If you know me....

you know that I am a little particular about my kids clothes and hair. Over break we have been taking it really easy, not doing too much! But when we do venture out, Allie has been making her own fashion statement! It should make for a nice battle when she heads back to school!!!

Riley....

Riley came home from the pet store with Kennel Cough.....lovely, I know! He was in the vet hospital for two days, he got to come home Christmas Eve day and is slowly but surely getting better! He is such a good puppy, already telling us when he needs to go outside! His spunk is coming out little by little, but for now he loves to sleep and cuddle with whoever will hold him!

And as for Max.....he loves Riley, we even caught him with his little paw around Riley taking a nap this morning. (I wasn't quick enought with my camera!)Here they are all dressed up for Christmas Eve!

Christmas Day

On Christmas Day the girls slept until 8am....I know a lot of you parents out there are really jealous right now! Santa had showed up sometime during the night, thank goodness! Kayla got exactly was she wished for, a Nintendo DS and Allie got her pink guitar she had been dreaming of!



We to my parents for a prime rib lunch and then headed to the bowling alley!

Christmas Eve

For Christmas Eve we took my parents, grandparents and brother to dinner at East Moon Hibachi.....as you can tell, it is one of our favs! Everyone really ejoyed it, my grandparents had never seen anything like it! Afterward, we came to our house for dessert and to open some presents! And the favorite presents of the night were....


Kayla and her American Girl Doll Samantha!!!


And Allie and her Swim to me Puppy!!!

Christmas Came Early!!!

So, we surprised the girls with a new puppy today for Christmas! I know, I know, it's early....but it's really hard to hide a living thing! They were so excited, they have been begging for months and we have been ignoring them! So, welcome Riley! He is a Yorkiepoo and is so darn cute. Him and Max have done good so far, Max is a little scared of the little ball of fur! We will keep you updated!

Kayla's Holiday Party!!!

And.....Kayla had her party this afternoon! She had an exciting one as well. She make a couple crafts, wrote a letter to us, had a visit from the Mayor of Fort Collins and his wife who read a story and a visit from Santa Clause! Talk about a busy day.....we are all ready for the break!

Allie's Christmas Party!!!

Allie had her Christmas pary this morning at school! It was a ton of fun and I must say Amy Jo and I did a fantastic job of planning, organizing and throwing a top notch party! They did a couple crafts, played a couple games and had a snack! The Christmas countdown if offically on at our house!

Christmas Caroling in the morning....

At school this morning they gathered outside to sing Christmas Carols and have hot cocoa! It was really cute and the kids loved it even though it was FREEZING!!!

Funny Story.....

Kayla and her best friend Lauren showed up to school today with the same outfit on! I had no idea until I picked them both up from school to come over and play! We just had to take a picture......


And this entry would not be complete without a picture of Allie and Cooper posing for the camera....

Family Celebration Night....

We had a family celebration with our friends, the Axes tonight! We started by going to The Nutcracker Ballet and then heading to dinner at East Moon Hibachi! It was such a good time! The guys thought we were torchering them by making them sit through a ballet, but we made up for it by having an incredible and entertaining dinner!

Christmas Cookie Extravaganza!!!

We went to Axe's last night to make Christmas cookies....we had a great time! The kids made some butter cookies with the cookie press and sugar cookies cut-outs and decorated them beautifully! Thanks Amy, Cooper, and Lauren for having us over...they are YUMMY!

Allie Joins Daisy Scouts

Allie started Daisy Scouts today! She is loving it so far! They wrote letters to Soldiers today and did a craft. They recieved their pin, that was place upside down until they do 3 good deeds to officially be a scout!

The Avery House at Christmas

Last night we went to the Avery House, a historical house in Fort Collins that was built in 1879. They decorate the house for Christmas with decorations from that time period. Everything there is authentic! They have a couple nights during December to go see the decorations and have story time for the kids. All the kids really enjoyed it!

Pioneer Day

It is Pioneer Day for the 2nd graders at Kayla's school today! They have an entire day filled with activites and the teachers are really excited to play the part!

Wrapping for Santa Cops

We had the opportunity to go wrap gifts for those in need in the Fort Collins area tonight. Larimer County law enforcement delivers presents in December to lots of families. They have a make-shift store set up with hundreds of gifts that have been donated,all the volunteers get a list of children, their ages, and what they would like or need. The kids were able to "go shopping" for the kids and we all did some wrapping. We went with the Axes and my mom also joined us! It was lots of fun and a great way to give back to our community and get into the holiday spirit at the same time!!!

Adopt a Solider

The entire second grade at Kayla's school has adopted a US Soldier to send care packages to for the holidays. The newspaper came yesterday to do a story about it! It has been a great project to teach the kids to think about others and do what they can to help out! You can click the Adopt a Soldier title to view the article.

Our First REAL Tree!!!

This sounds really silly....but this is the first year we have bought a real tree! We have an artificial one that we have always used, I think because we always had a cat.....but no more cat, so we went for the real thing this year. We had a few minor arguments over which one to pick but finally agreed on "the one!"