Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!!

We had a great time celebrating yesterday and today.  It works best for us to have a large holiday meal on Christmas Eve, so that's what we did again this year.  (This way we can relax on Christmas day and eat up the left-overs before we leave town!)  We had a great meal (my first turkey and it was actually really good!) and a great Christmas Eve service.  Then home to open stockings and try to settle kids down to bed!

And, we've had a wonderful Christmas day today!  We started off with presents, and the girls have been playing ever since (with only a few little squabbles along the way, of course.)

Jaclyn and Ashlyn received some new Lego Friends this year, and they were very excited!

It was a busy day getting it all set up, but oh, so worth it!

Now we're off to Kansas City for more celebrating!

May you all be blessed with love, laughter, and thankfulness this holiday season!

Dreaming of a White Christmas

I'd say that these were perfect conditions for a wonderful Christmas!  We were "blessed" with a blizzard last Thursday, and now we have a White Christmas!  The girls have LOVED playing in the snow these past few days.  It couldn't be more festive!



First-day-of-break Books!

We had quite a few days from when the girls got out of school for break until Christmas, so I decided to give them a first-day-of-break present.  They were thrilled, of course, and the books gave them a little something extra to do while anxiously awaiting the special day.

Hillside Christmas!

Our girls had a delightful time celebrating with their new school this year.  They enjoyed decorating the classroom, having a gift exchange and a big Christmas party!  They also had a great time performing in the Christmas program.  Here are a few pictures from that evening.  They both did very well reciting their poems, singing their songs, and playing their instruments!  It was very fun.

Here are some special friends that the girls have made this year. This is Ashlyn with her friend,  Jane.

And Jaclyn with her friend, Lydia.



Cookies for the Neighbors

We now have a little tradition of making cookies and treats for our neighbors around Christmas time.  So, we pick a Saturday and go to town (or I should say, to the neighborhood!)  I told the girls the night before that we were going to bake the next day, and they got so excited.  They didn't sleep well that night, and of course, were all up bright and early!  Ashlyn handed me this note in the morn:

It's sweet to me that they get so excited about this, and it helps me to get into more of a jolly spirit.  :)  Our neighborhood is growing this year, so we didn't even make it to everyone!  I guess we'll have to increase our cookie production!

Here are a few pictures of the fun...

Christmas Concerts All Around!

We have had fun this year participating in multiple Christmas concerts.  Jaclyn has had the opportunity to sing in the Odyssey Chorus in Cedar Rapids this year and has really enjoyed it.  She's getting to sing great songs and meet new friends, and I'm happy with the vocal instruction she's getting, so it's a win-win situation.

Jaclyn's been busy this year with 4 concerts, 3 of which were this weekend.  One of those concerts was at our church, and Ashlyn got to participate this year too.  Here are a few snapshots of the musical bliss (although it's not always blissful...we had our bumps in the road along the way too!)

Jaclyn's concert at the mall

Christmas concert at church

November Recap

Well, I haven't been keeping up with this blog as much as I would like, so a little recap of November will have to do.

Craig's team made it to the State volleyball tournament again this year.  They did very well, but ended up getting 2nd place.  Of course, that's really good, but anything other than 1st is not quite good enough for my hubby, and 2 years in a row of getting 2nd doesn't make it any better.  But...nonetheless, we are very proud of what he accomplished with his team.  Go City High!

We also celebrated Craig's birthday on Nov. 21st.  His aunts came down from Minnesota for Thanksgiving and made a stop at our house for his birthday.   It's probably the only time they'll make it to our house, so we had a nice time with them.

Halloween!

We had a fun Halloween evening at our house last night!  Jaclyn was Little Red Riding Hood, Kendall was a butterfly and Ashlyn was a bat.  It's fun to see them get so excited!

We went trick-or-treating again this year with our good friends, the Hunters.  Between the 2 families, we have 6 girls!

Kendall and Adelyn.  Sweet friends!

Kendall is 3!!

My little one, Kendall, turned 3 on Sunday!   It was a beautiful, fall day, and we had a delightful little party for her.  I think the highlight for her was the cake...she had talked about it all week and kept asking about it during her party.  It doesn't take much to please a 3 year old, thank goodness!

Here she is with her two little friends, Connor Anderson and Adelyn Hunter.

So, with the birthday posts I like to give a little update on the special girl, so let's see...

* Her little personaliy is coming out more and more.  She is a pretty easy-going little girl, but can also demand her own way at times.  She gets along well with her sisters and is in such a cute stage right now.

* She's talking a lot now!  It took a little while, but now the words are flowing.

*She's my dancer.  Of all the girls, she is the one that seems to love to dance.  I got her some new, little, black, "ballerina" type shoes and she immediately started dancing when we put them on her.

*Definitely likes to sing...fits into the family well.  Sometimes I have all 3 girls singing different songs at once!  It can get a little crazy!

*She potty trained very quickly and easily!  It was awesome!

*Loves animals, especially dogs and kitties.

*This is funny and maybe hard to explain, but she ends a lot of her words in the /u/ sound (the short u).  So for tea she'll say "tee-u", play will be "play-u", and so on.  It's very cute.  :)

All in all, we are so blessed to have her in our homes and hearts.

We love you, Kendall!

Bye, Bye, Baby!!

I guess I can now say that we are officially out of the baby stage. Wow!

Kendall went out of diapers and a crib and into a big girl bed within one week.  She did an amazing job of potty training quite quickly and took to her new bed with ease.  Definitely my easiest one in both cases!

So, it's goodbye baby for us and hello preschool years.

Fall Concert

Jaclyn had her first concert today with the Odyssey Chorus.  They did very well and I am very pleased with the quality instruction she's getting and the fun she's having!  Yes,singing (and music in general) is very important to us, so I'm happy to have found a chorus that she can be in that is not dependant on where she goes to school (in school you're kinda stuck with whatever teacher you get...could be great, could be less than great.)

We all enjoyed a great performance today!

We're Back in School

Yep, you read that right.  We've decided to discontinue homeschooling (for now...I never want to say that we won't go back to anything!  I for sure do not know what's in store for us!)

While there are so many positive things about homeschooling ( I actually wanted it to work out for my family 'cause, in theory, it really seemed like a  great way to go) it just wasn't the right, long-term option for us.  I guess the combination of our social personalities and mom's high ambition kinda got the best of us.  :) 

So, I decided to check out a little (and I mean little) Christian school in Coralville, Hillside Christian School.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that I kinda liked it.  It was a great atmosphere and a safe place for my kids to be themselves, learn from others and make friends!  So, we enrolled and have been there now for maybe 4 weeks or so.

The girls are really enjoying it.  They have made some great friends and are really enjoying all that the school offers.  I can't say for sure where our schooling journey will continue to take us, but for now, it's a great place to be.

Here are a few first day pictures:



An Intro to Cheerleading

Jaclyn had the chance to participate in a one-day cheerleading camp recently through Upward, a Christian organization with a goal to develop the athlete both in the sport and in character. She really loved it and is hoping to do it some more, so we'll see if it works out. She's been asking to do cheerleading, so I'm thankful to have found a good, non-competitive environment for her to have fun!

Here are a few pictures of the girls while they were "watching" their sisters perform.  Here's Kendall with her little friends, Adelyn and Elise.

 

Ahhh, so sweet.  Ashlyn and Adelyn.