Christmas Day

Christmas day was a whirlwind of excitement in our house.

Santa has arrived:



The kids woke up around 7:15 and couldn't wait to come downstairs to see what Santa had left them. This is how Chase came down the stairs:


Chase and McKenna in front of the tree in their cute matching jammies. They were so anxious to rip into all those present, but they were able to pose for ONE picture first!:


McKenna's favorite gifts were her 5 new webkinz, her Nintendo DS and her IPod. She had present opening down to a science this year. She opened and passed out the presents:


Chase was so funny opening his presents. He'd unwrap something and then ask Jason or I to open it for him. He wanted everything opened before he'd go onto the next present. Fortunately, we talked him out of it, otherwise he'd still be opening gifts! His favorite gifts were his pop a shot basketball game, leapster and all of his car, tow trucks, helicoptors...etc.



Jason and I were the last to open our gifts.

Jason was extremely confused by his gifts...

First he opened 2 toy airplanes:


Then he opened his next gift...a subscription to an airplane/pilot magazine and some pamphlets from our local airport...wrapped lovingly of course in a pink Gymboree box!



Any guesses as to what he got???? He was still completely confused at this point, so we gave him his last box. It was a big box, but when he opened it all he found inside was a tiny gift bag with a piece of paper inside: (Oh, and be sure to check out the look of complete and udder confusion on his face in the 2nd picture!)



Finally, he read the paper and figured it out! The kids and I got him a gift certificate for a 1 hour flight lesson! How cool is that???


He can use this as his first lesson toward earning his private pilot's lisence if he wants to get it or he can just have one lesson for fun. The instructor will take him up in the plane, show him how to use the controls and then let him take over as much as he can. We'll get to watch him take off, they hurry home to watch him circle over our house and then back to the airport to watch him land!

Oh, and he also got jeans, a shirt, i-tunes giftcard and a starbucks gift card.

Sorry, but there are absolutley no pictures of me on Christmas morning! However,in case you'd like to know what I got...Jason and the kids got me a beautiful Troll Bead Bracelet with 2 silver beads (an m and a c) and 2 glass beads. Here's the website if you'd like to see what they are: http://trollbeads.com/site/trollbeads/
They also got me a beautiful,custom painted platter that has the kid's handprints on it:



plus a few other odds and ends.

Then we cleaned everything up as best we could, ate breakfast, got dressed and then had about 30 of our familiy member over for Christmas Dinner! (pictures of that will be posted soon!)
It was a busy day, but we wouldn't have had it any other way!

Edited to add links to the beads that I got for Christmas:
Silver M for McKenna: http://trollbeads.com/site/trollbeads_usd/visprodukt.asp?id=3547
Silver C for Chase: http://trollbeads.com/site/trollbeads_usd/visprodukt.asp?id=3538

turquoise armadillo glass bead: http://trollbeads.com/site/trollbeads_usd/visprodukt.asp?id=2390

china glass bead: http://trollbeads.com/site/trollbeads_usd/visprodukt.asp?id=2415

with this bracelet: http://trollbeads.com/site/trollbeads_usd/visprodukt.asp?id=2291

and this clasp: http://trollbeads.com/site/trollbeads_usd/visprodukt.asp?id=1478

Christmas Update - part 1

I really can't believe that Christmas has come and gone already! We had one BUSY week!

Saturday we had a big family party with a bunch of extented reletives from Jason's side of the family. McKenna and Chase had a blast playing with their cousins:

Me with my babies: (this is Chase's favorite way to smile lately!)


My beautiful girl:



Eating with cousins:


Watching The Wizard of Oz on Mimi and Papa's big bed:


Sunday, we hung out at home and did some last minute wrapping, baking...etc.:

My handsome, blue-eyed boy:


Snuggling on the couch with daddy:



Fun in the water: (this is how I keep him entertained when I have work to do in the kitchen!)


Monday we went back to Mimi's and Papa's house for a smaller party with Jason's brothers, our sister in laws and cousins so that the kids could exchange gifts...unfortunatly, I forgot my camera!

Tuesday we had a party with Jason's mom, stepdad, brothers and cousins. This was round 2 of present opening for the kids!

