Trimmin’ the Tree

These pictures are a little out of date by now…we decorated the tree the night we got back after Thanksgiving. 

It was Peanut’s first year to help decorate and she was quite happy to pull anything and everything out of the boxes.  Luckily she got distracted pretty quickly by the string of red beads and dragged them all about.

I couldn’t find the little Santa hat I bought for her last year so she was swimming in a big one, but she still looked pretty darn cute!

Bug and Boo did such a great job decorating this year!  They were very focused and went back and forth from the box to the tree.  They did almost the entire thing by themselves.  I think I only put on two ornaments!

Happy girl!  Her face is changing as she grows!  She’s already losing some of the chubby on her cheeks. :)

Buggy is looking so tall and grown-up to me these days.  It’s hard to believe she’ll be 7 this coming year!

Everyone’s favorite part…the star!

I remembered to get a picture of the craft we did at Thanksgiving.  Here is one side…

and if you flip it around….

Thanks for the fun idea Auntie Nae!

I don’t know how Daddy is going to hold up all three of them to put on the star next year!  Maybe we’ll have to start taking turns. :)

We’d had a wrapped present on the piano for over a week that said, “Open on December 1st” and it was killing the girls to wait.  They were so excited when we got home and they realized it was Dec. 1st!  It was their Lego advent calendar which they’ve been enjoying each night before bed. 

This was hilarious.  I went to take a picture and right when I snapped it Peanut pulled Boo’s hat off.  Bug thought it was HILARIOUS!  Boo was irritated-ly amused. Haha :)

The finished product. Notice it is in the corner, boxed in by the couches.  That was to keep little fingers from pulling every ornament off the tree.  It’s working very well so far!

No broken ornaments, no crying, no big clumps of ornaments…I’d say it was a pretty successful tree decorating this year! 

Wordless Wednesday–Lottiepunzel

Candy and Sledding

We woke up on Friday and had a lazy morning of getting ready and watching TV.  That’s one of the things they love about hotels…TV in the morning.  At home they only watch 30-45 minutes of TV a day and it’s always at 4:00pm. :)  After watching Curious George and the Cat and the Hat we went down and had the continental breakfast. 

We had seen a sign for a candy factory tour so I called and found out they usually stop cooking around 11 so we headed over to the next town to see what it was all about.  It was just a short tour but it was fun to see the machines and workers making the candy.  We had to wear these oh-so-lovely hair nets.  Notice I don’t have any pictures of the adults. Haha :)

The girls LOVE the show How It’s Made, although they recently took it off of Netflix, so they were excited to see the process up-close.

It was really interesting, and the lady said that during their peak time June-September (so they can get the candy to stores to sell for Christmas) they make 8,000-10,000 pounds of candy a day!

And every piece is put into the boxes by hand!

Pretty cool.

We headed back to the shops to pick up a few things we hadn’t bought the day before and ran into our good friends, The P family, who were also visiting at the same time!  They had rented a condo since they were there for more than one night and they had some sleds.  The kids got to spend about half an hour sledding together and they LOVED it!

Whee!

I wasn’t doing a very good job taking pictures with my phone, but they had a blast.

They probably could have done this all day, but my fingers and toes had gone from numb to painful and they were starting to get wet pants from the snow.

One last double ride and it was time to get some lunch so we could head home.

We stopped at a little burger place that was next to all the shops and the food was amazing!  Everything was freshly made, and had great flavor.  We filled up the kiddos and then plopped them in the car for the ride home. 

Both Peanut and Boo slept for a good hour and half which made for a nice quiet ride.

What a fun little trip!  The only thing that could have made it any better was about 30 degrees, :) but other than that we had a WONDERFUL time!  Maybe we can go again next year!

Happy Birthday Noni!

Last week we all took two days off from our regular schedules and went on a mini-vacation for Noni’s 50th  birthday!  We’ve been having a very cold spell where we haven’t gotten about 20 since Thanksgiving!  Brr.  We woke up and did a little bit of schoolwork before Noni and Papa arrived and then we packed up the car and headed out.  I had to take a picture of one of our trees that looked so pretty.  It was what I call “slow-motion snowing”.  The flakes were coming down like someone pushed a  slow motion button.  It was so pretty!

