Winter Break

Dear Winter Break,

You never cease to amaze me with your delicious treats, much needed time with family, and your  ability to make time travel at warp speed (except when we're traveling, of course).  You will be missed dearly.

Until next year,
Heather



Laura helps Sam open a present on Christmas morning.

She's still helping.

Sam detests receiving help with present unwrapping.

Still crying about it.

Sam got a bin full of popcorn kernals. Good thing Santa brought a Roomba too!



Grandma and Laura attempted a gingerbread carousel. Total disaster!



Laura got a Sleeping Beauty dress!

 



We had the Boyd cousins over for a play day. We made snow paint.

After the  snow paint, we played in the real stuff.

I don't think Molly saw anything during the sledding adventure.

 

Homemade pizzas on New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve included Family Minute to Win It games. Laura is turning Daddy into a snowman.

I love this man.

Making snowmen with mini marshmallows.

Snowball toss.

It took Sam awhile to figure this one out.

Eventually he got it.



Visiting Santa

We went to the mall to see Santa. Sam was timid, Laura was not. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story. Merry Christmas!

Thankful

We've started a new tradition at our house, during the month of November we each write down one thing everyday that we are thankful for and add it to our Thankful Tree. Laura has taken this very seriously and makes sure we don't have any duplicated entries. She also helps Sam out with what she thinks he's thankful for and my favorite one she has thought of is lights (he's going through a phase of turning on and off lights). I recently came across this quote and think it's so accurate "It's not happy people who are thankful. It's thankful people who are happy."


I have finally had a minute to get the pictures off my camera and onto the computer. Enjoy the pictures from Halloween (Laura was princess and Sam was Evel Knievel), Sam's 2nd birthday, and Thanksgiving.

The Scape Goat

Laura's found her favorite excuse lately. She'll say, "I need to take my blanket downstairs because I miss GG and Papa." After making a poor choice she'll sob, "Well, I just miss GG and Papa!" as she heads toward her time out. My favorite is, "I need to watch another George. That will make me feel better about missing GG and Papa." Oh dear.

In other news, Laura still loves preschool. Her best friend is a boy named Hudson. I asked her what Hudson looks like and she said, "He looks like a prince. I think I'm going to marry him." I'm still trying to figure out who this handsome, future son-in-law is when I pick her up from preschool.

Fashionista

Laura said the funniest thing this morning. I'm wearing my gray dress with leggings today and this was our conversation.

 

Laura: Mom, when I'm a mom can I wear a dress like that?

Me: Of course you can.

Laura: Okay, where did you get it at?

 

 

Laura's 4th Birthday

Laura celebrated her 4th birthday with a Beauty and the Beast birthday party. One of the party highlights was our balloon popping game that contained a piece of paper with a letter on the inside (I'm a reading teacher, I can't help it). Once all the balloons were popped, the letters spelled:
                             G-e-t G-a-s-t-o-n! 
That's when we cued the music and Gaston made a surprise appearance at the party. I can still hear the children's squeals as Eric lip sang "Gaston" and was chased out of the house to be nailed with water balloons.

There's no man in town as admired as you
You're ev'ryone's favorite guy

 

Ev'ryone's awed and inspired by you
And it's not very hard to see why

No one's slick as Gaston
No one's quick as Gaston
No one's neck's as incredibly thick as Gaston's

 

For there's no man in town half as manly
Perfect, a pure paragon!
You can ask any Tom, Dick or Stanley
And they'll tell you whose team they prefer to be on

 

Between the drawn on cleft chin and construction paper collar, I'm not exactly sure where this would fall in love languages, but my love tank was spilling over.

 

 

The birthday party was an overall success. Here are some other highlights to remember...

 

Cake decorating is not my specialty, I kept having flashbacks to the Lancer's Cake Auction when decorating this beauty.

 

Playing the game, "What time is it, Cogsworth?"

This game was a stretch. Remember when it snowed in the movie? This game involved wearing a shower cap with Cool Whip to use to try to catch pieces of popcorn that Eric was pouring over the deck.

 

Back to reality...