Topsy Turvy Pictures

Seriously, all in one night...

Hmm, what should we do first?

Beach party! Snorkling!

 Coloring with our feet!

 Happy New Year!

 Taking Izzy, the cat, for a walk.

 Easter egg hunt!

 Mardi Gras!

 With inside out clothes.

 I can't believe they slept, too!

 Horsey rides.

 Fourth of July!

 Relaxing for two minutes.

 Frozen hot chocolate!

I'm tired just looking at the pictures!

Alinas topsy-turvy holiday sleepover

Over the weekend my nanny, Alina, let us sleep over at her house for a topsy-turvy holiday sleepover! It was so much fun! We had to do everything backwards, opposite, and upsidedown.

 We celabrated Easter, Valentines day, Thanksgiving, Kwanza, New Years, April Fools Day, we even celabrated Martygraugh! For Easter, we had an Easter egg hunt on the huge and deep hills we found behind a huge hill we climbed. For Valentines day, we decorated a heart shape box filled with brownies and fake rose petals and then we gave it to our mom and dad. For Thanksgiving, we decorated a huge card and then gave that to our mom and dad also. For Kwanza, we threw balls at long, fake candles. For Martygraugh, we had a big parade. So we put on necklaces and hats and played instruments and had a big parade.For New Years, at 12:00 pm (noon), we had kids wine, and had a New Years lunch. And finally for April Fools, we tricked our mom and dad. We also swam in a pool! And me and Nolan, had a fun fight about who looked better in their Hawiian clothes. We also had carmel corn, smoothies and hot chocolate popsicles. That was fun! Izzy, her cat was fun also!

This one time when we were there, we all went to Perkins in our pajamas!!! Now that, was a blast!!!! So after that we watched Alinas favorite Peter Pan movies. we were all trying to stay up till midnight, but that didnt work!

At Alinas topsy-turvy holiday sleepover, I had a fun time, and had a blast! I will never forget it!!!!!

Not even a mouse

Today I had the day off of work. That is fairly unremarkable, except... As a Christmas present, Alina took the kids to her house for a topsy-turvy sleepover (which I will let Abby write about later). I think the gift was for the kids, but it was one of the best Christmas gifts I got! She took them yesterday, so Dave and I went to dinner last night, just the two of us. I am fairly certain that hasn't happened since November last year. We went to what looked like a great steak place but, while the food was really good, the ambiance was more supper club than fine dining. We were the youngest patrons by far, but got our own dining room, and it made for good conversation. I think we stuck out like sore thumbs, especially when Dave asked for the list of their single malt scotches, but it was still very nice, as was the trip to Barnes and Nobles and the dessert stop afterwards.

This morning Dave went to work... And I slept. Until 8:10 that is, when Dave called to ask a question. He had a real question, but I think he just wanted to know if I was still sleeping. I was. But, since I was interrupted, I grabbed my book and hopped into the bathtub. For a few hours. Heaven!

From there I broke my resolve and did some work, but it was nice to get a lot done, uninterrupted, even if it was work. When the kids came home around 3:15, I was ready to hear all about their crazy sleepover (where they did more in one day than I have done with them in one year!), get Abby ready and drop her off at volleyball practice. I am now planted at McDonald's with the iPad (merry Christmas to the kids... And me!), studying for a certification exam at the end of January and updating the blog.

This weekend is more Christmas, a new years party, and relaxing, relaxing, relaxing. Now that is starting 2012 off right!

The newest members of our family

Meet Sukey and Black Pearl, who joined our family yesterday!

 Black Pearl is the dark one on the right, Sukey the light one on the left.

They are both girls and the kids LOVE them. The boys picked out one (Black Pearl) and the girls picked out one (Sukey). They wanted to watch the movie G-Force (which has guinea pigs, for those of you not schooled in kid movies.  

They are all in agreement that it's their favorite Christmas present this year!