Just a few miles outside of town we saw this big guy sitting in a tree!  It’s funny that we drove for an hour to see eagles the other day when he was sitting just a few miles from our house!

We had several hours in the car but the kiddos did great: reading, playing, and watching a show for the last 45 minutes.  I did some crocheting and finished Boo’s chickie hat so she wanted a picture. I made her one last year but it is already too small so she got another one.

Our destination was an adorable little town that is done completely in Bavarian architecture.  It’s amazing and so fun!  We’d been there before in the summer time, but in the winter, all decorated for Christmas it totally looked like Santa’s village! 

The main thing to do there is explore all the little shops lining the streets.  It was so cold we were all bundled to the hilt.  It actually was warmer there (in the 20-30 range than at home where our highs were 7-10 with a wind chill putting us in the negatives) Peanut was not too happy to be confined to the stroller in her marshmallow suit. :)

But she still gave me a cheese.  Now when she does this she actually says, “Cheeeee”

I had to take a picture of this fun outdoor restaurant.  It’s so cold that they have fire pits built into the picnic tables!  I had never seen that before, but it was so cold we decided that anywhere we ate needed to be enclosed and heated!

The town is tucked into the mountains and everything was so pretty and festive!  It was really fun to walk around shopping and seeing all the sights.

We had to get a picture to remember Noni’s special birthday!

We’d only had a snack for lunch so we had a really early dinner at a little place called Rudolf’s Pizza.  The food was really good and it felt nice to thaw out after being outside for a while!  Even with tights and two pairs of socks my toes were still freezing!

When we got done with dinner it was dark and all the lights were on.  It was GORGEOUS!  I think this town was the best light display I’ve ever seen!  These few pictures don’t do justice to the amazing amount of lights!

We went and parked at the other end of the shops and walked back towards the middle to hit all the ones we’d missed. 

Daddy and the girls found a fudge shop that they had to sample from, and we also found a store with tons of nuts. The cinnamon vanilla almonds were my favorite.

Such a beautiful Noni on her 50th birthday!

We found a Christmas shop that was so fun!  They had made a winter scene out of an old style TV.

The girls were thrilled with everything, especially the nativity section and this gingerbread house section.

Buggy was waving down to Peanut who was on the first floor, but didn’t know to look up.  She finally realized we were above her and started laughing.

We had to get a group shot with some of the lights. So pretty!

We headed back to the hotel to open presents after stopping at Ye Olde Starbucks (literally what was on the sign!) for hot chocolate. 

The girls made plates for Noni like they do every year. Next year Peanut can make some!

Speaking of Peanut.  She confiscated one of the presents and was unwrapping it piece by piece. :)

Aunt J, Aunt Karen, and Mama wanted to do something fun for Noni’s 50th so they came up with a wreath of 50 gift cards!  Looks like we have some shopping trips in our future!

She was so surprised!

Happy Birthday Noni!!!  We love you SO SO much and are so blessed to have you in our lives.  You make our world a better place!

More pictures tomorrow.

Homeschool Group

On Fridays our local homeschool group gets together at our church for games and a Science class.  Since we have our own Science class and I wasn’t sure how busy we would be with our own schoolwork we haven’t been attending.  I have since realized we have plenty of time for extra activities even with our own work so I decided to start taking the girls since they have a lot of friends who attend. 

I think they usually do more physical games but this particular week it was Pictionary.  Boo got a fishing pole and she actually did a really good job drawing it even though no one guessed it.

Peanut wanted her picture taken when she saw that I was taking pictures of her sisters.

She was hamming it up for the other moms who were oohing and ahhing over her. :)

I’m drawing a blank on what Bug drew, but she did a good job too.  She is becoming quite the little artist.

After the game it was time for the class.  One of the older girls actually taught it and did a great job!  They learned about birds and their migrating habits.

First up was a little show-and-tell though.  One of our friends’ boys had a black widow spider and it’s egg sack in a plastic jar.  Yuck! But very educational.

Peanut refused to take her morning nap so she was having a meltdown.  One of my friends said she would bring K home so I took the little ones and headed out, but K had a great time and we’re looking forward to future Fridays with the group!