One last Christmas memory...

A few nights ago, Mark and the girls went out to the porch to eat dinner in the beautiful snow! It was pretty funny to see them get all bundled up to go eat their pizza! And, of course, there was warm up time by the fire afterwards! What a great memory to make with Daddy! The girls can't wait for it to snow again at dinner time!

Cookies!!

The girls and I had a great time today making some long overdue cookies. We haven't made any since we have been at our new house! (That may be a record for us.) We invited our new friend, Skye, over to join in the fun.
Our kitchen has definitely been thoroughly introduced to flour now. But the fun was worth all the clean-up that had to be done! Tomorrow we get to decorate all the yummy cookies we baked.

Some Christmas Highlights...

Julie's mom came to town from Kalispell, Montana and stayed with us the last 10 days. We had a great time! The girls loved having their "Gramda" living here - Jadyn had a few sleepovers, Karina read lots of stories, and lots of other fun stuff happened while she was here.

Some brief highlights of our week:

• We went to the Space Needle in Seattle at dusk and enjoyed the beautiful city lights on a very cold, windy night!
• The girls showed Gramda our favorite park and we all played a great big game of hide-and-seek while we were there - a big highlight, I might add.
• Went and saw Bellevue's festival of lights in the Botannical Gardens (see previous blog entry)
• Mommy and Daddy stayed up way too late with Gramda each night after Christmas playing our new game, "Settlers of Catan" (I think our early night ended at 12:30!)
• We went to Gramda's favorite restaurant - The Olive Garden
• Jadyn showed Gramda her school - (one of her highlights)
• We enjoyed lots of stories, games, and more, too!

All in all, it was a great week and we were sad to see Gramda off last night. After a teary trip to the airport, the girls awoke this morning still feeling sad that the house was a little more empty. So we decided to draw some pictures of their highlights of the week. A few are included here, and the rest of these precious images are en route to Montana for Gramda to enjoy.

Thanks for all the great memories, Gramda!

One final note... at bedtime, Karina always shares one final thought of the day with us. Tonight, with a very serious face, she sadly shared, "Mommy, I'm sad that I didn't want Gramda to go. I neeeeeeeeed her here!"

Priceless :-)

Beautiful Lights

We went to Bellevue's Botanical Garden tonight, a free display of lights that are set up at a city park, with lots of family. It was a great time, though very cold as temperatures dipped to near freezing. But we bundled up and enjoyed the displays, amazed at the creativity of whoever set up the beautiful lights.

For more pictures, check out our family photo link.

You know you have girls when...

Jadyn: "Daddy, did you see the pretty Christmas lights?"

Daddy: "Yes - they were all white and beautiful."

Jadyn: "Actually, they were cream. But you can call them white if you like."

Away in a manger...

At our house, we have a small tree that the girls get to decorate and undecorate however they want, when ever they feel the need arise. This saves most of the ornaments on our big tree from being destroyed so easily. I was very surprised this weekend to find it almost completely bare. There were only 2 ornaments out of about 30 things they usually have on it. I, at first, assumed our sweet Molly Twinkles was the helper of this, and went looking for all of the "hidden" ornaments around the house. (We have learned that our kitten is very good at stealing things and stashing them.) But then, I was quickly owing her an apology. The girls had decided that the stable needed the decorations much more than the tree. I asked them today why they decided to do that, and the response: "Because Jesus needs the party stuff, not the tree. It's his birthday party house. The tree doesn't need a party."So, I guess there won't be any of that quiet nativity scene stuff happening around here. Jesus has a party house to hang out in.

Going bananas!

Our girls were eating their bananas with breakfast this morning. Karina was having a little trouble with her "flaps", making it hard for her to reach past the peel to eat the actual banana, so she said, "Daddy, I can't reach my banana!"

Wanting to be helpful, I said, "just hold it a little lower," thinking that the flaps would then fold down. Karina looked at the banana quizzically, and then proceeded to hold it under the table.

Sometimes we're thinking the same words, but we're just not on the same page.

"Mommy come quick!"

Those were the words I heard at top volume tonight as I dropped everything and ran to see who was bleeding to death in our front room. Today was one of those tough days (that thankfully don't happen very often) where Jadyn and Karina spent most of their time arguing and generally making each other miserable for no real reason at all.

Instead of near death, I found my two girls hugging each other in front of our Christmas tree. "This is so cute, you have to take a picture of us!" Even Jadyn couldn't help but notice the cute moment as it was happening. Apparently, while I was in the kitchen finishing up dinner dishes, they were in having a "big talk" about how much they love each other and how cute they are when they are "really sisters". Sweet words to any mother's ears. (I just wish that they would have had their "talk" earlier this morning instead of right before bedtime.)

Once again, even in the chaos of the day, I find myself being so thankful that we have these two amazing little girls that are not only sisters, but best friends as well.

The perfect tree

We went tree hunting today in between snow storms. We found a great new tree lot by our house where we could cut our own down. We spent a lot of time there searching for just the right one to make our own. This would have been Karina's pick, but we decided it needed to grow up a little bit more before we could bring it home.

We also spent a long time playing tag, chasing dogs, drinking hot cocoa, eating candy canes, warming up by the fire, and talking to some new friends. It was a very fun day!

You can find a few more pictures from our day on our Foree Famly Photos page.

Snow!

We woke up to beautiful snow this morning! It quickly melted, but then came back later on in the day heavier and willing to stay around long enough for us to play in.

I am sure it will all melt away by tomorrow, but we will be enjoying the covered trees around us as long as we can.