Teeth and Snow

Wes FINALLY lost his 1st tooth last week. I think it was only loose for a week or two and he bit into a corn dog stick and jolted it loose even more. Then dad saved the day and pulled it out!

We haven't had a ton of snow this season, so when it does snow, the kids take advantage. Syd and Wes built this *almost* by themselves (dad helped a bit).

Syd's 9th

It's been a while since Syd was able to have a friend party, so this was the year. She invited 13 friends, and 13 of those friends showed up! Talk about a mad house! It sure was fun though. Aaron took all the boys and went to a friends house for the night (well until 10:00). So that was nice to not have to try and tame the boys with all the screaming girls.

For the party we ate pizza, played games, opened presents, ate dirt and worms (oreos and pudding) and watched girl movies. During the movie, we had a hair station and a nail painting station. Every girl got her hair braided as well as their nails painted. I think it was a smashing success. I couldn't have pulled it off without my BFF Emily b/c she helped me execute the WHOLE thing. She was in charge of the hair, and went on a braiding frenzy. She rocks. And Happy Birthday to my sweet 9-year-old!!!! Double digits next year girl!

Happy New Year!

Before Christmas one of my BFF's and I had a baking day. The goodies were delicious!

Christmas Eve, we went to that same BFF's house and made gingerbread houses (out of real gingerbread that we made!) It was quite the process but SO much fun.

The same night we had a delicious dinner of what Mary and Joseph would have eaten. Dried fruit, nuts, pitas, beef jerky, grape juice etc. It was very good and memorable!

The kids had a white elephant gift exchange. That was a hit.

The diva

Christmas Morning

LOVE Wes's face as they ran into the room. He got a skateboard!

For Grandma B. They are IN LOVE with their Pillow Pets...

Coco face

Throwing poppers NYE.

Merry Merry

Happy Christmas! Syd had her first piano recital, ever, and she did AMAZING! (Sorry, I have NO recording of her songs, sad face.) She played, 100-Year Old Melody and Jingle Bells. She played them flawlessly (despite her weeping hysterically during the practices). Her teacher said she was so amazed on how well Syd played the songs. We decided she just does better under pressure.
Syd and her teacher playing 100-Year Old Melody, together...

Playing Jingle Bells. It was a really cute arrangement.

This is how much fun Wes had.

Syd and her teacher Aubrey. We LOVE her teacher. She is amazing!

Syd got to play her pieces on this $138,000 piano! No wonder it sounded great!

Playing around with her friend afterword.

On another note (no pun intended)
Colton is sure a handful. He is now 18 months! NURSERY! He is awesomely cute, but he gets into EVERYTHING. He loves to jump out of his high chair, off the kitchen table, unwrap his Christmas presents while I am in the shower, bug his brother (Landon), still doesn't sleep through the night etc. Here he is rockin out with dad. Despite how wild he is, our life is so complete with him in it. We love him SOO much!

Here is our pirate, One-Eyed Wes. His glasses are making his vision better (he went from being 80/20 without glasses to 60/20 with) but the doc thinks we can do better. We are patching his good eye for 3 hours a day in hopes to get the "bad" eye to work harder, giving him 20/20 vision in both eyes. He doesn't mind wearing it, and is glad he doesn't have to wear it to school. Landon is pretty jealous and really wants an eye patch too.

Jolly ol' St. Nicholas

Aaron's work had a Christmas party for kids. They fed us all a dinner of pizza and cookies, got to sit on Santa's lap, watched Smurf's and do a craft. It was a smashing success for the kids. Wes said on the way home, "That was the BEST Christmas party in the world!!" Can you tell that Colton enjoyed it immensely?