A New Year

Here I go, getting all caught up again.  December was not the crazy month it usually is, and we enjoyed many fun activities.  When you live in the Pacific NW, you often have to get your Christmas tree in the rain . . .

  . . . and find one we did!  11 ft tall . . . thank goodness for a big car and vaulted ceilings at home. 

Meanwhile, when your children are bored, but creative, they find new ways to entertain themselves.

The elementary hosted another Math night - this one themed around cookies and decorations . . so of course they got to decorate a sugar cookie girl.  So fun!

Next came the gingerbread house making.  Some day, perhaps, I'll be brave/ adventurous enough to make my gingerbread from scratch, but for now, the kits are cheap and easy to assemble.

And the girls only needed minimal help from me.

Sophie was in a tap dance class through the city of Lacey's Park & Rec.  Her teacher arranged for the 6 little tappers to dance to "live music" as part of the American Legion's Christmas concert band.

 She did great and was thrilled that her Kindergarten teacher even came to see it :)

Meanwhile, my oven stopped working, due to an electrical short in the control panel.  So we were all excited to be invited to our friend's house to decorate sugar cookies before Christmas since we couldn't do it at home.

On our way home from church on Christmas Eve, it started to snow.  

And even though it didn't snow a lot, the girls managed to get enough together to make a snowman!

The week after Christmas, we hired a company to trim some of our oak trees out front.  I am so glad that is not my job!

But we all had fun sitting in our driveway watching the "tree monkeys" (as Sophie called them) do their job.  Pretty impressive!

The best present the girls got for Christmas was the swing set that Ken built for them - and he got it done on New Year's Day.  If it's not raining or dark outside, the girls are on the swing!

 45 only comes once and I celebrated my birthday over a few days with my friends and family.  A few of us went to the Painted Plate in Olympia - it was so much fun.

The finished product.

Ken and the girls got me a new USU t-shirt - go Aggies!

And because the girls didn't have school on Jan. 15, we decorated sugar cookies, since we didn't get to do them at Christmas.  I was without my oven for 3 weeks and I've never been happier to bake and bake and bake!

We celebrated as a family for my birthday by going out to eat.  The girls ate just as much sushi as Ken and I did!  Happy Birthday to me!