On the third day of Christmas...

"On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me:

Three awesome pens,

Two "Turtle Doves," and 

A ticket to a movie that we could go see."

On the second day of Christmas...

"On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me:

Two "Turtle Doves," and 

A ticket to a movie that we could go see."

On the first day of Christmas...

 I like to do creative things for my husband for Christmas.  I thought about a gift for Christmas and settled on doing the 12 Days of Christmas for him.  I think it will be fun!  They have my own twist on words.  Stay tuned for the next 11 days to see what he ends up with.

"On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me:
A ticket to a movie that we could go see."

(On a side note, my mom thought it would be fun to do the 12 Days of Christmas in cookies for the girls.  Last night I made them sugar cookies...They are really small so I don't care if they eat one with breakfast.  They got the 1 this morning)

I blogged yesterday too, so don't forget to scroll down :)

Grandma's Little Helper

 Family tradition dictates that my mother makes popcorn balls to send in all the Christmas boxes to extended family.  They are a favorite!  This year, she had a little helper. 

 I think Kim was in charge of quality control.  She had to taste some to make sure it was good enough for everyone else to eat!

 Mom said I had to post this picture to show that Kim has a mathematical mind.  She likes to line things up just like her Grandma.  (Yes, my mother is the type of person who will sort her M&Ms by color and number before eating them.  Must be a math thing...)

In a blast from the past, my sister and I used to climb the door frames when we were kids.  Ringing in a new generation of wall climbing, this is now Taylor's favorite past time.  She's going to have some beefed out legs if she keeps it up!

 And in closing, just a cute candid shot of all three girls together.  We were having a minute of down time and they were all sitting together watching a cartoon and eating goldfish.

Thanksgiving

 Sorry for the delays in posting.  It seems that the blogger changed their policy over the last couple weeks and now I have to PAY to blog.  Kind of dumb if you ask me, but I like to do it.  I figure it is my picture/journal insurance so that if my house ever burns down, I will still have my favorite pictures.  Now I can go back to blogging as normal...

We did these trees for family home evening one night and the girls ran with it.  I had to post a picture because I think they turned out so cute.  These are Taylor and Kadie's Thankful Trees.  We punched out a bunch of leaves and they wrote things they were thankful for on the leaves.  Each time they thought of something they were thankful for, they would run and grab a leaf and write it down.

We went to Star Valley for Thanksgiving.  (We got to bring my mother along.  She hadn't been to the Valley in a very long time.) It was quite the trip.  We saw two bald eagles, 5 moose (one on the road in front of us but we had plenty of time to stop), lots of deer, a few swans, and like 100 ducks.

This is the view out my father-in-law's front door.  Love it:

Some of the 100 ducks.  These were in Jackson Hole along the river.  They lined the bank for quite a ways.  Lee tried to scare them so they would all fly away at the same time but no luck:

As tradition dictates, we ate Thanksgiving at Grandpa and Grandma Andersen's house.  Kim is all plated up and ready to eat.  The food was delicious and I made yummy frosted pumpkin bars for dessert.

Lee's little brother Kevin stopped by with his girlfriend.  She is super awesome.  She can do the rubik cube in less than a minute!  I don't know anyone else who can even attempt to do one.

Dishing up with Grandma and Grandpa:

We got to tour Grandma Jane's new school up in Afton.  She let the girls use some of her Ipads and they had a blast.  This is what we could find them doing most of the time:

Lee's other little brother, Nolan, was also there for Thanksgiving.  We had a lot of fun getting to know him better since we haven't seen him much the past few years.  He was good with the girls and they had fun playing with their uncle.  Nolan and Lee took advantage of the time together and did some hiking:

We also got to spend some time with Grandpa 'Cows' as the girls call him since he is surrounded by cows from Uncle Ron's dairy farm.  The girls really enjoyed their Grandma Laurie and would grab her for games whenever they could.  They played hide-and-seek and their personal favorite, Hi-Ho Cherry O:

Kim wanted to try on Grandpa's Boots:

Kim tried to get involved in the game playing, but her older sisters didn't want her to eat the game pieces and she would follow them and point them out during hide-and-seek.  This is a shirt she got from Grandma Jane.  She wouldn't take it off for anything and cried when we finally took it off to wash:

Hang Onto Your Hat!

 Kim REALLY wanted to sit in this box so we let her.  It looks like such a big box from this perspective:

 Until she stands up:

 As my sister always says "Why do we even buy toys?  They always like the box better."

 Speaking of cheap entertainment, it's amazing how a little paint and a 97 cent wooden butterfly can entertain for hours...

 This is artwork that Taylor brought home from school.  She was drawing happy and sad.  She told us that this was a picture of daddy and mommy (no one knows why she drew Lee with earrings...)  I LOVE how she spelled awesome!

Is anyone else just totally shocked at how fast the year has gone by?  I titled my post hang onto your hat because I have a feeling the rest of the year is going to just zoom by.  We have traveling for Thanksgiving, Kim's birthday, Christmas and an Anniversary all before the end of the year.  I guess we better not blink!

Halloween 2012

The Barbies needed costumes too...what you get when you have a artistic daddy and cups nearby... 

 The week of Halloween was a crazy one.  We started out the Halloween celebrations by going to the girls' dance party.  For this party they decided to go as Brave:

 And a Witch:

 We were supposed to go to a church Halloween party but none of the girls were feeling well and Kim had a HORRIBLE diaper rash that wouldn't let her sit down.  Needless to say, we passed up that party.  After everyone was feeling better, we mixed up a batch of sugar cookies.  Nothing beats my Grandma's sugar cookie recipe.  Add in 101 cookie cutters for all occasions and your guaranteed a awesome treat!

 Tuesday, Taylor had her 2nd grade music program.  The songs were Halloween themed and all the kids wore costumes...she decided to wear her brave costume again.  She did such a good job.  Kadie sat on the floor in front of our chairs to watch, and Kim had to be just like her so she did too.  They sat really good for the program.

 Earlier in the week, Taylor's class had the chance to sing a few of the Halloween songs on the local radio station!  Here they are singing one of their songs:

 Since we missed the church trunk-or-treat, we promised the kids we would do the down town trick-or-treat.  They block off the main street and the businesses hand out candy.  We ended up with a ghost, a fairy, and a princess for this occasion.  Kim enjoyed the whole experience and was really good at asking for treats and holding up her bucket.

 Halloween was also Lee's birthday.  Happy Birthday Honey!  He had the pleasure of sitting outside our business and handing out over 1000 pieces of candy to the down town trick-or-treaters while my mom and I took the girls around.  (It's quite the town affair.)  Taylor hopped in front of the picture I was taking of him.  You can see part of our business behind Lee.