Gingerbread Village

I bought this little gingerbread village for the girls to make. They had fun each making their own little house. Here they are pointing to the one they made:

Chloe loves this little reindeer set we got. The nose lights up too. Like a flashlight!

Piano Christmas Recital 2011

The girls had their piano recital this past weekend. Izzy played The Grumpy Troll, Birch Canoe, and Jingle Bell Boogie. Lily played Young Hunter and Jingle Bells. They did great! I also got a picture of them with their teacher, Tanis. She has been really good with the girls.

In the picture here you can see Tanis' baby, Zoe. While Tanis taught the girls I would take care of her girls, including baby Zoe. She became my little friend, and would be really happy to see me at church and other places. Tanis said she would sometimes start crying and get upset when she had to go back to her mom, and leave me. Olivia really loved having her come over to play. Zoe is so cute and adorable!

Here is Isabelle's Jingle Bell Boogie:




Here is Lily's Jingle Bells:

Christmas Concerts 2011

Izzy got to do her school Christmas Concert at Sounthcenter Mall this year! They also went up to the airport and performed. It was a fun outing to go watch her.





Lily also did a great job at her school concert. We didn't get a chance to get it on video, but she also did a short piece where she got to play the xylophone. She had fun with that.

Family Photos 2011

I got this Groupon coupon way back in the spring for this photographer called Life By Kismet to take photos of us at about 90% off. So for $25, we got $750 worth of work done. It was fun, and we used these on our Christmas card. He did a good job with the kids who can be really hard to take pictures of.

I ordered some Christmas cards off a site called Snapfish. The day I did it they had a deal where you buy one set and get one set free. So I got two sets of Christmas cards. When they arrived, the one set had Ben's head cut off on all of them, and they pointed out to me that it was actually my fault because I didn't put the photo in the "safety zone." Anyway, they still said they wanted to reimburse me for the set, even though it was my fault, and even though I got the buy-one-get-one-free deal. So, I got our Christmas cards for free in the end! I ended up only using the one set anyway. Snapfish is great and their customer service is really good! I highly recommend them.

So here they are, enjoy!

The Christmas season is here....

We got the tree up and decorated....

Izzy made this little home made Nativity set out of rocks (for the people and characters) and a shoebox. Chloe and Lily helped decorate it and color it. I remember doing something similar with my older brothers when I was little.

Here they are in front of it all decorated. This was the night before we went to our Stake Choir festival. The girls were asked with other girls to sing a little part in the beginning. They have been working on memorizing the song, "Stars Were Gleaming." They did a great job. During one rehearsal, Olivia started singing along too, and she knew all the words and tune too. It was really cute, and our choir director was very impressed! Her nursery leader told me that she loves singing all of the songs in nursery. She always participates and does a great job.

We've had fun baking too. These are some Peanut Butter Reindeer cookies Chloe, Olivia and I made:

That night for FHE, we went tobogganing just at the playground by our house. We made a hill that made us slide right onto the road. Don't worry it was not a busy road at all. We then came home and decorated gingerbread cookies. Olivia called them,"Ginger Man cookies."

She mostly liked sucking the icing tube:

Odds and Sodds

Winter is upon us now, there is more snow than in this photo. The girls are having fun shoveling, and playing in it though. They even made a couple snowmen yesterday.

Chloe and I made up this grocery list where we drew a picture of what we needed and she would check it off when we put it in the cart. It was fun for her and she didn't ask for one thing that was not on the list! If there was something I wanted to get that I forgot to put on the list, she would say, "but Mom it isn't on the list we CAN'T get it!"

We started a new scripture study routine in our house, where we challenged the girls to read their scriptures everyday for at least 3 min. We bought them all little kitchen timers to time themselves. They are having fun with it. Here is a picture of Lily doing it one day, immediately after school, right when she got home:

I found this unopened cucumber in my bedroom, with little bite marks in it. I wonder who did that? OLIVIA!!!!! I just hope she didn't swallow any of that plastic!

Izzy and Lily Play Basketball

Well so far they love it! These pictures are not the greatest, they were taken with the iPhone, in poor light, and the girls were running around in them. But you can get the general idea that they are having fun! Go White Go!