Sad Goodbyes

For those of you who pray.... Please pray for my stepfather and his family as they say goodbye to these three beautiful girls and their mother. It's a very sad time.

Ashlyn's Bakery

Santa brought Ashlyn an Easy Bake, a cupcake set, and an ice cream sandwich maker. We had so much fun playing with them. And she looked pretty darn cute in her chef's hat and apron.

puppy love

Every now and again the kids seem to really like the dog. Usually it's when someone is grounded from the tv and video games. Luckily Ariel doesn't care

Happy Birthday Ashlyn

Today Ashlyn had her 5th birthday party. We had about 18 kids in the house! It wasn't bad at all though. The kids played well and things went smoothly.

Her favorite part of the day....playing tag in the yard. It's always the simple things that they are the most impressed with.

Christmas

Our house could pass for a toy store now. My kids got so many gifts that it is really obscene. Ashlyn's favorite gift was Khi-lan (or however you spell that) doll that talks and moves. Santa brought that one for her. Braden's favorite gift of the night was Tech Deck Dudes. He has asked for them for two years and finally he got some. Mike's grandmother got him a big playset and Mike's parents got him 3 or 4 dudes to play with it and then Santa brought 2 more dudes. I think he has around 13 of them now.

My favorite gift that Braden received was Superhero Chutes and Ladders. We have played that silly game over and over again. My favortie gift that Ashlyn received was her Tinker Bell sweat suit becuase it's cold here this week!

Hope everyone had a merry merry merry Christmas.

All Plugged Up.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Traditions

We have a few family traditions that we look forward to every year. One is going to Macy's and mailing our letters to Santa. Another is picking out our stocking ornaments. Every year we buy a new ornament for our tree. We started doing it a few years ago because if I picked out all the ornaments we would have a tree full of red balls and clay Santas.

Ashlyn, in true princess fashion, picked an Ariel the Little Mermaid snow glob ornament for her stocking.

Big surprise that I picked another clay Santa for my stocking ornament.

Last year Mike's cousin bought him this LT ornament. So he was very happy to use it this year on his stocking.

We wanted to get a dog or puppy ornament for Ariel's stocking but the two stores we went to didn't have any. Of course now I see them everywhere. So the kids settled with a reindeer to decorate her stocking.

Braden has quite the nutcracker collection going. We already have a couple ornaments on the tree and he has his nutcrackers in his room year around. This years nutcracker is covered with glitter. It looks pretty at night when the Christmas lights shine on it.

Another Christmas tradition for us is gingerbread ornaments. They are super easy to make. The dough is made of applesauce, ground cinnamon, and a tiny touch of good ole' fashion white glue. Super simple and the kids love lOVE LOVE making it. I pour all the stuff in the ziplock bag and let them mush it around until a ball of yummy smelling dough forms.