Christmas and New Year

Happy 2011....
We had a pretty busy December. Mike was off for a week ,then there was my birthday, Christmas and New Years. We also had to fit in some school (admittedly it was spotty at best...lol) and other Christmas activities (we even rode a double decker London bus to look at lights!), church and visits to and from friends and family. There was lots to do; decorating the house, making cookies and goodie baskets, shopping, wrapping gifts, the kids made ornaments for their homeschool group. Then there was the really fun stuff... cuddling on the couch reading the Christmas story, drinking hot coco (when it finally decided to get cold...lol), looking at Christmas lights, watching Erika and her wonder at everything and best of all going to church and hearing about the birth of Christ.
Fireworks are now legal here so we set some off to bring in 2011. Yay! (4th of July is gonna be soooo muuch fuuuunnn!) :)
Yesterday was our first time in over 2 weeks to see some of our homeschool buddies, so we met up at the zoo.
I do have lots and lots of pictures, but I will just pick a few of the better one's to post here below. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season, I know we did. We are certainly looking forward to a great 2011.

If you want to see more pics of the fireworks, or the crazy weather we have been having here you can check out my photo blog here. Thanks!

Updates

Wow, not sure how I got so far behind... and it's only the middle of January... I am in trouble. Anyway let me back up to where the last blog left off.
We had a wonderful Christmas. It was full of fun, family and friends. The kids all got lots of stuff. I am finding, however as they are getting older it is getting harder for me to actually go shopping for them. With their birthdays right around the corner I am finding myself in that predicament once again. But I digress... LOL

Erika certainly made things interesting this year, as she was mobile. We actually braved getting a 6 foot tree. We started out with ornaments all over the tree, but they slowly migrated as she would take them off the tree and hand them to us. We would then put them back on the tree in a higher spot. LOL Amazingly enough, she did really well not getting into to much, and it was actually Lex who knocked over the tree, by accident.

The girls both loved being able to dress up and we got some cute shots of them all dressed up. Tim not so much. He did dress up, but I missed it and by the time I was ready to take pics he had the tie off and the shirt untucked. LOL. Oh well there is always Easter.

We also made lots of cookies. That was our gift to most people was goodie baskets of homemade cookies and bread. The kids did a great job decorating them. Their cousins joined us as well as the kids grandma. It was lots of fun.

After Christmas we had several gift certificates to redeem. The kids love to get books and were thrilled to know they could use the gift certificates to get some new ones. Lex of course wanted anything princess (After all she does think it's a hard job to be a princess.) Tim got another dinosaur book. This one is really cool, with lots of pop ups and pictures that show their actual sizes. Pretty neat.
 
We spent New years with my folks, It was lots of fun. Erika was the only one of the kids that stayed up til midnight with the adults. LOL. There were rides in the back of Gramp's truck, a trip to the park, and then we all got dressed up for Church. The pictures of Alexa were taken at the park. She was moody (it shows) but I do love how dramatic she can be when she take pictures. Heh

Homeschooling is going well. The kids are learning lots. :) We have park days on Fridays with a wonderful group of families. The weather here has finally started to get a little chilly and the leaves are changing. The kids love to make huge leaf piles and take turns jumping into them.

Actually up until this past week the weather has been beautiful. Then all of the sudden we were hit with 3 inches of rain in 2 days and tornado warnings, and all sorts of stuff like like that. But by Saturday it was back in the upper 60's and partly cloudy. We took advantage of it and spent the afternoon out.

Now... that gets you caught up to the blog right before this one. Heh.

Now that we are back in routine, I will start posting a little more regularly again. We have several things coming up in Feb. It's looking to be a busy month. What, with our homeschool Valentine's party, the kids birthdays, and other birthdays scattered in there as well. Lots of picture opportunities.

Thanks so much for stopping by and take care!

Update

Sorry for the delay in posting. Things seem to be moving at light speed here these days. Christmas is almost upon us, so that makes for some crazy times.

The weather here is so beautiful it's hard for us to stay inside some days. Now that Erika is mobile things have gotten a lot harder though. She likes to take off after her brother and sister. She has no fear, she likes to go where they go... including up into the big play areas. Shesh! Park days just got a lot more complicated. :P

Alexa has been enjoying dressing up in the last few months. In fact she had a hard time for Halloween, before settling on the princess costume. But she has now informed me that she will be dressing up for Christmas and New Years as various Disney princesses. LOL

We have also decided on a theme for the kids birthdays that should satisfy both kids... We are going for a medieval theme of knights and princesses. Kinda smart huh?... This way we stave off having to have two separate parties for at least one more year. LOL

We have also been busy decorating for Christmas. We made snowflakes one day with Tim and Lex... that was fun. Erika loves the tree. She gets so excited. Although we are finding that the ornaments are slowly migrating to the top of the tree. Every time she takes one off we put it up a little higher. LOL Opening presets will be interesting this year for sure.

Well I will leave it at that for now... we are having our homeschool Christmas party tomorrow and making cookies on Saturday, so I should have more to post by Monday. Then I likely will not post again until after the first of the year...

Although I may try and sneak some Christmas shots up... we'll see if I have time.

So for now I hope you enjoy these and make sure to check back early next week.

Happy Holidays

Happy 2009!
Sorry I have not posted for the last two weeks... time just got away from me this busy holiday season.
We spent Christmas with my folks. It was a lot of fun. The kids had a blast and made out with lots and lots of STUFF! But it was great to see family and being able to catch up with them. My folks were great, and I know that they love the kids... even when Tim and Lex are climbing all over them and getting into everything... LOL.
Ok funny story. In the photo above you will notice that my son has these festive candy cane socks on. He got the socks about a week before Christmas from my MIL. He has worn these sock almost everyday since then. He got upset while we were visiting my folks because we made him take them off because they got wet. LOL. Even as I write this he walked out in his pj's and candy cane socks. It's strange the things kids get attached to. :) Anyway just thought I'd share...
While we were in Yuma, Erika had her two month photo taken with Mr. Bear: She is growing like a weed. She is very smiley and generally a very happy baby. She is reaching out for things now and loves to laugh at her silly brother and sister.
So after all that we come back home and on Sunday celebrated again with Mike's family. Shesh, talk about more stuff. LOL. They love it (of course!) and have made much use of most of the stuff they got.
So we have been very busy, and as we now enter 2009 things are already stacking up... appointments and classes and play dates are already scheduled for this next month alone. So we will once again do our best to keep everyone updated with photos.
So as we start this new year I will post the last photos I took in 2008. Yes, Mike and I spent much of new year's eve playing with our night owl daughter on her mat. I could not think of a much better way to bring in the new year.
Happy Holidays and may God grant you much grace and peace this next year!