Christmas 2011

I know it is March 4th but I am finally catching up with pictures from Christmas. We spent Christmas in Jefferson City with the Downs. Luckily, Santa knew where to find us and the presents where safely tucked under the tree on Christmas morning. The holiday was complete with new pj's and a Christmas Eve candle devotional.

The Nutcracker

This is Megan in her costumes for the Nutcracker performances. We dedicated some evenings and Saturdays to her practicing and performing. She has loved every bit of it. Her favorite costume was the "Little Cousin" outfit for the party scene. She loves to twirl around and around as it fans out around her. She was also a "Snowbird" in the snow scene. This was her first year dancing in in it and you can always find a big smile on her face while she is doing it. I was surprised that nothing about performing in front of a lot of people bothered her at all. We loved watching our little ballerina and it was a great way to start off the Christmas season.

My husband

My husband doesn't know I am writing this and putting it out there in the blogo-sphere but more people should know how great he is. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I am so grateful for him. He is very considerate of me and never takes much for himself. I thought I would list just a few of the little things that he does for me.

1. He always gets up first in the morning unless he is sick. I get to sleep in every Saturday and Sunday morning. Many times when he gets up, he pulls the covers that he has taken back over to my side.

2. He checks out books about maternity fitness because I asked his opinion about it.

3. He knows that when I am grumpy I either need a nap or a good workout at the gym.

4. He is the saver and I am the spender. As a result, we have little debt.

5. He hides my clearance candy so I don't eat it all at once. I love being surprised later, when I really need it and I had forgotten about it!

These are just a few things why I love my husband so much and am so grateful for him.

My Marine Animals

Costumes on my kids is the only part of Halloween I really enjoy. I could do without the cheap belly-ache from too much candy and the kids bouncing off the walls from too much of that same candy. This year, Family Fun magazine and Salvation Army Thrift Store were great places to help with cheap, diy costumes.

Jacob couldn't stop talking about being an octopus and he made sure everyone knew he had eight legs. Sometimes he would get down close to the ground so he could look like a real octopus floating in the water.

Megan (upper right picture) wanted to be a jellyfish. Nothing a cheap sombrero and bubble wrap couldn't fix.

Anna was a fish, complete with glittery scales on the back.


They all had plenty of opportunities to show off their costumes even before trick or treating on Halloween night. Gordon even dressed up as a fisherman looking for a deep sea catch. I don't have a picture of his or mine yet. For my costume, I took a fun idea I had seen on the internet. Since I am about 4 months pregnant, I stenciled a skeleton on a black shirt and then painted a little baby skeleton lower on the shirt where it really is. All in all, we had fun in our costumes.

Anna's birthday

Pizza-making fun for Anna's birthday party! She turns eight today and she had a fun party. We only do parties every other year so this is a party year. The girls showed me their best pizza dough tossing skills and then they each created a personal pizza. Their skills were of course improved by the poofy, white hats and silly black moustaches. Anna helped sew the aprons for each girl to take home. We completed the menu with lemon cake and ice cream. We also had beautiful weather so some of the party was spent outside.

We love our Anna and we our so glad she is ours. Eight is a special age and she has chosen to be baptized. The date is set for November 12th. Her teacher had nothing but excellent things to say about her in parent/teacher conference. Anna's reading skills are way above the second grade level too. She scored a 787 and the second grade reading level is 300-600 on the Lexile scale.

Eight is off to a good start.

Summer Fun 2011

The kids rode on a train with Gordon from KC to Independence. Short ride but a train nonetheless so Jacob was super excited.

We rented a pontoon boat with some friends. Megan was the only one who wanted to go by herself on the raft.

Anna and Gordon

Gordon and Jacob




Megan's birthday party. She turned 5 years old.

Anna had her face painted at a party sponsored by Gordon's work.

Round and Round

Anna decided she wanted to be part of the talent show for her first grade class. If you didn't already know, Anna is an excellent hula-hooper. She doesn't get it from her mother though. The song she hooped to was Selena Gomez, "Round and Round" and another little girl in her class did it at the same time. The song was 3 minutes long but Anna can go on forever without messing up. We are so proud of her future in the circus! Just kidding, but we are so proud of her for getting up in front of a group of people, especially a group of her peers.

(This is one of 4 posts)