Disneyland one (maybe) last time!!!

Disneyland at Christmas.

We are reaching the end of our season passes and probably won't renew for awhile so it was fun to see it once all decked out for Christmas before our time runs out!!!!

You can see Mia's new look just in time for Christmas...No Front Teeth. I can't count the number of people that would see her all throughout December and sing the song..."All I Want For Christmas Is my Two Front Teeth". It was pretty perfect.

Minnie's House! Another favorite for Ella

A surprise meeting with Pocahontas

Waiting for Goofy's new rollar coaster I think they rode this 4 times in a row with Lance!

Christmas Parade! This was so fun to see as well. Pooh and Tigger were definately Ella's favorite.

Watching the parade

Small World all lit up. The inside was even better. This was one of my favorite Christmas changes.

Santa Visit

Mia's teacher loves horses so Mia has developed an interest in them and just had to take this picture so she could bring it to school.

"Playing Winter"

That's right here in California when we take out the "winter clothing bin" from storage my kids get very excited to try on things like gloves, boots, and hats that they would never have reason to wear otherwise. Actually we do get a few pretty cold days where it gets even colder in the evening time. I think I even saw a bit of frost on the ground one morning when I went outside early enough. :) We were preparing for another Disneyland trip and knew we'd be out in the evening where some of this stuff actually comes in handy so for a couple weeks Maddi and Ella had a blast playing "Winter". Complete with a plastic snowman. haha:) I think Maddi got them both fully dressed...It was really cute. And if you look closely at Ella it's not just the picture but she really does have a black dot on her nose! I started letting her use markers more regularly and she was doing pretty good with the whole "You may only draw on paper" thing but since a couple of our markers are the smelly kind she thought they ALL were and so for a few weeks she constantly had some type of marker on her face on or near her nose where she had tried to smell them!

It's official...Baby #4 is on the way!

This picture is pretty pathetic because even at the time I took it I looked much bigger than this but for the sake of at least one of my sisters who has been asking...here's the only prego picture I have taken so far. This picture is from the end of November and I am now about 24 weeks along (so obviously much bigger) :)

Baby is due at the end of May and the news you've all been waiting for and that will come as SUCH a surprise is that......

It's a GIRL!!!! :)

We are very excited.

Christmas Tea Party

Maddi by default had a good group of friends her age there as well!

Mia needed a little excuse to have a get-together with the girls in her primary class so we threw a Christmas Tea Party. We invited all the girls in Mia's primary class along with their sisters and a few other friends of ours. I think we had 21 girls total! We decorated gingerbread houses (Best Tip I received: Glue Gun them together instead of using frosting...it worked so great and was so much faster to prepare ahead of time!), ate dinner, made ornaments, sang Karaoke to Christmas Songs (I think this was their favorite part), and did a Gift Exchange.

Christmas Ornaments

Ella's ornament was an Elephant because she has discovered "her" letter. Aka the letter "E". She is familiar with "Zoo-Phonics" where you learn a letter sound in connection with an animal and for letter "E" it's "Elly Elephant says Eh-Eh" so she anytime she sees an "E" anywhere she yells, "There's Eh-Eh Elephant!!!"

Maddi's ornament was Ballet Slippers because she started her first Dance Class this past year and just loves it!

Mia's ornament was a set of little dolls, because she has been working hard this year to earn money to get an American Girl doll.

Rudolph the Red Nose....Girl???

Can you Spot Rudolph??

One of my favorite things about Thanksgiving is the DAY AFTER. :) I AM a Blackfriday shopper (although, it has gotten less enticing the last few years...Midnight shopping doesn't appeal as much to me, and I've realized that most of the things I want to buy are still around if I go at a decent time in the morning!), but even more than that I love kicking off the Christmas Season by setting up all our decorations! Especially living in a place where the seasons don't give you a good gauge for what time of year it is, I feel even more need to work at reminding us. :) After getting the Christmas Lights up we had a visit from Rudolph. Mia was so excited about this light-up nose she bought for herself and was kind enough to let Maddi and Ella give it a try too.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was wonderful as always this year. It was fun to get together with the Henries and reinstitute our Indiana tradition. :)

Our Candy Turkeys.

Got the idea from one of my favorite websites these days, www.ourbestbites.com.

Our Thankful Tree. The Girls were pretty sad when I told them we would be throwing this beauty away to make room for Christmas Decor but taking a picture seemed to appease them. :)

Ella Moments

Just being Silly

Ella and her little buddy Brian. We took a trip to the zoo with our friends and at one point we turned around to see Brian and Ella toddling behind us just holding hands like this. Pretty Cute. :)

Family Service Project Craft Fair

Last year Lance's family decided to do service projects instead of giving gifts to each other and we decided to continue the tradition by seeking out a family service project for our family to help out with this year. We decided to help out with a Craft Fair that a friend from church was putting on with all the proceeds going to a Battered Women's Shelter in our area. I made little girls Aprons and Hair Bows to sell. The girls helped out by being my models, being patient while I sewed, and Mia even helped me make a few hair bows. We passed out flier's for our friend to get the word out, and the day of the Craft Fair Lance helped with the set up and take down, helped me a tie a few bows that required two sets of hands, and put up with our house in constant state of "Crafting Bliss" for a good couple weeks. So everyone had a part. :) It was a fun thing to be a part of and the Craft Fair raised close to $2000 dollars for the Battered Women's Shelter.