Happy New Year!

Christmas Morning

Thanks for the Gifts!

 Jules in her new apron from Grandpa Al and Grandma Cindy

 Trying out the beads from Grandma Elaine.

 These sheets are soft!

 The little princess trying on her new dresses and shoes from Grandpa Al and Grandma Cindy

 A Hello Kitty dress.  Thanks Grandpa Al and Grandma Cindy!

Trying out the new Busytown Game.  

Thanks to everyone for the generous presents which you sent!  Julia tried out alot of them yesterday, while her brother was putting together his Lego set (hence, not many pics of him!).  She has all kinds of new fun stuff that she likes alot.  Thanks!

Purple

Enjoying her new sheets!  Thanks Grandma Elaine!

Morning Buns

Made these morning buns for the first time this morning and they turned out pretty good.  Not as good as La Farine (or Tartine), but these will do (and they're alot cheaper too!)  Definitely worth a try! The recipe is here:  http://www.ezrapoundcake.com/archives/11041

I made the dough a few days ago and kept it in the fridge.  

560 Pieces

This is what Alex received from Santa.  A 560 piece Lego Star Wars X Wing Fighter.  He has been in the playroom working on it since before 7:00 this morning and it is 1:54.  He refused homemade morning buns many times, was forced to take a bathroom break, managed to be coaxed to talk on the phone for a bit and shared a bit of a cheese plate, but other than that, he is parked here for the duration.

Update:  Finished at 2:04 pm.  Very, very excited!

New Puzzle

Jules and Daddy showing off the new puzzle from Grandma Elaine, all put together.

Testing out the new gear

Julia putting her new knife to work, helping me prep for Christmas dinner.

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve, we enjoyed a low key evening, opened a few presents, Skyped with family in Minnesota and read some Christmas books, before getting a plate of marshmallows, carrots and some rolled oats ready for Santa and his reindeer.  Julia decided she wanted to eat the carrots and the rolled oats, but all was good, we just refilled them before going to bed. ;-)

Merry Christmas!!

Little Santa

I can't resist!  Google has a new Auto Awesome feature where it adds elements to your photos after you take them, automatically.  I thought this addition to an already cute picture of Julia was kind of cute!

Christmas Party

 A few snacks for the partygoers

 Feed the Reindeer game

 More feeding of the reindeer

 Transfer the M&Ms using a straw

 A jump rope break

 Transfer the cotton balls using only your Vaselined nose

Decorate some cookies!

Last Wednesday, we had three of Alex's classmates over for a little Christmas party.  I decided that it might be wise to keep things structured with four boys and a little sister in the house, so I planned out a bunch of games.  Many based on Minute to Win It games.  I haven't ever seen the show, but some of the games which I read about were pretty cool.  Turns out that the boys liked them and had fun with some friendly competition.  To round out the party, we decorated some sugar cookies.  It was fun to have some friends over and see them playing the silly games.

Marshmallow Taste Tester

Los Perales Kindergarten Christmas Concert

All three Kindergarten classes performed together on Thursday at Los Perales.  They had performed at a local retirement home the day before and had a great time.  I think that riding the bus to the performance was probably one of the highlights, even if it was just a one mile trip.  They sang about 10 songs and did a great job!!  The reindeer antlers, while cute, made it a bit tricky to actually see the faces of anyone past the first row, but all in all it was quite adorable.

Little Reindeer

The Nutcracker

Alex requested a Nutcracker costume, at the beginning of the season.  After working towards it, he earned it and I made it up last week.  So, needless to say, there is alot of marching and battles happening at our house lately.

A Night at the Drive In!

On Saturday night we planned a surprise for the kiddos.  We packed up the car with sleeping blankets, pillows, pajamas, popcorn and some drinks and then stopped off at Zachary's to pick up a pizza.  Where were we going?  To the drive-in movie theatre to see "Frozen".  The kids thought it was pretty cool to be in the back of the car, eating pizza and then snuggling up in sleeping bags to watch the movie on the big screen.  When we were driving outside of the lot where the movies are shown, Alex was commenting that it was really weird that there were such big signs, but no words on them.  Little did he known that those were actually giant screens.  The movie was good and everyone had a fun time.  Definitely worth checking out again.  $15 for the whole family to see a movie and you can bring all of your own food!

Little Pteranodon

Julia the pteranodon looking at photo albums in the library.

Santa

Santa visited the Farmer's Market today and Julia stopped by to talk to him.  Alex was not interested in talking with Santa, but Julia was happy to sit and chat.  She was thrilled to get a candy cane too.  Definitely the little things!

Photo Shoot