McKenna with Grandma Kim:


McKenna and Chase with Baboo:




Where's Chase?:




McKenna, Chase, Kyerstin and Kya getting ready to open presents!:



On Wednesday we had a get-together at our house with my mom, Jim, Amanda and Jared. We opened presents, decorated sugar cookies for Santa and put reindeer food out in our yard:





Okay, that's a lot of pictures! Christmas Day pictures are coming soon, check back!

Merry Christmas!

We decided at the last minute to get a family portrait taken for 2 reasons. The first being that we all have nice matching Christmas outfits and the 2nd is due to the fact that our last professional family photo was taken when McKenna was 9 months old...how sad is that???

These are our 2 favorites, the first is the one we got to go in the frame on our wall:





We got this pic of the kids to put in our upstairs hallway. The one we got is in black and white and has a black "mist" around the edges of the pic:



We also got individual photos of the kids. It was really hard to pick, but in the end we choose these because McKenna has a good smile (something really hard to come by when taking her pictures these days!) and Chase's blue eyes really stand out against the black background:(this doesn't do these pictures justice, they are so much better in person!)

A Flea On Santa's Tree

McKenna was in her very first play this week. Her kindergarten class performed a play called A Flea on Santa's Tree. McKenna played the part of the lead elf.

The play was basically a fun story of how we came to put angels on top of our Christmas Trees.

McKenna had the opening lines of the play:
"T'was Christmas Eve
and Santa's tree was naked
at the top.
He did his best
to make it nice
but then he had to stop."

All 5 elves said the following lines together after each thing tried to be the top of the tree:
"Thank you but no,
you're not quite right
for now you just won't do.
There's more in line
so please step down
don't call us, we'll call you!"

Then she also had the ending line after Santa picked the angel to top his tree:
"T'was Christmas Eve
and Santa's tree looked great
and now you know

then everyone said,
"That's how the angel got up there
so now you all can go!"

They did a rehearsal the day before they performed the play. That afternoon, McKenna's teacher came into my classroom and told me that McKenna was the "star of the show" she said that she did awesome with her parts, expecially with expression in her voice and hand gestures.

They first performed the play for the older kids in our school 3rd - 6th graders. I got to go in and take pictures because my class was in the library. It went really well...I was really impressed to see how well McKenna did. Her teacher was right, she did an awesome job and definitely had the best expression of anyone in her class.

For the 2nd performance the parents were invited to come watch as well as the 1st and 2nd grade classes. Another teacher sat with my class so I got to sit with Jason, Grandma Brenda and Mimi...I taped it this time. McKenna...oh my word...she got up there and did her opening lines even better than she did the first time. Then she turned around to walk back behind the table, completely lost her footing and fell right on her butt! The audience let out an audible gasp...LOL! Gotta love my girl though, she stood right up and went right to the table to work on the toys like she was supposed to...even looked down at us and gave us a big smile! She preceeded to say her lines and do everything she was supposed to do. She was even more animated with her hand gestures than she was during the first play. It was really adorable!!

I asked her later on if it hurt when she fell and she said no, then I asked if it hurt her feelings and she said no. She told Jason later on that night that she thought she did really well in the play except for when she fell. He told her that he didn't think anyone really noticed because they were looking at the kids who were coming to say their lines at the top of the christmas tree...maybe they were, who knows. LOL!

It must not have bothered her too much because now she says she wants to be in more plays. She was really sad that she wasn't going to be doing her kindergarten play anymore. So, over Christmas Break I'm going to look into some local places that offer acting/plays...etc. for little kids.

Here are some pictures: (for some reason the pictures are in the opposite order of what they should be...I don't feel like fixing them!) You can click on them to make the pictures bigger.

After the play: (McKenna was saying, No more pictures!)


McKenna was saying, "Don't call us, we'll call you!"

McKenna saying her first lines of the play:

The cutest little elf ever: (and if you look closely over her right shoulder you can see the cutest little reindeer ever!)

Budding Author

This is going to be a bragging mommy post, so stop now if you don't want to hear me gushing over my little princess!

I am so proud of McKenna. Academics have always been a huge deal to me...guess that's why I became a teacher! I've always loved to read and as a kid I loved school and learning and everything associated with it! So it makes me beam with pride knowing that my little girls loves this stuff just as much as I did/do!

