Christmas Trees!

We bought the girls their very own trees a year ago and today was the day we put them up! The girls get SO excited to have thier very own tree in their room. Last year we put Kadence's up first and so this year we started with Shelby. Here she is helping daddy fluff her tree.

We bought each girl a Nutcracker ornament since they went to the Nutcracker for the first time this year, here is Shelbys

Then it was time to decorate it
Ta Da! Happy girl with her tree!
Here's Kadence helping fluff her tree

Here's Kadence's 'Nutcracker' ornament
Decorating her tree

Admiring her work

Another tree finished...Another happy girl!

Silly Girls

Tonight Shelby decided to take all our Christmas toys out and make a game with them. She laid them in a circle with some Santa pillows through the middle and called it her "Christmas Round-up" game. There were lots of rules involved in this game. First, you had to pet Rudolph before starting. Then, you had to pick up a stuffed animal and hop across the pillows while saying "Ho...Ho...Ho!" Then once you made it to the other side you had to pet the moose, cup your hands around your mouth and say "Merry Christmas to all!" Here are a few pictures of Shelby playing her game. David and I played with her, but Kadence wasn't into it.

Next, Shelby made another game called the Pajama Twist. (Courtesy of the new jammies Grandma and Grandpa Joy gave them) She put everything in a line and would dive from the starting line as far as she could.

She convinced Kadence to try this game with her, but David and I politely declined. :)

I love that we have such silly girls that use their imaginations constantly to make things more fun.

Thanksgiving

This year we started our year off by making rice krispie treats. My family has a tradition of having them for breakfast on Thanksgiving and Christmas. I usually make them the night before, but I didn't feel like it so we made them Thanksgiving morning. I let Shelby help me make the ones to send to Grandma and Grandpa Green's house and Kadence helped me make the ones for our house. I of course had to let the girls lick the spoon when they were done helping.

David and I decided to try something else for breakfast. On pinterest a while ago I saw a way to make your own egg mcmuffin at home. I tried, but they didn't taste very good. At least we had rice krispie treats!

Right after breakfast we turned on the Macys Thanksgiving Parade. The girls loved dancing to the music and watching all the floats and balloons.

Then we got ready to head to the Joys for dinner.

We enjoyed dinner with the Joys and then we went to my moms house for desserts with my sisters. We enjoyed all the family time and the yummy food and best of all....NO family drama!

We went home and started our Christmas countdown. I decided that I would make my girls a countdown instead of buying them one. The one I wanted was Littlest Pet Shop and cost $50. I wanted each girl to get their own, so we would have been into it $100. Upon looking closer I realized that it only had THREE pets in the whole countdown and the rest of the days had accessories. (Which get lost or thrown away anyways) I figured I could make a great one for much less than the cost of one. I had already bought princess squinkies for the girls stockings so I figured that would be good toward the countdown. Then I bought a big pack of Littlest Pet Shop for $18 and it has 15 pets. Then we bought some Barbie squinkies, a few more pets and then some Walkable pets. WALA! I made some countdown blocks and each time we change it, they each get a prize! Totally worth the excitement!

As we sat there, David and Jeff were talking about great deals on the xbox 360. David decided to go see if he could get one from Hastings with some of the Christmas money his parents gave us and some money we decided we could live without....hopefully. :) Well when they got to Hastings at 9 they had just given out the last one. DANG! They then headed over to Walmart figuring it would be the same, but nope....they got a ticket! We thought David would have to sit and wait until midnight because that was when they were supposed to start the electronic deals, but they let them go at 10pm which was awesome considering I was keeping the girls up until he got home. The girls and I snuggled up on the couch and watched a few Christmas movies. I asked each girl their favorite part of the day and Kadence said, "Everything we have" and Shelby said, "The Pie!" David had another hour wait in the checkout, but still got home and got the girls in bed before midnight so it was better than we thought. Here he is with his prize...

