December 2014

Just one of the many cute photos my mom took for our Christmas cards.  I'll post them all to Facebook later this week so stay tuned.  =)

December was a busy month....as always.  We started off with our choir/orchestra Christmas concert at church.  We also got to play some song with Aaron Shust...very cool and LOUD!!!!  The girls were in childcare since Nathan and I were playing.  Then we celebrated Hannah (and my mom's birthday), see previous blog post.

I had my dad pull down all my classroom books from the attic right after Thanksgiving.  Both girls are big enough now not to rip them.  They LOVE having new books to read.  I also found about 10 Christmas books that we enjoyed reading this month.  We also made several Christmas crafts, baked treats for our neighbors, drove around looking at Christmas lights. and sang Christmas carols while mommy played the piano.  So much fun to do those things with the girls!

We also continued our tradition of taking a picture in our jammies with Grammy's Christmas tree.  LOVE how these came out!!

The girls came with us to the Christmas Eve church service again and were so good.  Hannah sat very quiet and still which is great since she'll start coming to "big church" in August once school starts.  And Abigail was much less wiggly than last year.  We love having them with us and they enjoy singing carols and watching the few musicians play their instruments.  During the children's story time they showed one of the cutest and sweetest videos I've ever seen.  Click here to check it out: http://vimeo.com/111114609

We spent Christmas day at my parents house.  We broke our IHOP breakfast tradition this year and made our own.  My mom made a sausage egg and cheese casserole and I made baked french toast (pioneer woman)....yummy!  We like to stretch out the gift opening process so we go around the room and watch each person open one present.  Hannah played "Santa" this year and passed out presents since she could read all the names.  She had lots of fun!  Both girls got a bike/trike this year along with helmets.  It was warm enough Christmas day they got to take them up to the school basketball court and try them out.  They enjoyed, but still need lots of practice.  I know they'll have lots of fun riding once it's warm again.  No bike pictures edited yet, but enjoy this cuteness instead.  =)  Thanks Grammy for the adorable matching Christmas outfits.



It was a great Christmas and we are thankful for our MANY blessings!

Happy Fifth Birthday Hannah

I can't believe Hannah is 5 already!  She acts grown up, but it still seems like she shouldn't be that big yet.  She had her check up on Monday and everything looks great. 50th percentile for both height and weight:
38.6 pounds
43 inches tall

This is Hannah's last monkey photo.  We decided once she starts school it will be too hard to take them.  So he's officially graduated.  A little sad, but it will be one less thing to try and plan each year.

We had a small family birthday celebration for Hannah and my mom (since her b-day is 4 days later). My sister's friend made the cake/cupcakes again this year.  We went with a Frozen theme, since it's both girls favorite movie.  Lots of fun!

November 2014

My cousin came to visit at the beginning of the month and we had such a good visit.  It had been over 3 years since we'd seen her...WAY TOO LONG!  She finally got to meet Abigail.  =)  We used that as an excuse to finally visit the new Children's Garden at the Dallas Arboretum.  It opened shortly after my mom fell and we just haven't made it out there.  It was REALLY neat.  The girls had a blast.

We took the girls out separately for about 5 minutes and were able to get 2 cute pictures of each of them.  YEAH!  They are so hard to photograph together that we are trying to remember to take them out alone.  And they always do better if it a short 5 - 10 minute mini session.  =-)




 

We enjoyed a quiet Thanksgiving at my parents house.  We cheated this year and ordered from La Madeleine.  YUMMY!  And since we didn't spend the day in the kitchen cooking we got to play at the school playground with the girls and finish up our Christmas card photo shoot.  It was a fun day and we LOVED spending time with family!

Most of our activities are winding down for the semester.  We have a few things at church the first week in December, but everything else it done.  Looking forward to spending time a home.  I hope to do some holiday baking and crafts with the girls!