiting her to one hour a day on te weekends and half an hour during the week.  At one point last weekend after her computer time was over, I peaked in to see her sitting at the desk.  She was staring at the blank moitor, typing on the keyboard and talking to herself.

 

Last Saturday morning while I was reading the newspaper, I saw that Santa was going to be at the outlet malls during the afternoon.  Fantastic, I thought, the girls and I were going to be out there skating.  They both seemed very excited as we walked from the rink to the store to see Santa.  Sidney was talking a big game.  After all, she is four years old now.  She was going to be very brave and tell Santa that she wanted a Doc McStuffins doll for Christmas.  Her braveness faded quickly as Santa brought his jolly old self into the store.  Her smack talk was replaced with crocodile tears.  Not even a candy cane could entice her. 

 

Kendall on the other hand was the first in line.  Santa commented that she had grown quite a bit since last year.  She told him that she wanted an art set for Christmas.  He said that was a pretty grown up gift and she would have to take very good care of it.  He told her that he would see what he could do.  About halfway back to the ice rink, Sidney started feeling pretty full of herself again.  She was not afraid of Santa!  I suggested that we turn around and go see him again.  "No thanks!", she said.  Little does she know that she will get another chance this weekend at my work holiday party.  Hmmm...what do you think?

My niece, Hallie, bought me an awesome set of nail polish colors while we were out and about shopping over Thanksgiving.  My nails were purple last week, red this week and will be green next week.  I am definitely in the Christmas spirit now! 

Taking Advantage of the Opportunity

While we had a few of the cousins still in town this weekend, we decided to sneak in a photo session.  Dylan was quite the sport as I am certain he had much better things to do.  It was not a minute before the camera stopped that he was off to Cabelas.

Thanksgiving Fun!

We had a houseful this Thanksgiving and it was a lot of fun!  I did not take too many pictures.  I was busy enjoying friends and family, but here are a few that I managed to snap. 

Papa Mark trying to entice Sidney with a stuffed mushroom.  She was too busy hamming it up for the camera.

The ladies enjoying a bit of wine and good conversation.

Previewing the Black Friday ads, which we smartly decided to skip this year.  I dragged them all ice skating instead.  It was a much better choice.

Jason making his famous gravy from scratch.  They also held up dinner for this gravy (I thought you would like that one Stephanie).

The "Grandma's" had helped Kendall and Sidney make place cards for everybody.  I think Grandma Terrell got the raw end of that deal.  I think the hot glue gun got the best of her fingers.  It was Grandma Karen's idea to bring the Senior Citizen's craft for the girls to do:)

There were a number of intense games going that day.  Kendall learned how to play checkers.  She takes it VERY seriously!

We had a great weekend.  Lots of food, ice skating and some Saturday shopping.  Good times!