11th Wedding Anniversary

Ray and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary this past weekend. My gift to him was a surprise trip to the temple for a couple days for just the two of us. My Mom and my niece came up to take care of the girls and we met Ray at work Thursday afternoon. The best part was, he had NO idea she was coming, much less we would be going to D.C.! It was awesome!!

Grandma brought the girls to meet up with us Saturday afternoon and we took everyone to see the beautiful lights and nativity. It was magical... crowded, but magical!

 

Mom and Dad on our 11th Anniversary!

We took the girls back to the visitor's center Sunday morning after Grandma headed home to see all of the nativities that were set up and to see the statue of the Savior. They loved it!

 Touching the Temple.

Happy Anniversary, Babe!

Daddy's Work

My husband likes to bring a little holiday cheer to the people he works with by decorating the back (and front) of his ambulance with a bit of Christmas (and Hanukkah) decor. The girls and I love to go and visit him sometime during the holiday season to see his work. He never disappoints! Beautiful work, babe!

Abbie, after selecting her goodies from the tree.

The whole gang

Selecting goodies.

We love our Daddy-O!

Christmas Card Photo Shoot

We had SO much fun at a local park taking pictures for Christmas cards today! Our girls are so beautiful!

The Adventures of Zippy

I love the excitement Zippy brings into our home. The past 3 mornings have found Zippy into MUCH mischief.. and fun!

We found him playing Mommy's Kindle, eating banana bread drinking egg nog. Silly boy.

He came home Wednesday night and landed in the TREE!

Last night he swiped Daddy's candies and turned himself into a candle... crazy!

Christmas Tree Fun

We had SO much fun decorating our Christmas tree this past Saturday. We were not sure if our tree would make it one more year, but, decided to try to make it work with lots of lights and tinsel... the girls had no idea it is starting to look shabby, so it is working for us for now!

We have a couple of Christmas tree decorating traditions that we love. The first is eating our favorite snack foods while we decorate. This year we ended up with spinach artichoke dip, crackers, chips, mini wienies, salsa, refried beans, carrots, ranch dip and soda. So yummy and fun!

 Kayla trying on the tree skirt.. nice photo bomb Mel!

 Melissa tries on the tree skirt.

 Another tradition is drinking egg nog from some "fancy" glasses that Daddy and Mommy received as a wedding present. There are only four and they are from the "Princess House".. it works out well as Daddy has 4 princesses so the girls get the glasses and Daddy uses a "beverage" glass.

One tradition Mommy almost forgot about was taking a picture of the girls in front of the tree after it is decorated. She sent the girls up to shower and Kayla was already in the shower when she remembered... Yikes! Kayla was sweet enough to jump out of the shower and come downstairs to pose for a photo.. in her towel.

Merry Christmas!



Zippy Is Back!

We decorated our Christmas tree this past Saturday and woke on Sunday to find that Zippy, our Elf on the Shelf has returned to us! The girls were SO excited to see him! He brought with him a yummy breakfast from the North Pole... snow donuts and apples... the girls were in heaven!

 Zippy loved his donut..

 Mommy was hoping that Zippy had learned to NOT to be mischievous during his time away from us. We found out Monday morning that he had not. He was still up to his sneaky, silly ways. We found him drinking from the SYRUP container! (I need to get better at taking good pictures.. you can't even see the straw in this one.)

 This morning we found Zippy with a very startled looking Merida trying to escape the Barbie jeep... busted!

We are looking forward to a season full of mischief and fun with our buddy, the Elf on the Shelf.

Welcome Home, Zippy!



Merida... Errrr... Melissa

Which visiting Grandma and Poppa it was brought to Mom's attention that Melissa was a bit "behind" on learning some of life's more important skills. One of which is archery. Turns out, Melissa is a natural and ROCKED with that bow and arrow! After practicing for a while, Melissa looked her bow over and realized it was called "Brave 2"... named after her favorite movie, "Brave" about a princess named Merida who also LOVES to shoot a bow and arrows... it was meant to be!

My Little Pumpkins

We completely enjoyed visiting the pumpkin patch with our family while we were at Grandma and Poppa's house. It was SO fun!

Well, MOST of us had fun! Emma's face is the best ever!