Today we decided we would decorate a little more and cook my parents a Thanksgiving dinner. The girls LOVED seeing all our "new" Christmas toys. Each one made them squeal and it was so fun!

We enjoyed our 2nd Thanksgiving dinner and the girls were so excited to watch Frosty with Grandma. I told them that they had to wait because thats my moms favorite Christmas cartoon. After Frosty we watched the Lady Gaga Thanksgiving special. Kadence idolizes Lady Gaga. She asks constantly if she can change her name to Lady Gaga when she gets older. She tells me "I want to BE her" and loves to sing along to her songs. Well, Kadences grandpa also likes Lady Gaga so it was perfect. Kadence preformed the whole time and was so funny to watch. She pretended to have a mic and sang and danced along. It was a good little evening.

Thanksgiving is such a great time to remind us to show gratitude for the things we have been blessed with. We try to do it year round, but during November we make it a bigger priority. Remembering how fortunate we are is a great way to go into the Christmas season. It is so important for us to teach our girls to give to those who are less fortunate. My girls seem to genuinely appreciate what they have and I hope that they maintain their gracious attitude as they get older.

The Nutcracker

Two years ago David and I attended the Nutcracker together. I needed to attend concerts for my music class and the Nutcracker counted because it has a live symphony. I used to go with my sister, Amanda, and was excited to go with David. He liked it, but was DYING to take our girls the following year. I still felt they were too young to sit through a 2 hour ballet and so we didn't go last year. This year we didn't have the money to go, so we figured we would try for next year. Well as luck would have it, Davids Aunt Barb called last week and offered tickets for our family. Our only stipulation was that we would need to take the girls 7 year old cousin Maddie. That sounded great to us because the girls love being around Maddie.

We got the girls all dressed up in their new Christmas dresses so that they could go see their very first ballet.

ALL of the girls were absolutely amazing! They were quiet and well behaved despite their excitement. Unfortunately the people behind us weren't. I am someone who HATES when people are noisy, kick my chair, etc. The people behind us had 3 kids ranging from (I'm guessing) 9-12. The mom and one daughter talked through the whole show......and I'm not talking whispered, they talked in a normal voice. "Look there is a feather on his head, oh he's waving, wow, oh I love her pink, etc" It was ridiculous! Then there was a constant kicking to the back of my chair that only stopped when the feet were placed on the top of my seat back. (I thought people only did that to vacant seats) Then for the second half the kids kept switching seats which meant we got hit in the back of the head as they did. Needless to say, I left with a headache and a great appreciation for our girls. We ended the adventure with ice cream which made me nervous because they were in their dresses, but you're only little once. It was a fantastic experience and I'm so grateful that Barb allowed us to use her tickets. The kids loved it and I loved watching them.

Friday Confessional

I CONFESS....I have been avoiding blogging because there are SO many things I feel I need to blog that it is overwhelming. I had a friend that asked me to start my confessions again, so I figured that would be a good start. I don't think I'm going to "catch up" on blogging, but I will try to keep a little more up to date from here on out.

I CONFESS....I really really like the smell of turkey cooking in the oven. I don't know why it seems to smell better than anything else. I think that and the smell of rolls are two of my favorite smells. It makes me feel like I am somewhere warm, cozy and full of love.

I CONFESS....I struggle at times knowing that others DO have their trials. Just because there life looks AMAZING to me, doesn't mean that it is. And just because they don't have the same struggles as I do, doesn't mean they don't struggle. It just sometimes seems like the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, but I know its just spray painted. I LOVE my life and I wouldn't trade it with anyone. I know that I am never given more than I can handle and I have a great support system to help me through.

I CONFESS....I am so VERY excited for the Christmas season! I love watching my girls get excited as we have started to put up decorations. Every item we pull out they say "We've never seen that before" even though we've had it every year they've been alive. I love the movies, the spirit of giving, watching my girls play with their nativity and act it out, the lights, the music, teaching the girls to give to others, buying presents, and the anticipation of SANTA.