Christmas 2013

Christmas eve was spent eating dinner, watching Santa on the computer, watching movies, and sitting by the fire. The girls, per tradition, were allowed to open one present Christmas Eve.

Leah was such a good sport about this:

Sometime between 1 am when Madeline fell asleep and 7 am when Sophie woke up, Santa came!

Morning festivities began about 8 am:

The aftermath:

Following the morning adventures, the girls dressed up for Christmas dinner and Dawn's.

Exchanging gifts and playing with cousins at Dawn's:

Boxing Day: Maddie with her science kit and Sophie with her art supplies. Perfect matches.

Winter Break!

Friday marked the end of work and school for two weeks! We had our winter party in fifth grade, and it was great to be both a teacher and a parent throughout the festivities. In one station, the kids had 15 minutes to make a human snowman using toilet paper and construction paper. Below is Maddie at the halfway point. She had ears and a tail by the time her group was complete. Winners were determined by the amount of clapping at the end. Madeline was thrilled when her group won.

Saturday was a full full day! I got up early, went to two stores, got my hair done, took the girls to see the Nutcracker, then hosted a holiday get-together with some of Kent's old Burke friends.

Here are some pictures I took of a recent sunrise! This is the view from our breakfast table.

This is out of order, but Friday night, the girls attended a community Christmas party where they had their faces painted. Kent took them, and I had the house to myself for over two hours!

Madeline strung popcorn for our tree. I was surprised by her patience.

Merry Christmas Eve!

Start of the Season

The performance season for Madeline's jump rope team has begun. The first scheduled event got snowed out which was a huge disappointment. We had good weather for the second event and a parent posted the video below. I have a video of Maddie with close-ups, but it may take a bit for me to upload it.

Click to see the performance!

More Fun in the Snow

I think it is safe to say, we made the most of our snow day! In the evening, Kent and Sophie went out to make a snowman.

It turned out pretty big! It's been so cold this week that it is still standing four days later.

In the evening, we wrapped up by frosting some Christmas cookies. I hope we get more snow this winter! So far, so good.

Snow Day!

On Tuesday, we had a real snow day! We woke up to a winter wonderland! We started the day with cookies and candy house making!

The kids were so excited about the house making.

Once the snow stopped falling, we headed out to play. The snow was perfect for snowman making.
We have been so spoiled! Work? What's that? It feels like our winter break came early this year!

Ice Day

School was canceled Monday due to icy conditions. There were many downed trees, limbs, and power outages. We kept our power, but part of our back fence was damaged by a fallen branch from the tree below.

Our neighbor across the street lost two limbs from his tree.

Our next door neighbor lost this limb, too.

Dangerous, but so pretty.