Christmas Presents!

The girls both thoroughly enjoyed the entire Christmas season from picking out our huge tree, decorating the tree and the rest of the house, choosing what went on their lists, buying presents for others, baking and decorating cookies and of course opening their presents!  Brian and I really enjoyed Christmas through our lovely daughters' eyes!  I can't wait to continue all the traditions that we have already started and to add more through the years.

Ashlyn, ready to write her letter to Santa!

 

Santa are you in there?

 

Shopping!!! (on a side note, Kelti's baby was Brian's when he was little...she absolutely loves that baby, and I think it is so sweet that she carries around his cabbage patch doll)

 

Yay for cookies!!

 

Such concentration on decorating :)

 

Cookies for Santa!!

 

Finger lickin good!!

The cutest Christmas ornament EVER!!!

 

Man I love this cutie

Present from Aunt Coco!  Ashlyn and Kelti LOVE it!!!

 

Pretty earrings that we got for Ashlyn, unfortunately they are (of course) lost somewhere in the house...now I am super frightened to vacuum upstairs for fear of sucking up the darn expensive things! 

 

Go Cougs!

WHATTT two Snow White princesses?!?!  How can it be????

 

My new Kindle Fire!  LOVE IT!!!

 

Brian's watch that the girls got him...this is the one that Kelti spilled the beans about the day we got it!

 

Man you would have thought when the girls asked for dress up clothes someone would have listened and come through.....jeez!!!

 

Our new wine accessories and a nice bottle to boot! Thanks to B and D

 

Love these ornaments that the girl made for us :-)

I think she likes loves it!

 

The body pillows were a huge hit!

 

Rowdy gets pumped up through his bum....hilarious

 

Man she has had so much fun on this thing!  Love it

Ashlyn says thank you Grammie Pam for my latches board....plays with it almost every day

 

decorate your own chef costume

 

Cute books! Do princesses really kiss frogs and do princesses wear hiking boots!

 

Kelti after the first hour or two of opening...rough life

 

Thanks Paul and Andra they love the stuffed animals and books!

 

squinkies....weird.  That is all I will say about that :)

 

She was less than thrilled to get diapers....haha

Man I love my family!!

Dr. Ashlyn now accepting new patients

***On a completely unrelated side note, we finally got dining room furniture....I am in love with it :-)  I am currently making table runners and will be doing a post soon!  Oh man can you hear my squeals of delight?!?!  I thought so :-)

Ashlyn's preschool performance

Ashlyn had her first concert in Dec.  She did such a great job.  Her teacher told us that she learned the songs and motions first in her class and that she was helping the other kiddos learn the songs.  This was great news to me since she missed over a week right before the performance with our trip to Mexico and the girls being in OR with their grandparents. 

 Glad she was able to spot us in our third row seat.  She was very concerned that she wouldn't be able to see us!

 This is how Kelti chose to spend most of the performance....

 Love this girl!  So proud of her!! :)

So not only is this a cute pic of Ashlyn but her classmate is putting on quite the show too! :-)

***disclaimer***

I tried to upload one of the many videos where Ashlyn was participating and doing a wonderful job of singing, none of them would upload except this one...At least it is entertaining :-) See how interesting Ashlyn's hands are in the video below!!

This was a special moment for our family...Ashlyn's first concert performance was fun for all!!

Our hunt for the best christmas tree!

This past weekend (Friday really) we headed out to Bowen Christmas Tree Farm.  We had a wonderful time trekking through the farm to find our tree.  We were very happy to get a nice sunny day! One thing that was very apparent to me is my complete lack of the ability to make a decision...  Every three seconds I think I said "ooo I like that one, let's get it"  I think that in the end we found the perfect tree for us.  :)  We are estimating it at around 12 feet.  So happy that I had Brian there to help steer us in the right direction!   They also had a great roaring fire going, cider or tea to sip on, and the cutest little store where they sell only handmade local items!  I found a few new treasures to add to our collection. :)

Here it is with the girls giving their approval

 Here is Kelti amazed that Brian is cutting our tree down!

 Starting to go!

 Timber!!!!

 Ashlyn is very excited about the whole deal of getting the tree, bringing it home, setting it up and now she is jumping at the chance to decorate it!

And now through the magic of the Internet........

Here it is in all it's glory!! :)

Ashlyn helped decorate most the tree! We had a wonderful time listening to Christmas music and talking about all the ornaments as we went...it was really fun telling Ashlyn about them and what they mean to me and Bri. :)

 The table by the front door got a little Christmas love too!

 My sweet helper! I think she did a fabulous job for her first time being a little Christmas helper! :)

Hope that the joy of the Christmas season is reaching you and yours!



Happy Halloween!

So this is super late, but better late than never right?  I am sure that you will love the cute costumes that the girls wore for Halloween.  Once again we had a fun, but packed day. We started off by having a Halloween party with Ashlyn's preschool class. 

 Bean intent on decorating her cookie!

 I think this is such a sweet picture...She is so aware of prayer now! 

 Perfectly decorated cookie!

Me and my two sweet girls!

Later in the day, right after Kelti's nap we got her costume on, picked Ashlyn up and headed into Brian's office to do some trick-or-treating there.  Seemed like everyone really enjoyed the girls and the their trick-or-treating. 

 Cinderella and Ariel! Enjoying the pumpkin cookies daddy gave them!

 Here's a smile from Ash, but obviously Kelti loved her cookie too much to smile :)

Here is a great Ash smile!  Love her!

After they filled their little buckets at daddy's work the three of us girls headed to the Country Village.  They were able to once again fill their buckets!!  (Yeah, more candy for mommy and daddy to sneak!! :) ) They had lots of fun going around and seeing all the kiddos and grown-ups dressed up for Halloween. 

 Ready to hit up all the Country Village stores!

Kelti carried this Snickers bar with her the entire time, she didn't ask to eat it, but she needed to hold onto it while we were trekking around.

We headed home to eat some dinner and go out in our neighborhood with daddy.  Once we all had some healthy food in our tummies we headed out and once again.....filled the buckets...and of course we didn't even go to all the houses in the hood, but when multiple neighbors give out full size bars it is not too hard to fill the buckets.  A couple of my favorite parts from the evening. 1.  Ashlyn remembering how it worked last year and "teaching" Kelti all the rules.  2. Kelti (as always) being the most polite little girl saying trick-or-treat, nice and clear (with a huge smile) and then taking the candy and turning in a circle in the attempt to get it in her bucket....this was sooo adorable! :)  After all the candy gathering and sorting both girls only ate one piece of candy.....that is some good self control......maybe I could learn from them???

 Daddy is a great trick-or-treating buddy!

 Look, look, look another snickers bar...hmm again she carried it the whole time!

Also in this pic you can sorta see that she is holding her bucket in the crook of her arm, this is largely why she was turning in circles to put her loot in the bucket, she couldn't reach very well!

A momma picture too!

Here are a few of our decorations too!

 Front door with my cute signage and spider webs the girls made.

 Drilled pumpkin.  I got this idea from pinterest, but I totally went small on the drill holes, next year, I will go BIG! 

Another pinterest idea, I think these turned out great! The girls loved them and we got lots of compliments on how cute they were from trick-or-treaters!

 Some more decorations, from pinterest! Love me some Pinterest :)

Close up!

 

Oh, and I already have the costumes for next year...Thank you day after sales! :-)  Ashlyn requested to be a witch and Kelti chose a flying horse costume!  I think they will both be happy with their costumes next year! :)