A reminder for me...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! Abby was working hard down in the basement, and came up with this. It was a good reminder...

Here she is posing, but it's easier to read (I hope!) down below...

Wishing everyone a happy, healthy and blessed Christmas!

A little Christmas spirit afterall

I still wouldn't confess to being all Christmas happy or anything, and I really still can't believe that Christmas is only a couple of days away, but, tonight really went a long way to me finding my way back to the Christmas spirit. We had our first ever employee appreciation dinner (meaning, Alina stayed for dinner!) and we had a great time. We gave her a gift (a boring gift card) and Abby gave her a really great book she made, telling her why she loved having her as a Nanny, which made us all cry!

Then, we opened our gift from Alina, which were super cute:

 I mean, how adorable is this??

 And Max and Ava (with Alina's help) made us Diet Coke and Heineken ornaments. Hmmm, after just a few weeks, I think she knows us pretty well!

 And she and the kids made adorable hats. I had hoped them laying down would get a good picture of them, but I'm not so sure...

 You can see it much better this way...

 They also put on the Super Christmas Spectacular, where they sang, we sang, they danced, told jokes. There was even a program! Too cute.

I needed a little Christmas, right this very minute... and I'm so glad I got it!

A New Kind of Christmas Party

This year my Christmas party at work was changed up some. In years past, it was Santa and presents, with sit-down dinner and open bar, with formal clothes, with kids, with crafts. A whole lot of craziness. This year, we took over Winter Fest, at the Frontier Airlines Center downtown. It was perfect for the kids! They still got to see Santa and still got the presents. The crafts were gone (less stuff to carry around!), but in it's place were all kinds of activities... ice skating, bounce houses, bungee rope things, mini golf, rock climbing and a huge movie screen playing Polar Express. It was really quite cool, and much better for the kids than a sit down dinner. There was also still an open bar, and a buffet lunch, and Santa. All the great things from the old party mixed in with the new!

Ava even got in on the action...

If you're sick of laundry...

There's so many better uses for laundry baskets than actual laundry!!

The Amazing Race

Awhile back, one of Abby's friends, Holly, had an Amazing Race birthday party. They had to do various things, and one of those things was tell your driver how to get to the grocery store, buy ingredients for pancakes, and then come back to our house to make them and feed them to two members of your team. There were four groups of girls, and it was hilarious to watch them try to make pancakes. It didn't help that, with four griddles going at the same time, we kept blowing fuses! In the end, Abby's team was the only one who actually ate the pancakes (my daughter, who won't eat anything, eating parially done pancakes... yuck!). The other teams all ate partially warmed up in the microwave toaster waffles. Yum! (Bleah.) The party was great, and the girls had a ton of fun. But the truly amazing part was... how could 12 girls, in a matter of 15 minutes, make a mess that takes an hour to clean?? That's a talent that only they possess!!

Dave's, er, Abby's Indian Village

Abby had a project for school to create a Wisconsin Indian Village. I'm not sure who was more excited to do the project... Dave or Abby! I must admit, it turned out very nice, and Dave even let Abby help with some of it! :)

 A close-up of the wigwam (no teepee for the Wisconsin Indians!), the fire and spit with fish and beef roasting, the trees with cinammon stick trunks and the canoe used for harvesting rice.

And the river, the rocks with Indian markings, and the garden ready for harvesting with fall vegetables.

Good job, Dave Abby!

Santa's Helpers

They're always so eager to get out the Christmas decorations and help get the house ready. Even though we decorated weeks ago, I'm just now finally starting to find some Christmas spirit. These guys and their own Christmas spirit certainly help, as do the Christmas concerts and projects that are going on around here on a regular basis!

Pretty Pictures

I took the kids to get their pictures taken when I was home with them before Thanksgiving. Ava was all smiles before the lady wanted her to smile, but of course totally wouldn't do anything she asked once the camera was in front of her. Ugh! It's not easy getting all four of them smiling and looking at the camera at the same time!