McKenna is top notch academically. She's reading (pretty much on her own) chapter books. Her favorites are the Junie B. Jones books and The Magic Treehouse series. Today McKenna's teacher (who is losing her voice) had McKenna read a book outloud to the class. She said she was so impressed with McKenna's fluency and expression.

Her teacher recently had McKenna start writing a journal at the beginning of the school day. This has really helped McKenna develop a love of writing. Her teacher has her use inventive spelling instead of worrying about whether or not everything is spelled correctly. I think before, McKenna was too much of a perfectionist and she didn't want to write because she didn't know how to spell all of the words and now she knows that it's okay to not spell everything right. Well, now there's no stopping her from writing. Today alone, she has written 3 stories - one in the car on her way to school this morning and the other 2 on her way home.

Here's one of her stories from this afternoon (I'm going to spell the words just as he has them written in her notebook):

there wontse woz a snwman hiz naeme woz Frostie the snwman he had a carit nowse and botine eys he oslso wor a hat and butinzs for the botinzes wale thate Frostie wos my frind he wos jole and fat and skine at the top he is sutch a gode snwman wal he woz so kuwt he woz the best frind on erth the end

No punctuation, but look at those details..pretty good for a kindergartner who isn't even 6 yet!

Here's what she wrote in case you were unable to decipher: There once was a snowman. His name was Frostie the Snowman. He had a carrot nose and buttin eyes. He also wore a hat and buttons for the buttons. Well, that Frostie was my friend. He was jolly and fat and skinny at the top. He is such a good snowman. Well he was so cute. He was the best friend on earth. The End

I really need to take the time to thank McKenna's teacher for all that she does to challenge her academically in the classroom! She is a big part of the reason why McKenna has grown so much as both a reader and writer in the few short months that she's been in school and she's also a big part of the reason why McKenna LOVES reading and writing so much! McKenna's 1st grade teacher will have big shoes to fill!

My Little Gymnast

...Betcha think I'm talking about McKenna, right? WRONG! During McKenna's cheer class there is a gymnastics class for 3 year olds. The coach is absolutely wonderful, she did McKenna's private lessons for tumbling over the summer. Chase knows her from this and always asks where she is when we are in the gym for McKenna's cheer class.

So, today I decide to let Chase try out the class. I really expected him to cling to me and not participate much, if at all. Boy was I wrong! He did absolutely AWESOME! He stayed with coach Diane the whole time and did everything she asked him to do. I sat off to the side just watching him, and I don't think he looked back at me at all! I was amazed! He talked about how much fun it was the whole way home!

We are signing him up for the class beginning in January.

Gingerbread Adventure

We were grocery shopping earlier today and as usual while Jason was at the Deli, the kids begged me to take them to the bakery to see the cakes and other goodies. On top of one of the counters they had a gingerbread house. The kids and I ohhhed and ahhhed over how cute it looked. As we turned around to leave, McKenna noticed that they were selling kits to make them at home. So of course, she and Chase got super excited about it and I had no choice but to buy one...oh, who am I kidding, I was just as excited as they were!

We no sooner got the groceries put away before they were begging to make the gingerbread house...we had to bribe them with it to get them to eat lunch first!

They were in awe when I opened up the box and they saw all of the little candies!

Here are a few pictures from our Gingerbread Adventure:

Getting started:


The house is put together and ready for decorating:


Decorating the roof...Chase ate more than he decorated - LOL!:




Finished! It may not be the prettiest gingerbread house ever created, but we sure did have a lot of fun making it!:




Now, could someone please tell me what we are supposed to do with it? Jason says we eat it (of course, the kids are siding with him!), but I say its just a decoration...any ideas? For those of you who make gingerbread houses, what do you do with it?

Jamfest 2008

McKenna had a cheer competition this morning. We had to leave the house at 6:45 which meant I got up at 5am and got McKenna up at 6am. Jason and Chase stayed home and slept in until 8:30! I really thought McKenna would be super grouchy while I got her ready (she really hates the hair!), but she did awesome!

Here are some pictures:

The Twinkle Team:


The Twinkles take the floor:


cheer/dance/tumble/stunt(for some reason I didn't get a picture of McKenna's stunt!):








Awards Ceremony:


Jammy!!!



First Place!!!



Time to head home: