Drakes present....

Ella's class party

Ella playing Pin the nose on the snowman.
One little girl said that she only used rocks for noses so she was going to have the snowman holding the carrot instead.

Spencer and Ella.
This kid cracks me up! He told Ella, "You can't hurt me. I'm a ninja." So Ella squeezed him as hard as she could (like a hug). He just smiled, "doesn't hurt". Ella tried again. "Nope" he said with a huge smile......I kinda got the feeling that this little guy just liked squeezes from Ella.

Bad mom award....I forgot to take ANY pictures at Sara's party.

The Nutcracker

This year for Christmas I wanted the girls to enjoy the holiday magic that you can only find at The Nutcracker Ballet. I decided to surprise the girls. They LOVED it. Ella said, "This is one of my dreams. Dream #4. Thanks mom!"

Christmas shopping

H&M always has a few great items for Christmas shopping.

Ice Skating Videos

Bellagio at Christmas

We LOVE the Bellagios Conservatory. We try to visit every month. It's especially wonderful at Christmas.

4th grade field trip

Ella's Kindergarten Program

Ella LOVES to sing. LOVES to be on stage. LOVES to have her picture taken. LOVES dresses. LOVES tiaras. So this was Ella's lucky day.












She made a sign with the names of people she wanted to buy a special gift for. (Mom Sara Dad Tanner)















She got to sit by a cutie names Spencer. He was very entertaining and made us laugh.












Santa stopped by for a visit. Ella told the little girl next to her, "That looks like Joe Perez". (She was right).

Christmas Jazz Band

Tanner plays the trombone in the Jazz Band. He leaves every morning at 6am for a 6:30 class. It's been hard on us-okay just me- to get up so early every morning. But I was impressed to see how good they sound.

Gingerbread houses

Monday night we made gingerbread houses, gingerbread cookies and a roller coaster for Tanners' class project.

The girls love it and we always have so much fun making them. It's a favorite tradition.

I was especially grateful for the premade gingerbread kits!

HoHoHo

NFR! YEE HAW!

I got an early Christmas present this year! Our friends invited us to the first night of the NFR! It was great.

Ice Skating in Idaho!

This was one of the best days EVER. What we planned on doing for a hour or 2 ended up being 4 hours. Tanner made us laugh so hard. The kid could NOT get the hang of it.

Sara just took off without ever touching a wall. It was awesome. By the end she was doing loops and going backwards.

We'll be going again soon.

Idaho Childrens' Museum

We took the kids to the local Childrens' Museum.

But first we stopped for food.

Ella using the pully.

Ella played at the bubbles for 20 minutes. I think she liked it the best because she could see her reflection.

This little machine draws pictures. I'll post them later.

Tanner laying on a bed of nails.

They got to make slime.

craft time

Katie let the girls (and boys) make handprint turkeys and fingerprint pilgrims.

Sara making homemade butter.

Idaho

The kids took about 2 hours to rake all the leaves in the yard. They put them at the bottom of the slide.

They AREN'T trick Birthday Candles.

Nate drops the match in Sara's lap.

Sara can't blow out her candles.

Surprise Sara!

This year on Sara's birthday she was grounded. So I cancelled her plans for a party and sent her to bed without dinner.
But I can't be that cruel so I planned a surprise party for the day she was ungrounded.

It worked. She was VERY surprised. We met at the park, ate pizza, cupcakes and opened presents. Then headed home to watch "UP" on the big screen. (Nate set up the movie projector on the wall).

It was fun and easy. I'm very lucky Sara has so many good friends.

It's getting hot in here...oh! It's just Jacob Black.

Yes. I did go see it. Yes. It was at midnight. No. I didn't plan on seeing it. Yes. I am wearing a Edward pin and a Jacob pin on my jacket. Yes. I did have an Edward tattoo on my ankle. No. I am NOT an addict. Yes. I got caught up in the moment.

My friend called late Thursday night and asked me if I'd like to go with her. Sure. Word spread. Soon there were a bunch of us crazy moms staying up way too late. We laughed. Hard. And we wooed. Okay. Just I wooed. And the teenagers on the front row.

forget going green-stay in school